See http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2014/02/ ... nsane.html
- this piece discusses the circumstances that led to Dong Nyugen taking down his game Flappy Bird, even though it was making tons of money.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... els-fez-ii
Phil Fish quits the game industry for good due to his lifelong struggles with anonymous trolls.
The most interesting comment I find from that article is this one by Sam Brown:
"I remember once, long ago when I was starting my first videogames job, my then boss told me that "People work in videogames because they couldn't possibly work anywhere else," his meaning being that while everyone he employed was brilliant at their job, they pretty much all had major character flaws that made it impossible for them to work amongst civilised people without getting fired within the first month. (Yes, I've never been sure where that leaves me

http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/ ... try/signin
And this is Penny Arcade's follow up op ed after their interview with Dan Teasdale resulted in a lot of folks typing angry messages at Teasdale. I read the original interview article and Teasdale never came across as an arrogant asshole to me. I just read him as a guy with a strong opinion and a very targeted goal in his mind. Two factors that are important when you are starting your own company.
And see http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... Submission
Zoe Quinn's harassment simply because she released a game about a serious topic on Steam.
And finally, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9YozVtUag PBS Game Show takes on the question on how do we deal with negative people who actively threaten the well being of game developers. Commenters suggested their opinions on PBS Game Show's other episode at 7:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw_SVsZ2v7Q
So my question is, if you are a fledgling or even veteran game developer, how do you avoid these PR disasters? Is it something one can even avoid in the first place? Of course there's the conventional wisdom of always being polite and don't feed the trolls but can you really follow that advice when the trolls actively tell other people who have no idea about you, really negative things that put you in a bad light? You gotta fight back somehow! And see Dan Teasdale, the poor guy just stated his own opinion and got attacked for it!
Yes, it is important to have thick skin and be able to tell apart helpful criticism from outright trolling but for some unfortunate creators, no matter how polite they act, or how good their game is, they get completely buried by trolls and end up leaving the games industry altogether.
Have any of you guys handled issues like this? And if so, how did it turn out for you guys?