As is becoming an unfortunate trend between developers and players of their games, a vocal part of the Guild Wars 2 community is expressing disappointment over the future of the game in ways that can only be considered toxic and inappropriate.
This past Friday, during the opening day of PAX West 2019, ArenaNet brought its team to Seattle to announce the IceBrood Saga, signalling that the game is apparently shifting from seasonal episodes towards these different, and still undefined in structure, types of content. Casual players were intrigued by the announcement, long-time players were disappointed and confused.
Many players had expected a far more detailed announcement, especially since it was made at PAX. Many were comparing the amount of content revealed to little more than the developer does through its standard blog posts. Others were expecting the announcement of a full expansion. In no time at all, Reddit and other forums were filled with posts discussing both the disappointment with the announcement, and incredulity that ArenaNet has so little to present at such a large event.
Unfortunately, the mood turned toxic rather quickly. Posts bubbled up explicitly to mock and belittle Mike Silbowitz, the NCsoft VP of Marketing, for his clothing worn on stage. This led to others in the organization to lay out the most basic of manners, on how to treat each other as human beings:
There is an unfortunate trend of consumers becoming toxic to developers under the guise of being passionate about the game they enjoy. Hopefully, these individuals represent only a small proportion of the player base, but any amount is still frustrating to see.
As for the developers themselves, the simplest way to deal with dissatisfaction with the content of a game is to vote with one’s wallet. If the content is not to their liking, all they need to do is stop playing. We are fortunate enough to have an absurd amount of high-quality games to choose from, and acting so childish over a single game is ridiculous.
It is, of course, no easy task to try and keep a game fresh that released in 2012. Still, the underlying points seem to point towards a lack of a clear roadmap for the future, along with communication with the community. If the developer cannot offer these basic points that consumers tend to demand of all games, perhaps they deserve to lose players.
That said: nobody deserves the toxic backlash we've seen over these past few days.
Source: massivelyop.com