Harassment Among Game Developers From Fans On The Rise

[Initech]

The relationship between gamers and game developers is unusually toxic lately. It's getting to the point that creators could benefit from support groups. The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) is considering just such an idea to cope with the volume of bile coming toward creative professionals in gaming.

While the advent of social media has made it easier than ever before to get in touch with game developers, this has not been exclusively a positive thing. Polygon recently ran an article describing the massive amount of hatred that developers receive from fans. This often includes rape and death threats, in addition to good, old-fashioned mean-spirited verbal attacks.

Responses to harassment

"We have [encountered] all kinds of personal-level incidents of sexism and developer harassment and LGBT bias," Kate Edwards, executive director of IGDA, told Tom's Guide. "None of these things are unique to the game industry, naturally."

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/game-developers-support-groups,review-1873.html

"I have not had a lot of people who specifically raised the issue [of physical threats]," Edwards said. "[We] have sexism and other issues in the industry that go unreported for all kinds of reasons, whether it's personal or organizational … We're trying to elucidate and get a sense of how big of an issue this is."

Seriously gamers, as one myself, this is not cool at all.

[PoliticAverse]

1. "None of these things are unique to the game industry, naturally." - Exactly.

Happens to any celebrity or public figure that has an Internet presence nowadays.