A few days ago, Ooblets developers decided to make a deal with the Epic Game Store to give them exclusive rights to sell their indie-farm simulator for one year after its release. The team decided to make the deal for financial reasons. But the deal winded up being met with derision from the fan community.
On Monday, the team, known as Glumberland, announced they had received thousands of hateful messages and threats from angry fans. There is a popular current in fan circles lately against Epic Games’ aggressive buying-out of dozens of small-time indie games. The reasons range from a dislike of Epic Games’ launcher and software to security issues to their corporate practices.
Glumberland believes that they found themselves on the wrong side of that derision after signing on for an exclusivity deal. In fact, the developers also bear some of the responsibility for the anger.
To be fair, the developers at Glumberland brought much of the ire on themselves. (But of course, ire does not excuse threats. Ever.)
In their initial announcement, for example, developer Ben Wasser asked fans not to act entitled and largely trivialized their complaints. Things got worse when they responded to fan complaints.
In a series of messages on the group’s discord, Wasser told community members that “no amount of difficult life experiences makes it okay to demand that you get a game.” And that it was tough to take gamers seriously when they act like “angry entitled toxic gamers.”
Later, Wasser and his lead programmer Rebecca Cordingley told their Patreon community in a forum post that they had received thousands of threats. In the post, one of the members of Glumberland told its Patreon supporters that they had been “crying nonstop” and also felt as if “the world has collapsed around me.”
Of course, it is one thing to make a deal with the Epic Games Store to stave off bankruptcy. But it is quite another to talk down to your fans while doing so. It is one thing to be unable to accommodate the needs or requests of a customer. But it is quite another to dismiss them completely. Glumberland did both and did it without apology.
Many fans have serious issues with Epic Games. To pretend as if those issues are only held by “entitled angry gamers” is, perhaps ironically, the opinion of someone who is clearly acting immaturely. Of course, none of that excuses threats from angry fans. But for the anger alone—how did Glumberland not expect any with its announcement and reaction?
