It's understandable but still the reaction of the dev shows his honest feelings and I can appreciate this somehow.

Showing a bit of emotion while facing a total disaster is understandable. Better than hiding them all the time anyway. Also people like to critisize everything, but can they do better? Probably most would make equally bad games or worse if on their own.

The turd was unnecessary, but otherwise I would say that every dev has a right to a meltdown.

And well, one incapable dev less on the market is all the better for the others.

It's pretty funny that someone who's had it with "all the drama" leaves in such an excessively dramatic manner by throwing an Internet tantrum. Talk about burning bridges...

Game developers indie or otherwise seriously need to learn about PR and keep a stiff upper lip. Customers and potential customers can definitely be assholes, but that's only true because human beings can be assholes. It's just a fact of life, and one has to be able to handle that in a professional manner no matter what the circumstance.

Aside from that, a psychotherapist and/or prescription medication might help.

I've never understood this argument. I can't perform brain surgery, but you'd better believe I'd expect the people performing it to be capable. I've never worked with pyrotechnics, either, but I reserve the right to shake my head if a group blows themselves up because of their own incompetence while rigging something. Why is game development the only profession where people are required to possess at least equal skill before being allowed their bit of criticism?

Not that the piling on from Sterling and whoever else got involved was particularly necessary or classy, but neither was the dev's reaction. They all deserve each other.

You're right. Everyone can criticize everyone else all the time. No problem. But it puts the criticism into perspective if most of the people wouldn't perform better. He's probably not much more than an amateur and comparing him to a professional company with a full team would not be very informative.

Brain surgery or even pyrotechnics has the capability of really hurting people if something goes wrong. Computer games, the worst that can happen is that users get bored. Games are just entertainment. So I would not hold the makers of computer games to the same standards as for example brain surgeons.

Being in the Steam community is like being back in kindergarten, so I can understand the developer's frustration.
He tries to get useful criticism but instead gets stuff like 'this game is a pile of vomit'...not that constructive is it ?!.

On the other hand if a dev wants to reach as many people as possible with his/her game Steam is tragically the best choice because of the community size. It doesn't help that every major youtuber keeps promoting Steam.

Not surprised Sterling picked this up, being a true gaming paparazzi.

You're right. Those were terrible examples. Photography, then? It'd be like insisting that people know the intricacies of aperture and bokeh and all that stuff before criticizing a blurry photograph.

And if the dev didn't want to be compared to a more professional operation, putting the game on Steam alongside those more professional games was probably a bad idea. There are plenty of miscellaneous sites like gamersgate.com to use when one wants to wade in the more shallow end of the gaming pool, and even Desura could have been an option (at least, before everyone found out it planned to sacrifice itself to the gaming gods at some point in the future).

To take an untertainment comparison, I'm a Tabletop RPG gamebooks hoarder, and I buy quite a few of them. If a book I just bought full price in a gamestore (and not a fanzine sold for an Euro on a club table during a con) fell apart in my hands 10 minutes later (it happens with cheap "pasted" bindings), I will be quite bitchy about it. I will be lenient if the publisher is a small scale amateurish outfit, as my expectations are lower and I went into the deal knowing the may not master some aspects of the job, but it won't prevent me to have some harsh words about the physical quality of their products when I talk about it. And yet I don't know how to do proper bookbindings.

Comes with paying for a good or a service, I guess.

"GOATF@#$%R...., DO YOU NEED ASSISTANCE?"

Sure you can do that. Although very probably you would not have bought that particular book for any price after reading all the negative reviews from other buyers. There would be quite some warnings and without buying you would not have taken any financial loss at all.

All those bystanders watching how you say the harsh words, they just take this as additional entertainment. They are not really interested in the book or the quality of the book or even in what you say in detail about the book, only in the joy of seeing someone saying something negative about someone else.

Maybe in the end it's not really such big news. All we know is that there is now one more bad game on Steam and the dev of this game probably has ended his career (in a not very elegant way) of game maker which is probably a good thing. The rest is just noise.

When you put a price tag on something you have to deliver. I am selling a software library, and none of my customers care that I'm just a guy sitting in his bedroom apartment, when I decided to charge money for it I have taken on the responsibility to deliver. If Darkbase 01 was a freeware game to test the waters no one would have complained.

And quite frankly, that game looks like something you make in a five-part tutorial series for Torque 2D over a weekend with stock graphics to get started with the engine. Anyone halfway capable of basic scripting can make a game of that quality. This is just a manchild who didn't get a gold star for just participating. The truth is that whatever you do, your first results will be just throwaway junk, baby steps essentially. Instead of throwing a temper tantrum you have to move on and try better the next time.

Well, even if he ruined it when he ragequit, I think he had a point.

Not necessarily. First, I buy in physical bookstores, so no user reviews, I have to specifically look for information on forums or in gaming magazine/websites. Second, the French RPG community is small, most publishers are very small scale outfits with very low print-runs, so reviews can be scarce, especially with new materials, and negative reviews are even more uncommon. Third, my first criteria will be the content of the book, the game or supplement itself, not the physical product.

Hell, I know some publishers have crappy prints on all their products, and yet I continue to buy from them because I love the games. Doesn't mean I won't bitch a little on the forums with a "Very nice game, as usual. Which fell apart in my hands as soon as I was out of the store, as usual. Can't wait to try it with my pals, but I will have to put it in a binder first..."

Of course, there's a difference between "bitching about the quality of a product and warning others about it" and "publicly shaming someone because you wanted "revenge" for a defective product"

I think that, if anything, is too soft of a word.
I mean, I have not seen many videos from this "person" because I usually despise youtubers/twitchers/whatever. The only one I watch is TotalBiscuit, because he is pretty objective. And he can be harsh, but I find he was always respectful of the developer. Even in the "let's not play X" games (at least the ones I saw), he focusses on the game, not on the developer.

On the other hand, the few videos I have seen from Jim remind more to (immature) angry joe, only with brittish accent. All that "Iwanttobefunnyandsmartyetifail" rubbish, and as you pointed out, that rude behaviour.

I searched your game, and it has positive reviews. I would say that is suggestive that it's a good (or atthe very least decent) game taking on account the genre and price. If you hate walking simulators, duh, you won't like it. But it is a walking simulator, so you review like it, not like if you expected a FPS. I remember a video from TB in which he reviewed the Angry Video Game. It belongs to a genre he does not particulary likes, yet he reviewed it objectively.

tl;dr Yes, Jim Sterling is a twat.

I think that is a pretty one-sided perspective.

First of all, I played the game. I'm not sure how many of those who condemn the dev, did that. It's a very bare-bones, but functional, top-down shooter. It also has a door/key system and a simple story. It comes with clear instructions and a help screen, and it works. Additionally, there was gameplay footage available to everyone who considered making the purchase, so customers knew what they were getting.

The people who "complained" about the game, paid between 9 cents and a dollar for it, depending on where they got it from. The game is worth that. Yes it's very bare-bones, yes it could have been slapped together on a weekend (though. given that it was the dev's first game, I don't think it was), but a dollar (or a fraction of that) for a weekend's worth of work is _very_ far from greedy. If you don't think so, then please give me your phone number, I would like to immediately hire you for all kinds of stuff.

I agree that the dev overestimated the quality of his game, and underestimated the criticism he was likely to receive. That said, as far as I could see, he was actually pretty considerate about it at first. As ET3D mentioned above, his first post in which he explained his withdrawal was rather tame. That didn't stop the community from further escalating things until he snapped. Picturing him as "a manchild who didn't get his gold star", in your own words, is part of that.

I'm sorry, but this is not a case of customers being dissatisfied with a product they paid good money for. This is a case of a dev delivering a decent first effort, but overestimating the quality of his product, and then facing a wall of trolls who were happy to find a victim for yet another shitstorm (and a youtube personality who thrives on those). It doesn't help to blame only one party, imho.

I reckon the character Jim Sterling plays is a twat, but I also reckon a lot of people don't pick up that he is playing a character.