Developers of Cities: Skylines 2 have noticed a growing toxicity in their community, which is affecting engagement and creativity.
The CEO of Colossal Order expressed concern about the negative impact of toxicity on the team and the community.
The developers still encourage helpful criticism from the community but ask for it to be constructive and kind.

Archive link: https://archive.ph/mVaIY

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[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I get it but I feel like a vast majority of the criticism they are getting doesn't fall under the extreme category or into bullying.

Some people might be making Gmanlives-style quips in the Steam reviews that might make themselves feel good but I think a majority of it's just general disappointment and people expressing it.

[–] Candelestine@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

"[It's] not only directed towards our devs but also our fellow community members - resulting in people hesitating to engage with the community," Hallikainen explained.

[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah I think that goes with people voicing their disappointment. It's like with Fallout 76 a lot of the community was split on it. Even now defending it can lead to dog piling.

People are debating in the community. It might not make for a super fun place to be that's kind of just the reality of it for now.

[–] Candelestine@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Fallout 76 was also an unbelievable shitshow, and had very, very few honest defenders. Does it have to go full gamergate for you think its a problematic situation or something? Try to remember there's a distinction between reasoned debate, like what you and I are doing right now, and trolling. Which I'm sure we could both switch to if we felt like it.

Criticism, for it to be useful, does have certain delivery requirements. The critic, in order to not be shit, has a certain responsibility to their criticism.

Now, gamers are a tough bunch. If a community is losing community, I think we can make some inferences about whats going on, and it's probably not a bunch of well-reasoned and nuanced debate.

[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Try to remember there's a distinction between reasoned debate, like what you and I are doing right now, and trolling. Which I'm sure we could both switch to if we felt like it.

Criticism, for it to be useful, does have certain delivery requirements. The critic, in order to not be shit, has a certain responsibility to their criticism.

I don't think the bar is that high or that a majority of the negative discussion falls under bullying. It's a lot of people disappointed in a game and voicing their frustration.

Saying a game sucks and has no redeeming qualities and encouraging them to get a refund when they ask for any kind of tech support for it on Reddit is kind of unoriginal and lazy but I don't think that classifies as bullying.

For example this is from Reddit about someone liking the game. You get good responses like this

Subjectively or objectively?

Objectively it’s far from what they’ve promised, full of bugs and hardly optimized.

It’s also a promising platform that could evolve into an objectively amazing game somewhere down the road.

If you — subjectively — enjoy it in its current state that’s great!

But you do get some less constructive comments like

I bought CS2 and it's utter shit.

But now I feel like a sucker to open CS1 again.

End result: I gave up on Cities Skyline completely. May fall out of habit of playing it at all.

CS2 could, but not certainly, be the death of the franchise if more people act like me

And

I could name a hundred things off the top of my head that could be better in this game. I still have a hundred hours though

Even sorting by controversial on Reddit it's really not that bad. It sounds like there are some posts being removed but a majority of it is people voicing their frustration with modding support taking so long to implement and the game feeling like it's lacking in some department.

Does it have to go full gamergate for you think its a problematic situation or something?

I feel like were going in circles here. I already acknowledged that there are going to be people that take it to the extreme and that's wrong but it's a very percentage of people.

Now, gamers are a tough bunch. If a community is losing community, I think we can make some inferences about whats going on, and it's probably not a bunch of well-reasoned and nuanced debate.

I disagree. You see communities around games slow down all the time when new games, updates, and DLC steal the spotlight. A lot of the time you just need to wait for things to shift in a different direction. In the meantime people are going to sporadically talk about how they feel about the game and debate updates that come out.

[–] Candelestine@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ah, I didn't realize you were mainly going off the subreddit, that makes more sense now. Reddit in general tends to have a milder tone compared to most internet spaces, in my experience. I imagine they're talking about the Paradox Interactive official forums, which can have a more hardcore tone overall, pretty often I'd say. I actually tend to avoid them for that reason, despite being a pdx fan in general.

[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Even then can you think of some examples from their forum? Going to it myself is feeding my error messages likely due to my VPN or browser configuration

[–] Candelestine@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

I'd really rather not dig through looking for the trolling to copy/paste. I'm not a cities skylines 2 player, so I don't really have a horse in this race, except hating toxic internet bullshit in general.