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.

  • ramble81@lemm.ee
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    1 hour ago

    This is the sexism that we saw come out during the election. We thought the country was getting better but they were just quietly simmering but connecting online.

    I said that with an American slanted focus but sadly it’s worldwide too.

    • Beardsley@lemmy.worldOP
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      The sentiment is that we all have a responsibility to hold our community accountable for this type of behavior.

      You can disagree, it is likely a matter of philosophy. I feel a responsibility to try to put more positive influence to the world, and to call out harmful actions. Not everyone does, that is fine too, albeit a little sad.

      • Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net
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        Lol you’re getting downvoted for having a rational viewpoint and wanting something you care about and enjoy to be safe for other humans to enjoy it too.

        How fucking dare you

        • Beardsley@lemmy.worldOP
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          Lolol. Win some, lose some, it doesn’t really matter. I made my point and am satisfied with that; it’s anyone’s right to disagree with me.

          And if I am in the wrong for wanting a better community, then the state of humanity just makes me a little more sad. Far from surprised, however.

          “Your boos mean nothing to me, I’ve seen what makes you cheer!”

      • black_lugia@sh.itjust.works
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        31 minutes ago

        i don’t disagree, call out the [HYPERLINK BLOCKED] for being [ALONE ON A LATE NIGHT], but please word it better.

        there is that better?

        • Beardsley@lemmy.worldOP
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          47 minutes ago

          Not even being sarcastic; I am completely open to suggestions and constructive criticism.

          That’s a pretty harmful word though, my guy, kind of antiquated. There are better insults, like “cock-brained” or “silly stupid little groundfuckers”, to name a few suggestions.

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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      I’m not a gamer. I play games, but I’m not a Gamerᵀᴹ. I noped out of the “community” a long time ago.

      I’m a little curious where she’s getting the harassment from. If it’s from twitter, I don’t know what to tell her. It’s designed to amplify hate and anxiety. If it’s from lan parties or irl shit, yeah, I haven’t experienced it, but I have seen that to a degree.

      edit: Wait. Is the “harassment” coming from needy fans asking her to tweak her work for their liking? That’s a little different from what I assumed this was about. I’m not going to side with the community nagging her for tweaks, but if she’s creating this for herself, she needs to disengage from those types. If she’s creating these mods, putting them out online and expecting only positive comments, I don’t know what to tell her. This is something all big modders and have to deal with.

      • TheLowestStone@lemmy.world
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        11 minutes ago

        The article glosses over the sexual harassment until the end. She says that pictures of her were distributed on discord and mentions the daily harassment and sexualization from the community.

  • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
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    3 hours ago

    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.

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    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?

    • Beardsley@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 hour ago

      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.

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      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.

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    5 hours ago

    The only interaction I’ve ever had with authors of mods and such was sending them thanks for their hard work. Sad.

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    Good for her for making the right decision for her own wellbeing. Too many sad little fucks on the Internet who spend all their time harassing others. Pathetic existence.

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    This broad dynamic isn’t new and it isn’t unique either to gaming or to men. Every single creative volunteer community on the net is filled with assholes and drama llamas, of any and all genders. It’s just the nature of the thing. You see the same things over and over with game modding, cracking, romhacking, emulation, manga scanlation, anime fansubbing, vocaloid production, mmd modeling, fanfic, fanart, and so on and on.

    People often (generally?) are willing to invest the time and energy into whatever it is that they’re going to post online at least in large part because they crave the attention they hope it will bring, and specifically, they want to be lauded for their talent and skill.

    And that often runs up against the fact that an awful lot of the responses they’re going to get are going to come from self-absorbed and entitled assholes bitching because they don’t like whatever it is that they’re getting for free, and think they have to be accommodated.

    And very often, the response from the creator, unsurprisingly really, is to effectively (or even literally) say, “Fine then - fuck you all. I’m done.”

    And 'round and 'round it goes, and has from the start, and likely will never stop. It’s just an unfortunate but pretty much inevitable clash between a personality type that’s likely to create and share something online for free and a personality type that’s likely to comment on something somebody else created and shared with them for free.

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    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.

    • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
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      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.

      • Zahille7@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        You ever see steam discussions for early access games? Jesus fucking Christ people are entitled as shit.

        • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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          3 hours ago

          Aren’t those paid (or at least they can be)? I think that’s an entirely different can of worms…

          • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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            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!”

            • Zahille7@lemmy.world
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              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.

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                23 minutes ago

                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…

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    4 hours ago

    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.

    • Delphia@lemmy.world
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      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.

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        I didn’t know they’re here. I only go to reddit for the coordinates exchange sub. Thanks!

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      4 hours ago

      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.

    • Beardsley@lemmy.worldOP
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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.

    • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
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      4 hours ago

      while i understand the sentiment, I don’t think anyone gets the nickname “slutty sex kitten” in a non gendered reason.