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I apologize Mac Doc Grostnik for doing your job, but I read this today and it sparked to me how similarly is this with boardgames/wargames developers.

The article in question is this:
https://medium.com/@morganjaffit/the-cost-of-doing-business-c09cc5cc8728
Is not news, is opinion (But this guy has Hands of Fate under his belt and I gave him the greatest of respects for that game), and is related to videogame industry, but I believe that even when we are a much smaller hobby than videogames, and by his own nature, the fans of this hobby are normally much older than your average videogame entusiast, this kind of behaviour isn't inexistant in this industry too.

How many times have you read direct insults to rules developers? Calling them incompetents, stupid, straight out insults, saying things like they all should be fired? Maybe for GW's developers, because Warhammers are imbalanced? Maybe FFG because the last X-Wing wave has some cards that broke the game? Maybe MTG developers because any reason?
And how many times have you been the one to write that? It was a spontaneous explosion of rage? Have you feel regret after it? Or quite the contrary? Do you believe is totally justified to write that kind of thing in public forums, twitter, facebook, etc...? With those agresive manners, normally many times in the spawn of days or weeks? Have you actually tried to write depth feedback for the developer and/or studio you are insulting?

This is not a witch hunt. This is not trying to be "Positivity police", or being a white knight. I just want to eard your opinions about this, maybe make someone consider what he has been doing, if maybe he has been too agresive agaisnt the guys behind the company that produce their games?

Personally, I haven't seen direct attacks to people with names and lifes. When a GW developer for example does an AMA, people is respectfull, etc... but I believe is too easy to put the blame in a big corporation name. "Feth GW and their rules, they want to screw us X players!", "Damm FFG and their incompetence, I hope they all die, they have discontinued this game line that I played!", and forget that actually those companies aren't EA with hundreds of employees, they are actually pretty damm small.

Wowza, OK lets unpack this.

First - corporations are not people, and they aren't your friend, and they don't have feelings. Criticising their products, or their corporate culture, or their public relations even vehemently is not an indictment of every person who works for them unless the corporation has done something really genuinely abhorrent. If people who work at a corporation choose to take any criticism of that organisation as a criticism of them, that is on them.

Second - the way people who wish to stifle discussion in a tone they disagree with use implication and association to try and put all negative reactions on a single plane and so tarnish them all with the tiny fraction that are genuinely beyond basic standards of civilised behaviour is becoming extremely tiresome. There is no epidemic of negativity, or abuse, or "hating", just people capable of holding views that don't exactly jive with yours expressing themselves in tones that don't exactly jive with yours, and unless those people actually do engage in actionable abusive behaviour then your choices are to disagree politely and publicly, or disagree any way you like inside the confines of your own brain. Providing they're expressed within the law and whatever rules a given venue enforces, it is nobody's right or responsibility to police other people's "feelings" - if someone wants to be annoyed, or disappointed, or even outright angry they are every bit as entitled to do so as you are to feel the reverse, and to express it within the aforementioned conditions.

The article is particularly guilty of that sort of thing. An initial half-hearted acknowledgement that actual bad behaviour is the province of a tiny minority gives way to sweeping generalisations tarring all gamers as death-threatening abusers. "You all do this, you all do that, why can't you all be more reasonable...", it exclaims. But the reality it's going out of its way to distort is that most people do do this, and that, and are reasonable. I mean, a literal stereotype of an average, everyday sports fan is of a person sitting on their couch at home shouting angrily at the TV because they disagree with the referee's decision - why is that OK, a harmless wee joke at the expense of fans, but a similar reaction to the decision of a videogame developer or tabletop game author is an atrocious affront that proves the community as a whole is rotten and that any individual reaction with greater strength of feeling than that of one of the Neutrals from Futurama(yes, I'm deploying some hyperbole there) is something that demands they take themselves off to the internet Naughty Step? Is it simply a matter of their reaction being public enough for its subject to be aware of it? If so, surely then all sports fans must be similarly condemned as unreasoning abusers, because they shout and boo match officials for the same reasons when they're in the stadium as well, and said officials can definitely hear and comprehend that.

Criticism and abuse are not the same thing, and if you can't handle the former - even if it's sometimes phrased uncharitably - don't produce things for public consumption.

Third - saying that, another trend which is becoming increasingly tiresome is the perpetual tendency of self-appointed moderators of tone to attribute levels of emotion to people expressing negative opinions that simply aren't there. Words that taken at face value express mild disinterest or qualified dislike are reinterpreted as "hating" and "raging" and "being salty" in an attempt to present any negative view as unreasoning ranting, it's incredibly disingenuous.


In summation, my view remains the same as it always is - if a rule or a law is being broken, report it to the appropriate authorities, and otherwise limit yourself to disagreeing with the substance of someone else's point of view rather than assuming and then attempting to berate them into changing their tone.

Actually, following your example, I'll say that theres a serious problem in sports (Football above all), of people insulting the referees to a point that surpass the line, regularly. And is socially seen as normal.

But then you have all those fathers that insult the referee in a game of 10 years old kids, or insult the kids of the other team, or start fighting with other faters (I don't know in UK, in Spain that kind of thing is very normal). And then you see a pattern. You see a problem. You see how a behaviour that is socially accepted as "part" of the sport, only spreads and become worse the more people is involved in that activity.

I agree with you with people giving labels like "hate", "raging", when someone disagrees with them. But thas has happened since the dawn of time. When people don't want to discuss something they just attack their "opponent".
This thread wasn't about that.

I disagree with you in that theres not a epidemic of "hating". Is obviously out there, specially in the videogaming world. Toxicity is rampant, and encouraged because is "cool". And I will dispute that it has been always there. It hasn't. Just like SWATING. We didn't had "swatters" 7 years ago. 1-2 years ago they did became a very serious problem, we had a guy get killed by that 2-3 months ago.

Is very gratuituous to lose all forms of respect on the internet, I agree. But thats not people that is in public positions complains about.Discussion, and disagreeing, even in a disrespectfull manner is not a problem. The actual threats are there, and are very numerous. And if we disclaim all that kind of behaviour as "Bah, you are just whining, you shouldn't be a community manager if you can't handle 10 death threats a week"... then we are just encouraging it to continue.
I know at this point is just a meme, and people is in their full right to be mad agaisnt his job (Because lets be honest, it was pretty bad), but just think about how many people crossed the line with Matt Ward, and how many did threathed him or his family.
And yeah, "He should have reported to the police. If he didn't do it, probably it wasn't that bad"... thats what you should say when someone is abused.

There are individuals within GW that have had way too many chances over way too many years. They should be criticized for their poor work. Not as individual being bad people, but as individual people who are bad at their jobs. GW by extent should be criticized for continuing to employ them. Robbin Cruddace should have been fired a long time ago. His continued work at GW shows in their publications. His codexes had crap wording in the past that cause endless problems for the game and I place a bulk of the blame on him for the 8 pages of rules having logical errors that make whole parts of the game not actually work. That guy either needs to go to a school and learn about game development and rules writing or needs to find a new profession.

 Galas wrote:
-snip-

So your response to a post primarily about not conflating genuine abusive behaviour with simple negative views or even angrily-expressed negative views to imply guilt by association is to immediately conflate the worst possible examples that relate to the sports comparison with normal everyday sports fandom and assert this means that there's a serious problem with sports fandom. And then to do the same with gaming, again

"The threats are very numerous" is meaningless when determining if there's an actual problem. How numerous are they proportionate to the totality of behaviour in a given community? Lets say Mat Ward was threatened with death a thousand times(I extremely doubt there were anywhere near that many, I think I saw one in all the time Ward was a focus of, mostly, justified and fairly if sometimes glibly-expressed ire, but we're making a point). A thousand threats is a lot. You might look at that number and think that claims that there's a problem with the Warhammer community would be justified. But you'd be wrong, because you'd be ignoring the context of that number. First, the likelihood that 1000 threats means 1000 people making one threat each is not great, far more likely it's a lesser number of people engaging in threatening behaviour on multiple occasions. Lets be conservative and say each hypothetical abuser made two threats; that gives us 500 abusers. 500. How many Warhammer fans are there out there? How many just online? I don't know for certain, but I'd wager even in the latter category there's enough that 500 people would be a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the total.

Raw, absolute numbers of instances of a thing have no wider implication until you put them in a wider context, that's one of the most basic, highschool-level tenets of statistical analysis.

Now, to continue thinking in terms of the Warhammer fandom - how many places out there where Warhammer fans gather - online or off - are tolerant of abusive behaviour? Apart from /tg/, the tabletop section of the internet equivalent of the seediest dive bar-come-crackhouse in town, I can't think of a single one. Do you imagine anyone posting death threats towards a GW employee would be allowed to continue as a member here on Dakka? Or any of the fan forums? Or the vast majority of Facebook groups? Of course not, because genuinely abusive behaviour isn't tolerated, nor is it widespread.

The problem is that you are defining "abusive" in a ridiculously broad way that captures huge swathes of legitimate opinion and expression, and because you know fine-well that most people do not share your definition you resort to the aforementioned disingenuous conflation of "I am going to kill you and your family because of Space Marines, Mat Ward" and "The new Marine codex is absolutely rubbish, Mat Ward is a hack" to try and make the latter seem worse by association.

And yeah, "He should have reported to the police. If he didn't do it, probably it wasn't that bad"... thats what you should say when someone is abused.

I genuinely don't know how to react to that, because it's either the most catastrophic misreading of what I actually said I can imagine, or the most dishonest paraphrase I've ever read, and I've read the Daily Mail on several occasions.

I'm not sure I agree with some of the statements made in that article, specifically the ones implying large numbers of people would think it's OK to send personal abuse to developers (or worse). I'm pretty sure that's a very vocal minority. The vast majority of people express their dissatisfaction in much more reasonable tones. Go to, for example, Eurogamer's forums or comments sections and you'll see a fair bit of criticism but it usually stays within the bounds of acceptability, and any that don't are actually voted down by the community itself.

The article is really saying that the least moderated spaces have the most vitriol. Thats hardly a surprise.

I'm not sure how it applies to wargaming anyway. I've seen a lot of criticism on this and other forums but it's almost always directed at the actual game itself. Any personal criticisms are framed in that way too. I don't think I've ever seen anyone on this forum or any other, calling for wargame developer's death or anything even close to it. The overwhelming majority of crticism on here is well within the bounds of reasonableness and pretty much always directed at the game itself. Anything directed at a more personal level is still generally done within the context and boundaries of the industry (calling into question certain individual's abilities to write rules, for example).

Slipspace wrote:
I'm not sure how it applies to wargaming anyway. I've seen a lot of criticism on this and other forums but it's almost always directed at the actual game itself. Any personal criticisms are framed in that way too. I don't think I've ever seen anyone on this forum or any other, calling for wargame developer's death or anything even close to it. The overwhelming majority of crticism on here is well within the bounds of reasonableness and pretty much always directed at the game itself. Anything directed at a more personal level is still generally done within the context and boundaries of the industry (calling into question certain individual's abilities to write rules, for example).

The whole debacle with Matt Ward comes to mind with personal abuse aimed at an individual. And that still goes on in quite a few places even now.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
I'm not sure how it applies to wargaming anyway. I've seen a lot of criticism on this and other forums but it's almost always directed at the actual game itself. Any personal criticisms are framed in that way too. I don't think I've ever seen anyone on this forum or any other, calling for wargame developer's death or anything even close to it. The overwhelming majority of crticism on here is well within the bounds of reasonableness and pretty much always directed at the game itself. Anything directed at a more personal level is still generally done within the context and boundaries of the industry (calling into question certain individual's abilities to write rules, for example).

The whole debacle with Matt Ward comes to mind with personal abuse aimed at an individual. And that still goes on in quite a few places even now.

Even then most of the criticism was aimed at the rules/background writing rather than the individual themselves, or was something along the lines of "Mat Ward is a terrible writer". I'm not saying there wasn't more personal abuse but I think the vast majority was actually about the game itself.

This goes for people who produce more or less anything. Run a website for a while, only people you'll hear from are going to be the ones who think they can do it better but can't be assed, so they complain at you. Till you finally get sick of it and change things, at which point everyone else complains because they don't like the changes, and god save you if you decide to shut a place down.

But does anyone want me to go through a few threads and find people calling the rules writers at GW to be idiots? I've got two I can mine off the top of my head. Because a fair number of people here can't dislike something without the people who wrote it being idiots. If i did work for GW, you guys would never know about it for my own peace, and I'd only be working on websites.

Slipspace wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
I'm not sure how it applies to wargaming anyway. I've seen a lot of criticism on this and other forums but it's almost always directed at the actual game itself. Any personal criticisms are framed in that way too. I don't think I've ever seen anyone on this forum or any other, calling for wargame developer's death or anything even close to it. The overwhelming majority of crticism on here is well within the bounds of reasonableness and pretty much always directed at the game itself. Anything directed at a more personal level is still generally done within the context and boundaries of the industry (calling into question certain individual's abilities to write rules, for example).

The whole debacle with Matt Ward comes to mind with personal abuse aimed at an individual. And that still goes on in quite a few places even now.

Even then most of the criticism was aimed at the rules/background writing rather than the individual themselves, or was something along the lines of "Mat Ward is a terrible writer". I'm not saying there wasn't more personal abuse but I think the vast majority was actually about the game itself.

I'd argue that point after seeing a lot of the stuff that was flung his way. Even fairly recently when it was revealed he was writing for GW freelance the amount of vitriol that was aimed at him was quite disgusting.

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:
Because a fair number of people here can't dislike something without the people who wrote it being idiots.

Its worse than that. There are a lot of people online (not just here) who can't dislike something without it being wrong. As in, if you personally dislike it then it was a poor decision regardless of how it might be perceived by others or the intent behind the change.

Sometimes a TV show (IMO) drops in quality and I stop watching. The internet would lead me to believe this is insufficient and I must shout and scream and attack anyone who disagrees with me until everyone agrees with me and the show is changed back to the way I like it.
I hope that most people are like me and its a small minority who cannot let things go, but I have no way of knowing. I just wish the 'Net was a little more positive. Its very easy to be negative and critical. It requires no real talent or insight. Its fun to do and sometimes fun to read. But I worry it stifles creativity and make developers less inclined to stick their head up and engage with their critics. And if they are put of engaging with their critics then none of the criticism serves any purpose; it actually makes it less likely for changes to be made.

heh. I've done game development since the mid 90s, though most of that is video game work.

But yes, developers do get a lot of crud dumped on them. I've had posters publicly wish cancer on me because they didn't like a direction I took with something.

Rules developers are wise to not tread into public forums or post anything.

Sorry if that was what you understand about my post. I wasn't trying to make the statement that most people is ok with abusive behaviour. And about my last phrase, It wasn't aimed at you, I apologize for that. I was just responding to that argument that I have seen made by many people on the internet (But not you, so I shouldn't have brought up here, sorry).

I can agree with that, the mayority of the people don't engage in abusive behaviour. The ones that do are a very vocal minority. And I agree that most people don't support abusive behaviour. But I disagree with you in the conception that most people disagree with abusive behaviour. I believe, most people have a neutral response towards it unless it is the most extreme example of abusive behaviour out there, like sending physical letters to an adress with threats, etc...

And again, I apologize, I tried to make clear that I wasn't talking about critizism, because even disrespectfull and destructive critizism is just critizism if one doesn't go any further.

 Denny wrote:

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:
Because a fair number of people here can't dislike something without the people who wrote it being idiots.

Its worse than that. There are a lot of people online (not just here) who can't dislike something without it being wrong. As in, if you personally dislike it then it was a poor decision regardless of how it might be perceived by others or the intent behind the change.

Sometimes a TV show (IMO) drops in quality and I stop watching. The internet would lead me to believe this is insufficient and I must shout and scream and attack anyone who disagrees with me until everyone agrees with me and the show is changed back to the way I like it.
I hope that most people are like me and its a small minority who cannot let things go, but I have no way of knowing. I just wish the 'Net was a little more positive. Its very easy to be negative and critical. It requires no real talent or insight. Its fun to do and sometimes fun to read. But I worry it stifles creativity and make developers less inclined to stick their head up and engage with their critics. And if they are put of engaging with their critics then none of the criticism serves any purpose; it actually makes it less likely for changes to be made.

I have seen this many times but I doubt is an internet problem. People on the street is the same. When you make a choice, you take it because you think is the best choice. So that means all the other choices are worse. Thats why you have console wars, or sport team wars, etc... Is not good enough that you play PS4 because you like it more. If you chose to buy a PS4 it means that XboxOne is worse, so everyone that has buyed one is in the wrong.
Not everybody thinks like that, of course, but it has been studied how we try to justify our own choices assuming how the other ones were worse.

In a previous job I had an indian witch doctor curse me, so I guess we all have our days.

 Elbows wrote:
In a previous job I had an indian witch doctor curse me, so I guess we all have our days.

#ScoobyDooProblems


On topic, I've ranted about developers. Now that I am on the other side of the curtain I see where a lot of those rants were misplaced, but not all. Developers are human, and make human errors all the time, and those errors should be called out. As others have already noted, there is a lack of nuance and perspective from a lot of critics which catapults their criticism into out of control hyperbolic vitriol which doesn't help anyone.

I think there is another point to bare in mind too - sometimes the developers are being told to do X but somebody higher up the corporate structure.
I'm sure we all get that in our day to day work, and one fo the former GW developers (think it was James Hewitt in an AMA) said as much with regards to the 7th Ed Eldar book.

Criticizing the competency of 'his' work (as games dev work is sometimes laid at the feet of the developer, rightly or wrongly), when he knows that there is an issue, seems a little unfair.

If you try to "do" anything there will always be people standing in line to tell you you are wrong.

That isn't a developer problem, it is a human problem.

Nobody should have to deal with threats of violence.

That said, most developers *do* suck, and suck badly - that's a basic corollary of Sturgeon's Law.

People calling it out their suckiness in public *is* something that *every* game developer deserves. If they don't want the criticism, they should make good games, or get out of the pubic eye. Simple as that.

Why?

If you truly believe Sturgeon's Law then 90% of everything is crap. Therefore whether you ‘call out’ games developers or not will make no difference to the quality of games.

What purpose does calling it out serve, other than to discourage the developer and make the world a very slightly more negative place?

This is a serious question: what happened to manners? Why *must* we call out something we don’t like? I see plenty of ugly people on my way to work but I don’t feel the need to publicly shame them.

You're aware that calling out the crap games, and crap developers is what's commonly called "reviews" right? :eyeroll:

No. A review is meant to be an unbiased look at a product, judging it by certain criteria and determining if a product can be classified as good or bad or average using those criteria. Attacking the developer and product as "hurr it's crap because I say so" is not a review. It's a waste of time.

On the other hand, allowing yourself to become the echo chamber is also a problem.

There's a difference between a review, and reposting the same info, even if accurate, 5 times in a page, on every page of the thread. Then responding to the replies with the same info.

I come from both the video game and tabletop industry and I do agree a lot of designers could use a reality check, and people need to be reminded that there's bad companies.

However, once a page is good enough, and no, you don't need to respond to everyone. But more than that, then the arguments start losing their worth.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
No. A review is meant to be an unbiased look at a product, judging it by certain criteria and determining if a product can be classified as good or bad or average using those criteria. Attacking the developer and product as "hurr it's crap because I say so" is not a review. It's a waste of time.

Exactly. The product is sub-par? Then explain why, highlight issues, refer to similar but superior products. That way you are providing constructive criticism that may lead to a better product and informing customers about other alternates.

'Calling out' a developer by saying they 'suck' is an utter waste of time. It won't lead to a better product, it won't help people find a better product, and it provides nothing the developer can use to try and do better next time.

Well, I suppose if it makes you feel good then its not a waste of your time. Just everyone else's.

The closest I have been to any game development was in the early days of development of Epic Armageddon when Jervis Johnson was doing it all online in a forum and we could playtest and provide feedback. But after three versions of Epic, a lot of players had their own versions of Epic, and wanted to see Armageddon more like their favorite, especially the old guard. Jervis had his mind set on a different and new path, and I remember reading his plans and being heart broken over his choices. I knew it wouldn't work, and it didn't. It really killed Epic in me for awhile, although eventually I just embraced my old collection and expanded on that.

It was later I realized the limits of the economics of what he had to work within, but moments after I felt like I understood why he did some of the things he did, I immediately started thinking, 'well, he should have done this instead'. But Jervis had this version of what he wanted, and kind of alienated those who didn't agree with it. Which was quite crazy to me, because Epic is what got me into gaming (Adeptus Titanicus and Space Marine being the first games I ever bought), and I was stunned I was able to have conversations over email with the guy responsible for dedicating so much of my time painting little army men.

I think its fair to be critical of something you aren't happy with, just keep in mind there might be more going on that is within a game designers control. And if you really aren't happy with the product, just move on and find something else to do. When I play Epic, I typically play the 1991 version. If I never see another version of Epic, I am not sure I will care, and there is a chance I will be critical of it too.

If somebody is objectively bad at their job, because they put out a bad product, it's totally OK to say so. Simple as that. Most stuff is crap, and nobody should be surprised at that.

That's not the same as attacking somebody or making physical threats, and the conflation of the two suggests a lack of critical thinking ability in the reader. Yeah, you're part of the 90%....

 Denny wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
No. A review is meant to be an unbiased look at a product, judging it by certain criteria and determining if a product can be classified as good or bad or average using those criteria. Attacking the developer and product as "hurr it's crap because I say so" is not a review. It's a waste of time.

Exactly. The product is sub-par? Then explain why, highlight issues, refer to similar but superior products. That way you are providing constructive criticism that may lead to a better product and informing customers about other alternates.

'Calling out' a developer by saying they 'suck' is an utter waste of time. It won't lead to a better product, it won't help people find a better product, and it provides nothing the developer can use to try and do better next time.

Well, I suppose if it makes you feel good then its not a waste of your time. Just everyone else's.

KTG17 wrote:
I think its fair to be critical of something you aren't happy with, just keep in mind there might be more going on that is within a game designers control. And if you really aren't happy with the product, just move on and find something else to do.

I agree with both of you.


Needless hostility, personal attacks, and generally acting like a clown don't help "call out' developers or correct flaws in a game/system. It is just noise, and may entrench both sides into ignoring valid feedback.

Developers want constructive, honest feedback because it is in their best interest to improve and capture the attention of people on the fence about their product. But laying into them like they personally kicked your dog and spat on your mother's grave is where critique turns into douchbaggery and that doesn't help anyone.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
If somebody is objectively bad at their job, because they put out a bad product, it's totally OK to say so. Simple as that. Most stuff is crap, and nobody should be surprised at that.

That's not the same as attacking somebody or making physical threats, and the conflation of the two suggests a lack of critical thinking ability in the reader. Yeah, you're part of the 90%....

The first part of this post is reasonable.

The second part of your post is you literally being a hypocrite, saying you shouldn't attack people, then go on to make attacks on all the people you perceive as unable to comprehend this. Literally contradicting yourself in the same paragraph. This is why people disagree with you specifically.

This is why threads like this exist questioning the overt negativity of the industry, to a pointless extent.

@Vertrucio - Please ignore the previous if you're in the 10% for whom it doesn't apply.

If I play a game and end up thinking the designers are stupid, I'll say it. Maybe it's because the game doesn't make sense, or is written badly, or shows a lack of any skill with probability. Maybe I'll give my reasons, or maybe I won't. I am not obligated to explain every opinion I have. Sure, it doesn't help the game get any better, but let's be realistic: chances are a helpful, detailed comment will still be ignored or treated as an insult anyway. If I am going to try to help anyone, I think it's much more effective to warn my friends that a game was designed by an idiot.

Similarly, if I think someone's bad at his job, I will call him incompetent. I wish game designers I don't like would be fired and replaced with designers I do like. This shouldn't be a controversial concept. If these are my opinions, why shouldn't I express them? Some designer might read some comment from a stranger and feel bad?

Did the designer consider all the arguments he may cause by writing ambiguous rules, or the resentment and jealously from unbalanced armies, or the disappointment from people spending money flawed, untested products? I bet some kid out there got a Stompa for his birthday right before 8th edition. GW ruined that gift.

I'm not going to threaten anyone, but I am not going to feel sorry for people who blithely make their fans regret purchasing, building, painting, and playing their products.

Pink Horror wrote:
If I play a game and end up thinking the designers are stupid, I'll say it. Maybe it's because the game doesn't make sense, or is written badly, or shows a lack of any skill with probability. Maybe I'll give my reasons, or maybe I won't. I am not obligated to explain every opinion I have. Sure, it doesn't help the game get any better, but let's be realistic: chances are a helpful, detailed comment will still be ignored or treated as an insult anyway. If I am going to try to help anyone, I think it's much more effective to warn my friends that a game was designed by an idiot.

Show me on the doll where the mean developers hurt you.

Jeez man, if you go in thinking the worst, then yeah, you will likely get the negative response you are expecting. Not every developer is the old GW that ignores critique and criticisms, though. Many are open to constructive criticism. Calling them stupid or idiots isn't constructive, FYI. But if you find a game doesn't make sense, explain why. If you think it is badly written, explain why. If there are problems with the probability mechanics point that out. Again, this is if you are interested in actually trying to improve on the game and want the game to do well. If you just want to bitch, then fine, but you'll be ignored in that case and that shouldn't come as a shock.

Pink Horror wrote:
Similarly, if I think someone's bad at his job, I will call him incompetent. I wish game designers I don't like would be fired and replaced with designers I do like. This shouldn't be a controversial concept. If these are my opinions, why shouldn't I express them? Some designer might read some comment from a stranger and feel bad?

Well those are your opinions and you are entitled to them, but in terms of being a decent human being and actually trying to foster positive change in the games you (want) to play I'd say expressing overtly negative opinions just because you can is counter productive to all of those goals. You want someone to be fired because you don't like them? That is pretty juvenile in my opinion. If that is your only critique, "fire this guy, he sucks and hire this guy, he rules" then yeah, you are likely going to get ignored because that is essentially a personal attack on the person you don't like and offers nothing constructive to the conversation of what is wrong with the game system/writing/etc.

Put another way, in your job when you are critiqued on performance, are you going to listen to a verbal attack full of personal jabs and half-cocked opinions or are you going to listen to a reasoned explanation of what you are doing well and what you need improvement on? Developers are people, they respond to feedback and they shun abuse.