I think gamers as a whole, though specifically those in niche communities, need to take a long and hard look at themselves. We should celebrate the volunteers that create wonderful content for us, generally with no financial gain. Instead, commonly, there are communities that criticize and tear down every little thing they can think of. They even went as far as to doxx the poor woman. We need to be better, and we need to hold these kind of toxic trolls accountable. Especially those of us who are men, we have a responsibility to call out other men who mistreat women in the gaming industry, or gaming in general.
*Edit: I apologize if I insinuated that all gamers are guilty of this kind of behavior, that was not my intention at all. My sentiment is that many of us do not think about this kind of thing, and less are willing to speak out against their friends. We need to be better about that as a whole. I appreciate you as a person if you are already of this mindset.
I don’t understand people who “demand” things from volunteers. Open source devs, modders, and still recently content creators are/were treated like public service workers, by some.
Imagine if we went around treating artists as if they were obligated to please each of us individually with their every piece? I’m very happy to see this attitude improve with streaming and youtube, where creators are more and more met with care and support when they have to step away for a bit or retire entirely.
It sadly seems like this modder was eventually putting in tremendous effort, in a vain attempt to please absolutely everyone using her mods. But that isn’t a good reason to work for free.
Any work I do for free, is something I do because I want to, but this modder explicitly says she did work she didn’t want to do in order to please fans. And I can’t help but ask, why? (I know why, but someone should have cared enough to show her she is allowed to just say no, and do whatever she prefers.)
The blurb about her doing music is how you’re SUPPOSED to feel doing something for fun. I’m happy that she found her way to something that makes her feel that way.
People do this with artists too. Especially the moment you offer anything in the way of free commissions for a specific community and such.
Many forums had gfx threads, where members who enjoy putting together banners and such would offer to make something for those who asked. A good friend of mine ran one in a certain game’s forum for a while and the absolute entitlement in which some of those people acted (in regards to speed and nitpicking about minor things) was disgusting. It was maybe 1 in 25 people but it soured the whole thing for her, understandably so. The moment you give people a little finger wrt their requests, one of those people will take the whole hand. The same likely applies to modding.
And I’m sure being a woman doing gaming stuff isn’t helping because there’s way too much sexism in gaming culture, even though there are also a lot of subcommunities that are super welcoming to everyone.
The moment you give people a little finger wrt their requests, one of those people will take the whole hand. The same likely applies to modding.
I suppose that depends on which finger.
it doesnt even have to be a mod, just free. See what happened with AetherSX2(android ps2 emulator) and how a bunch of people kept pestering a dev till he basiclaly quit working on it on mobile because they ask for a lot for something that was literally free.
You ever see steam discussions for early access games? Jesus fucking Christ people are entitled as shit.
Aren’t those paid (or at least they can be)? I think that’s an entirely different can of worms…
early access games are also notorious for being dogshite and left as such, or they’re fine but with obvious flaws which are never fixed because “bro it’s still in early access!”
It really does depend on the game, though. Going Medieval for instance has been in early access for almost three years, but it’s three years of active development. Just about every week brings some kind of update, whether it’s little coding and qol stuff, to full upgrades and new mechanics being added in. They’re almost done with their roadmap.
Rimworld was another shining example. Its actual early access was a forum release, the Steam EA was polishing.
That being said I have a dead EA or two in my library. Starforge comes to mind…
these are the exceptions that prove the rule
This isn’t even about gaming, necessarily.
Girls who code are rare. There are probably more AFAB coders at my work than those who identify as female. And a hell of a lot more men.
And I’m in a progressive city in a progressive state.
I work in IT, and I think there is one woman out of 50 employees on my corner of the org chart, and that’s the CIO’s admin assistant.
I’m certain it’s culture, and it doesn’t just go for programming, it goes for almost all of STEM. There was a recent “Stuff You Should Know” episode about toy chemistry sets, and they made it a point to talk about the marketing, and how it always was with boys, for boys. My son, 8 year old kid, says “that’s just wrong! Girls can do all that stuff!”. He’s got it figured out.
There are probably more AFAB coders at my work than those who identify as female.
Did you get this backwards?
No…but I am being hyperbolic. I definitely interface with more transmasc and nonbinary coders than I do with cisgender female coders. This may also be because, again, cultural reasons.
There certainly are more cisgender female coders, but they are still a minority group by a big amount, and they tend to not draw much attention to themselves.
I was asking because the usual stereotype is than many younger programmers are transfemme.
Which does not reflect my experience in the working world at all.
That’s fair, I was just making sure I read you right. 💜
As a welder, I’ve had a female coworker ONCE in 15 years working in the industry. My current work doesn’t even have a bathroom for women in the same building as most of the workers. If we did hire a female welder, she’d have to walk across the parking lot to the administration building to actually use a women’s bathroom.
now before anyone gets misled by some of the reddit threads gamesradar linked to, some quotes from the relevant reddit thread:
I worked extensively on most of her mods. In the period immediately following the Daegon 2.0 controversy, I tracked down several recurring trolls (people here might remember them as cycling through Reddit usernames like “SeranasStankPussy” and other such things) as originating from literal Kiwifarms.
She made a female follower mod called Daegon. It was a suggestive follower with sexy voice and looks, and “bratty princess” personality.
There was an idea about developing romance option for the follower. The fans were so excited about it. However she ended up adding a bodyguard character as Daegon’s romantic partner instead of opening the options to player. Daegon also had a major backstory rewrite, which was deemed as straying too far from TES lore. Fans felt betrayed. The backlash was so fervently hostile that anything the author posted always received downvotes and she was demeaned/harassed for posting anything (something like “you dare to show your face here?”), even when it’s not related to Daegon.
At the time, she removed the old version and people leaked her discord server chat, which was very hostile and demeaning to the people complaining.
Basically: the mod author developed and people on her discord developed a para-social relationship and it went as expected. You can search this sub for that whole thing
There’s more details on her discord (as usual):
my photos get passed around on skyrim servers, im called a slut and whore, and for what?
gamesradar linked to a few of the threads that got overwhelmed with trolls, who amplified how she blocked users (some of which inappropriately) from her mod pages and claimed she encouraged her fans to doxx people based on a single out-of-context screenshot of a random discord fan.
This is a both sides suck here for me.
I read a few of the reddit threads and there were legitimate criticisms that the follower started out cringey and edgy but a lore-friendly bratty elf and then after some big update the follower was turned into an over-the-top melodramatic edgy super evil non-lore-friendly entity (vampire demon dragon princess from another reality that is more powerful than any of the gods of TES) who now had a boyfriend equally evil with many voice lines about how much the two of them were horny for each other, and like to burn down inns full of people for fun.
There were some cringey guys upset they were being cucked, too many gamers in general are obsessed about the possibility of being cucked by some pixels and are ridiculously fragile about it.
But the mod author lashed out at both the trolls and people caught in the crossfire, the community became more upset, just an angry cycle. People asked about being able to download the old version before the changes since the mod author hid the older version - Nexus doesn’t allow mod authors to delete their work anymore so people’s mod lists don’t break but they for some stupid reason allow mod authors to hide older versions from users which can only be accessed by having the right link and it is a pain to get. Eventually the mod author releases the older version again as its own mod. But at this point the community hates them because of an image showing someome on the mod author’s discord talking about doxxing anyone who upset the mod author which the author offered gleeful support of.
There was a guy in the thread (ZootAllures9111) who said he helped develop and code the mod (you quoted him in your comment) and he said that practically all criticisms were trolls from kiwifarms, and that the person who wanted to doxx others on the discord was just being silly and edgy and only disingenuous people would take their silly edginess at face value. Also that they won’t play “this game with you” when asked how the mod author responded to this person wanting to doxx people because (CW:transphobia) the only image you need to look at is some random troll on a website called kiwifarms complaining about being a third wheel to two horny NPCs in the mod and something about being a cuck and that other followers don’t need sex to sell basically. Then when someone in the reddit thread asks why they keep posting and deleting their same comment with someone else chiming in confirming they also noticed this, the guy offers a reasonable explanation about network issues and then says, “I remember you from the comment sections of our mods now by the way, you are exactly as disingenous as I thought yesterday and you’re not gonna get anywhere pretending otherwise.” Which the innocent guy replies, “You should maybe take a break because you’re getting paranoid now. I’ve never used your mod, have no intention to, and the first time I’ve heard of all this drama was when this thread came up.”
Why mention this? Because I think it is shitty to “joke” about doxxing people and defend this “joking” and call everyone speaking out a troll from kiwifarm and I can see why the community doesn’t like the direction the author took and how annoying it is to not be able to go back to an older version of the mod. And I’ve read the threads, they were not overwhelmed with trolls unless you think people who criticize a mod author are always trolls. But I also think it is shitty and unacceptable how much harassment the author got. They are not the first author to get harassed off of Skyrim modding, even Vilja’s author was chased off for IMO stupid reasons. The Skyrim modding community is full of assholes, both mod authors and users alike. It used to be routine how many mod authors would lose their shit and delete their mods.
i get that there’s valid criticism, but the amount of bad was incongruent with the amount of vitriol in that era that were so demanding
the mod author lashed out at both the trolls and people caught in the crossfire
where tho
it is shitty to “joke” about doxxing people
definitely, but none of us have seen the context. i’ve been having trouble finding the discord server, and it’d be great if you could find it and the context
they were not overwhelmed with trolls
that’s how they read, especially when you compare their comments to the reddit post i linked. not even the sympathy for a person who leaves explains the difference to me
I typed a long ass comment on my phone and summit crashed not saving any of it, fucking hell. Anyway I have to refind all the comments again.
Here is where:
u/WoodenRocketShip
People absolutely dragged the mod and the mod author when the update with her boyfriend came out. Normally if people got that mad over something that happens in a mod you’d get pushback from others saying that it’s just not for you and it’s not your place to judge, but the mod author was also silencing critics and absolutely going off with her army of followers, so yeah no pushback everyone was on the same page. For a couple of weeks she and her mod were the big bads of this subreddit.
u/Live_Hippo_5885
That’s a bit wild silencing your critics changing her race and backstory is a bit drastic but it’s their mod I suppose, I don’t really care that she has a boyfriend I like having a bro to adventure with dude’s just kind of a dick imo.
u/WoodenRocketShip
Yeah see if it was just that, then I’d just chalk it up as a mod that I’m uninstalling and never thinking about it again as I barely liked Daegon before. If the mod author didn’t go around silencing criticism in the mod’s comments, some of which wasn’t even criticism and was from genuine fans curious about certain things, then I don’t think many people would have said anything.
People on this thread claimed they were banned for not liking the mod, asking questions about the mod, etc. before the comments section was removed altogether.
The context of the discord image joking about doxxing given by the Zoot guy defending the mod author is that it was a random discord user who they did not know who was known for being overdramatic and later on they think someone else told the user to cool it. Doxxing is serious to me so I do not think this context absolves the image, it feels worse since the mod author doesn’t even know the person and just gleefully agrees with them to the point another rando has to tell them to stop. I think the mod author is immature and the random user probably a teenager. It’s the only thing that makes sense why they would joke like that. I’m not digging for the discord, I’ve not only already wasted enough time with this comment since summit crashed on me but also find it a waste of time.
The thread talking about the mod author leaving was very sympathetic. My original comment had the top 9 or 10 comments and a few replies from the thread to prove to you that it was not overwhelmed by trolls. But there is no way I’m doing that again. Just read it yourself. If you still think they are not sympathetic enough then something is seriously wrong with your interpretation.
I actually read the part about banning too many people, though I wouldn’t characterize it as “lashing out”. I’m pretty sure I included a quote about it but I didn’t. Weird.
I wasn’t saying they weren’t sympathetic enough, I’m saying that the amount of criticizing here is way too little compared to the two threads linked in the article to shrug off as caused by sympathy.
I think it is lashing out to ban people for no reason. They were so upset by the trolls that people with legitimate criticisms were banned (which Zoot says they never had an issue with, it was only trolls they did not like) and then people just curious about the mod and asking questions were also banned.
Sorry, I seem to be misunderstanding you because I do not know what you quite mean anymore. You said “that’s how they read, especially when you compare their comments to the reddit post i linked. not even the sympathy for a person who leaves explains the difference to me” which I thought meant there was an overwhelming amount of people who were trolls for not having sympathy for the mod author leaving. Now you are saying that people were criticizing too much in the other threads, and I’m not sure what is being shrugged off as sympathy.
Since she later reinstated and it was the only banning controversy, I don’t think it’s something work sticking to the record. “Lashing out” also has the connotation of straight-up attacking people, not just banning them. Not to mention I have yet to see receipts about the bans and for what messages.
So, the amount of criticism is way less in the thread about leaving than the thread, say, "I’m sad about Draego. Like the “pushback from others saying that it’s just not for you and it’s not your place to judge” was buried and never seen (by default sorting) in the Daegon threads. I don’t think this difference in community opinion can be explained by just the sympathy for leaving alone.
Christ, humanity at its best.
Sounds like the exact kind of entitled, whiny man babies i was expecting.
Incels/“gamers” harassing a woman - shocker.
It is bad enough having gamers online foaming at the mouth like you just stabbed their mom when you make a mistake in a group.
i’m sorry that you have to deal with the outfall of this, OP. gamers are notoriously the most overly sensitive group to generalize, even when they’re meant to think “i recognize that this is pointing out bad apples in my community”. instead, they immediately start defending themselves as if you specifically named them
the sane response is to go “wow that is awful. the gaming community does indeed contain some terrible people, i am glad to be one of the good ones and will distance myself from this behavior”
the sane response is to go “wow that is awful. the gaming community does indeed contain some terrible people, i am glad to be one of the good ones and will distance myself from this behavior”
I’d say the saner response is none at all. This seems like a pretty niche community issue somewhere on the internet involving at most <100 people. I doubt anyone here is closer then 3 degrees of separation from anyone involved. Why would you expect any of the outsiders here to “take a stand,” based on incomplete information?
Yes, but how many of these niche communities are there? Hell, lemmy itself is a niche community and everybody here should take a stand against this sort of stuff occurring here.
On here I’d 100% agree, though if some member here got into some kind of discord drama that you weren’t apart of, why would you choose a side? You’ll have incomplete information, and no doubt one of them will claim they were harassed while leaving out some important details.
Reading the article, this is a typical case of burnout. It’s happening to every artist, content creator, modder, foss developer, etc. On the long term we all have to find a balance or we won’t last long. And tbh, just learn to ignore the trolls and focus on the positive things and your passion or they will win. You can’t take them seriously. It seems the person in the article has already found herself another passion project and could throw away the suffocating chains of responsibilty and something she did not enjoy anymore and move on. I think instances like these really show us we are all just humans and we should appreciate the things we are given.
the boob jiggle physics are genuinely ridiculous on this mod, i just watched the preview. gamers are brain broken
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Considering the woman being harassed explicitly stated that the harassment she received was mainly misogynistic in nature, no. It very much is relevant to the situation.
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Don’t you have some female modders to harass?
I’m an equal opportunity hater, I don’t discriminate. Of course, I’m not American so I understand that non discrimination is a hard to grasp concept overseas.
Discrimination is just American?
You are the champions of the western world
quick question what languages do america, mexico, brazil and haiti speak?
This is a weird and popular trope with various European countries that hold themselves above others. Somehow things like racism and bigotry are purely an American phenomenon, usually said alongside spewing some sort of bigoted vitriol like this guy.
while i understand the sentiment, I don’t think anyone gets the nickname “slutty sex kitten” in a non gendered reason.
i mean i suppose it’s still gendered but i can assure you there are tons of gay male couples doing that
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Well that felt unkind. The distinction between male and female is being made because the modder states men are sexually harassing her. There are other forms of harrassment listed, but it seems reasonable to make a distinction since there is a sexual nature to part of it.
Removed by mod
People are asses sometimes, but whenever these conversations come up, I wonder: What do you even want from us? How are random people on the internet supposed to hold random anonymous trolls on the internet “accountable?” You can call them asses, but so? What if they don’t care? They’re anonymous. You could get mods to ban them, but if it’s a free service they can always make another anonymous account. It’s even more confusing in the context of something like an online game as opposed to a forum. What are you supposed to do about someone being an ass when you’ve probably never seen them before and probably won’t see them again?
I mean, call them asses. Maybe they don’t care, maybe they do, but we keep the problem relevant by being vocal against this kind of thing. To not do anything at all is to encourage trolls.
The prevailing wisdom for dealing with trolls in the past has been report, block, and move on. You never know if someone is going to thrive on that kind of conflict and a whole lot of motherfuckers love it.
I’m not saying it’s right or wrong because honestly I don’t know. I’m just sad they’re running off people contributing to their community and mad that they’re sexually harassing people.
The phrase is “don’t feed the trolls”, not the contrary.
People are not assholes just because they’re anonymous. They’re assholes because they’re sociopaths. The Internet still is the refuge for isolation and escapism. I don’t think that will change, but maybe those people will be happier in the future.
Some people probably know them in real life. Like, you might have a friend who’s like “Yeah this [slur] wouldn’t update her mod so i posted [hateful thing] on her insta”. You could talk to them. People listen to their in-group more than randoms online.
But then again, the worst sort of people probably mostly have the worst sort of friends, and reinforce their bad behavior.
Gam*rs need reeducation.
Is gamer a swear word now too?
Always has been 😎
Oh
Thousands of hours, months of hard work. For about 300 bucks and a bunch of incels doxxing and harassing her.
I cannot fathom why she left.
IMO the vast majority of people that use community mods are pretty thankful and just enjoy them despite any issues the mod has so long as overall it works well. They just play and keep their mouths shut.
There are a few that offer real and constructive criticism.
And the rest are the vocal trolls that just hate on everything. Unfortunately if they aren’t “fucking your mother last night” on whatever game chat you might be on they’re busy trashing on the “unplayable” game they’ve spent 500 hours playing in the last several months or on the forums berating the modders’ efforts. They’re just hateful people and hating on women in general is par for the course, if one dares participating in gaming they’re just another target for their shitty incel behavior.
I think the gaming community being made of socially awkward, isolated and unemployed people doesn’t help the scenario. But I think there is light at the end of the tunnel.
If you’re assumed to be a male, the trolls attack you if you don’t carry them. Fine, move on.
If they find out you’re female, they attack you just for existing. You can move on but It is relentless.
There is a difference in gaming experience when it comes to trolls.
I wasn’t debating that at all.
Maybe not in your opinion but using an IMO for reductivism/dousing down a topic isn’t exactly an empathetic ally move.
Welcome to the world of making software for random people, almost certainly made worse by she being a woman.
As others pointed out, most people do appreciate it, but they tend to be silent about it, whilst a small minority are demanding little whinny bitches (in a non-gendered way) who think they’re owed service and some are even trolls.
To those reading this, I suggest when you get something you like for free you at least give some feedback that you liked it and, if the person has some kind of sponsoring scheme going on and you really like it, consider contributing, if only to incentivise more of the same.
Those on the other side are people too and they will appreciate it.
Welcome to the world of making software for random people, almost certainly made worse by she being a woman.
I first read this and thought you were saying the software was almost certainly made worse and got all indignant then parsed it a second time and relaxed
Man, gaming communities are so fucking toxic.
I put wheels on my car which are a cheap copy of a very popular wheel because they were $500 not $2000 and I dont race. Every car meet someone has to comment that Im running “fakes” and try to give me a hard time about it. Yeah, Ive got a mortgage and a kid. Fuck off with your Supreme snapback ass hypebeast bullshit. I’m building the car I can afford.
People are toxic, even communities who preach peace and love as their doctrine have people who will whip out the moral-cock ruler and start shit over who is more peaceful and loving.
I agree. !nomanssky@lemmy.world is a pleasant exception.
I didn’t know they’re here. I only go to reddit for the coordinates exchange sub. Thanks!
They could use some more engagement, but they’re a pleasant bunch. AFAIK.
Now I want to start playing NMS, I’ve had it in my backlog for a while
