Dead State - DoubleBear Review Controversy

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I wonder which member he was on the Dead State forums as I have seen many get banned in the last few months for never learning how to be civil on the internet.


I agree it's the same thing I wrote a few pages back as sometimes the internet does more harm then good. The best thing you can do is just move on, and be the better person.

Ooh ooh! Tell me what my ids are on a game forum I never participated in, for a game I backed, and for a game I never bought!

I looove conspiracies! Desperation is in the air!

The more you need to make up to try to discredit someone with a differing opinion, the more I know that I was 100% right that you desire censoring others' opinions in any way possible, including outright making up stories and then believing these stories to be true!

Don't worry thought folks. It isn't this guy who is insane, who is so desperate that he has to literally make up stories that conveniently justify his own positions(yay for censorship, as long as I don't like the opinion censored!)… Nope! It is someone who uses real evidence(non made up, non assumption based).

it is also kind of funny in an ironic kind of way that the guy that is pro censorship is the same guy that not only blocks the posts by people of dissenting opinions, but that is so lacking in self confidence, that they have to announce this to the world. It all fits though. Points for consistency!

Originally Posted by Arahael
I didn't know you could do that. Starting right now.

It's simple if you need help you click the users name on the forum look under user lists, and click add user to my ignore list. My list is very long over the last four years.

Thanks couch, just used it….I don't need to argue with internet evangelists.

Originally Posted by rune_74
Thanks couch, just used it….I don't need to argue with internet evangelists.

Thanks Rune! When you don't have an argument and can't control yourself from name calling on the internet, it is best to come out and admit publicly that you simply can't handle different opinions. It is much better to admit this and to ignore someone than to resort to name calling or outright making up lies and presenting them as truth.


I can understand how people need to rationalize and justify their inability to make cohesive arguments by a poor attempt at trying to still assert that they are right whilst walking away with their tail between their legs.

That being said, it is still better to walk away and trying to save face than to continue name calling and outright making things up to try to dismiss opinions that you cannot handle!

As soon as you decided to make things up, I realized just how desperate you had become. There was nowhere to go once you cornered yourself with that.

Originally Posted by shadow9d9
I would like you to quote a single post here that refer to the first amendment. Didn't happen.

I'd like for you to quote me on where I said that people on this particular forum were citing freedom of speech. Didn't happen.

I was referring to a statement by Cpt Eccentric in the article linked to on the first page of this thread.

Where he (she?) said the following:

"Even so, developers should never limited [sic] opinions and try to silence people surrounding their products. The right to free speech still exists and should be respected." - Cpt Eccentric

Perhaps I should have been more clear as to where I saw someone invoking freedom of speech, mea culpa.

I abhor censorship as well, and I also disagree with the behavior of Annie V. Mitsoda on twitter. As idiotic and childish as her behavior was here, I think it would be a shame if Double Bear were brought low over this. I am ultimately powerless on this matter, so you needn't worry much about my opinion either way.

I think it might be in Annie V. Mitsoda's best interest and that of Double Bear to make some sort of public apology and to promise not to attempt to stamp out criticism anymore. I am ultimately powerless to affect change in this regard as well (only Annie and Double Bear can do this of their own free will), and I accept that.

Originally Posted by Bubbles
the majority of people are dicks

I have never read anything truer, and on the internet, the dicks multiply
a thousand fold. I can't stand forums or comments sections anymore
because of this. Anyone who thinks Dead State is "not a game" or
far buggier than your average Bethesda release should not be given
any platform to spread their opinion because they have lost all ability
to be objective, and the internet standard for what counts as "objectivity"
is abysmally low as it is. This, like the #GamerGate joke makes me sick
that I ever counted myself as a gamer, as they are a hateful and ignorant
bunch of cowards hiding behind their keyboards as they systematically
destroy peoples lives. Hopefully DB recover and continue working on Dead
State, but I could hardly blame them if the attacks became too much.

Looks like steam isn't the only place this game is getting bad reviews. Just checked meta critic and the user score is a pathetic 5.6, with many of the bad reviews talking about how buggy the game is.

At this point, I would say its looking like the overall score is:
reviewers=1, and Dead state the game and the developer=0.

Originally Posted by shadow9d9
Do you notice that you are the only one name calling here? Do you really think that you should be calling MY rationality into question?

In none of my posts have I name called. Yet, here you are, calling someone a "douche bag loser." Are you that angry that you feel the need to name call?

At least when I call someone an egomaniac, I have direct evidence, and it is nothing personal like calling someone "stupid" or worse, "douche bag loser."

So, you have a degree in psychology and have had multiple sessions in which you have diagnosed the individual with egomania? That is the only way you could possibly have "direct evidence" of any kind, and I highly doubt you are a practicing psychologist. Also, it is **very** different CALLING someone an insult and saying they "come across" as something ie are not that thing, but just sound like they are in whatever comment they made.

Originally Posted by Arahael
The problem is not just the bad review but the fact that many people who read the articles went to Steam to upvote most of the negative reviews just because they were negative not because they were accurate or helpful. They just felt entitled to ruin a game and company without even having played the game. This just shows that people can be very vindictive when they can hide behind the anonymity of Internet.

What is the correct amount of time to reach a proper conclusion?
A conclusion is not proper because people spend a lot of time reaching it.

In this thread, a link was posted to a previously made comment mentioning that it was not the first time a bad and influential review was taken down on the DS steam thread.
This comment was written in a thread mocking a player who reached the conclusion that a game was boring after playing it for over one thousand hours.
It is never enough or too much.

Willing to back the necessary time spent in reaching a conclusion by giving a number of hours, seconds etc that are required to do so?
Until it is done, it is only arbritrariness at work, just as it was when it came to ban
the review by Jynxx or trying to ban the review by that other player.

Assuming that people want to ruin a game and a company because they reach a valid conclusion on a product?
What about assuming that the state of release of the Release (released on December, 4th or something) is the essential feature in the ongoing drama?

That case showed multiple things: one is that, despite anonymity, it remains very hard to convey a point of view that is extremelly casual, informative. The conclusion drawn by the review is nothing genial, it is not brilliant, it is a collection of basic observations that anyone who tried the product can make.
Yet how many Steam accounts were nuked in the process? The reviewer got banned, rebanned etc…

Anonymity? Does not even work when it comes to convey casual, non ground breaking and accurate reports.
Anonymity has nothing to do with the current situation.

I'm always amazed when something like this happens, and people bring up the first amendment and censorship. Legally speaking this has absolutely nothing to do with either one. This is not a freedom of speech issue, at all, period. I'm surprised how many people seem to not know what "freedom of speech" means.

Not taking sides, but from my perspective, things are working out exactly as they should.

Full disclosure, I haven't followed the game and I didn't back it. I did buy it on sale. I have yet to play it.

Originally Posted by Bubbles
Can people make mistakes? Yes. Should people pay for their mistakes?
But when it comes to a person being in a bad place emotionally, and making a bad decision because of it (which I believe is the case of whatshername, the developer), should this destroy the small, independent company she works for, and the other people in the small company? Certainly not.

People make mistakes. People get emotional. People make bad decisions due to stress and pressure.

Who says it is a mistake? It being a mistake is one hypothesis among others that has no more strength (if strength at all) than some other hypothesis.

As stated, it is not the first time. One review that happened to be negative, popular and influential was removed. It was removed just before the product entered the beta stage.

Both reviews had things in common, one among others: they were influential.
People reported in both that they would not buy the product and that would stay away from that developper in the future.

Steam provides to sellers a tool named wish list that helps measuring prospective sales. Potential customers tick they might buy a product in the future (wish list) and then it is reported to the associated product developpers so they can get an idea of the prospective sale volumes.

It could have been one thing to read that players did not want to buy the product. It could have been another to read a decrease in volume of the prospective sales.
Seeing the cause in the popular and negative threads might have been justified.

The product has history of banning negative and influential posts. Calling people names could not be a mistake.

It could be part of a strategical approach to the issue by moving the focus from the quality of the product to the personal side.

This strategy is sometimes called the lightning rod strategy. One example: one manager in the english premier league is well known for using it. Name is Jose Mourinho.
Everytime his side starts to be in a bad spell, that some key players are unresponsive, unfit etc, he goes to the media outlets to start a controversy, unleash inflamatory comments.
Mourinho acts like a lightning rod: he attracts to himself strokes that should strike his team. That way, the players are preserved from legitimate blame. Players love him for doing that, by the way.

Coming to the media to do that is never a mistake: it is done on purpose, to serve a certain goal.
Sometimes, he does not achieve the required effect and the comment backfires. That could be seen as a mistake in the implementation.
But the decision to come and tell this or that to the media in order to remove some pressure from the team is never a mistake, it is thougthfully decided.

Who knows if this move by this video game studio is different? That calling a reviewer names is a mistake? It might be a deliberate attempt to transfer the focus from the game quality to the personality of the reviewer and the people who called names.
A way to turn something that has nothing personal into a personal thing.

Originally Posted by SER
This is not a freedom of speech issue, at all, period. I'm surprised how many people seem to not know what "freedom of speech" means.

That would be so educational to read how this is not related to a freedom of speech issue.

How many bucks to read that enlightened point of view?

Well, read the amendment. It means that you will not be punished, or imprisoned by the GOVERNMENT for your speech, opinions, etc. This is mainly meant to protect people for being imprisoned or executed, or otherwise punished by the GOVERNMENT for their political views. There are exceptions, like inciting people to riot, or yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater.

You are not protected from societal punishments, like having your review of $20 game deleted, or being called names on twitter.

Originally Posted by Bubbles
Read the lady's post from this link, which caused this to blow up- http://murderblonde.tumblr.com/post/…380/exhaustion

She isn't an egomaniac. She is a person, who was emotional, at the end of her rope. Maybe calling a customer a dickbag isn't professional, but when someone is in a very bad place emotionally they usually aren't known for their great decision making. I know when I'm angry I often think extremely short term to my detriment.

If you really, honestly, think doublebear should be ruined as people and as a company over this, not only do you have extremely bad taste in crpg combat, but you may want to ask yourself some tough questions on the type of person you may be.

I really don't care one way or another. They should live or burn due to their business decisions and the ones here were terrible.

What you say does not excuse her as a business owner. When she talks to her customers she can only represent her business. If she cannot control her emotions she should not be communicating.

Double standards are cute… If something like this had been (probably happened, maybe a lot, don't remember) pulled off by an "evil company" like EA or Bethesda almost everybody around here would be going for the kill. As it turns out to be the "good guys", the small struggling company, suddenly appealing to censorship is a good thing. Right, makes sense.
I didn't read the posts, I don't usually browse the Steam foruns, so I can't be sure what the hell those censored posts were complaining about, but I'm pretty sure that Steam has their own forum rules and if those were not broken - and I'm assuming they weren't - it would have been Steam to clear the offensive posts. Double Bear has nothing to do with what people complain about their (extremely buggy game) on a forum that it's not even their own (I suppose if they were praticing censorship on their own site nobody would care).
Anyway, if the consumer was complaining about a buggy game, he was right. I haven't played such a buggy game in my life (of course, I'm not saying that it is the buggiest game in history, just among the ones I played). It is a broken game, with broken mechanics and very much in an early access stage one month (or something close) after official release.
Although there are bits of an interesting storyline glimpsed through all that mess - and that is why I'm still trying to play it - there are plenty of reasons for people who bought that to be annoyed. Hey, maybe they didn't even like the storyline, as I did, and found no salvable characteristic in Dead State. I quite understand that Double Bear, to have delivered such a disaster that took about 4 years or more of development (at least I red about the game by that time, supposed that it was already being made) is a shame, but a bigger shame is to try to cover up their failure in such a childish way. Anyway, Brian Mitsoda should be used to this, Bloodlines (which is a wonderfull game despite all the bugs, unlike Dead State, which is mostly just buggy and boring) is still being patched by fans. Maybe they should ask the guys who have been fixing Vampire since last century to take care of the next Dead State patches…

Censorship is not limitted to just indie developers. It happens on giant mainstream product sites. Again, if you attack the developers, call them out as bad producers, then you get censored. It's really a very simple concept.

Limit your comments to just products, then you can avoid censorship unless you manage to be offensive in other ways…

^ Except that the reviewer did NOT attack the developers even once.

Here is his original review:

http://i.imgur.com/uDsDJte.jpg?1

There are no personal insults, no trolling, no harassment or threats.

And no one gets censored or banned for calling a product bad even for AAA game
developers. Hell, thousand people heavily criticized Ubisoft for Assassin's Creeed: Unity and Bioware/EA regarding the patch fiasco for DA: Inquisition. BOTH tendered an apology to customers and in fact Ubisoft freely offered one of their latest games to all those who pre-ordered Unity.

Originally Posted by Archangel
What you say does not excuse her as a business owner. When she talks to her customers she can only represent her business. If she cannot control her emotions she should not be communicating.

Originally Posted by MigRib
Double standards are cute… If something like this had been (probably happened, maybe a lot, don't remember) pulled off by an "evil company" like EA or Bethesda almost everybody around here would be going for the kill.

I agree to both the posts above. People here routinely criticise Bethesda for their buggy state of games…one forum user especially talks ONLY about bugs in all his posts. Imagine if Pete Hines calls out on him (a "troll" in his view) on his Twitter: "F!@k Off douche, I had only 3 hrs of sleep and I am oh-so-EXHAUSTED..I don't need to listen to all this crap from some dickbag like you" How would the valiant knights of the RPGWatch respond?? Would they defend Pete saying "…but..but..he only a HUMAN..humans make mistakes!" or they would expect some professionalism on his part while dealing with this issue? We all know what the answer is. But I guess some people love their double standards.

Running an indie studio does NOT excuse you from being professional, especially when you charge for your products like all other competitors our there.

Originally Posted by Aditya
^ Except that the reviewer did NOT attack the developers even once.

Here is his original review:

http://i.imgur.com/uDsDJte.jpg?1

There are no personal insults, no trolling, no harassment or threats.

And no one gets censored or banned for calling a product bad even for AAA game
developers. Hell, thousand people heavily criticized Ubisoft for Assassin's Creeed: Unity and Bioware/EA regarding the patch fiasco for DA: Inquisition. BOTH tendered an apology to customers and in fact Ubisoft freely offered one of their latest games to all those who pre-ordered Unity.





I agree to both the posts above. People here routinely criticise Bethesda for their buggy state of games…one forum user especially talks ONLY about bugs in all his posts. Imagine if Pete Hines calls out on him (a "troll" in his view) on his Twitter: "F!@k Off douche, I had only 3 hrs of sleep and I am oh-so-EXHAUSTED..I don't need to listen to all this crap from some dickbag like you" How would the valiant knights of the RPGWatch respond?? Would they defend Pete saying "…but..but..he only a HUMAN..humans make mistakes!" or they would expect some professionalism on his part while dealing with this issue? We all know what the answer is. But I guess some people love their double standards.

Running an indie studio does NOT excuse you from being professional, especially when you charge for your products like all other competitors our there.

Spot on.
Also, I do believe that most people arguing in favour of Double Bear aren't doing it solely for the explicit reason of this being a small time developer struggling to get by. I could empathize more with them if that was the only thing backing them up. I usually don't take the side of the big fish.
BUT, as I was saying, I do believe most people defending Doube Bear are doing it because this is one of the small time studios making the games they like. Old school, isometric perspective, turn-based, tactical RPG, in this case, but it could also be some kind of quirky little game. No matter, as long as it is not one of those awful 3rd person, open world games the AAA studios like so much… I'm pretty sure that if the case in question involved one of the few non-old school/ pixel art/whatever the name of the quirky little game the response would not be the same. Probably no one would care about the subject anyway, and if they did there would be no such love for the small fish.

EDIT: And this was not a personal attack on anyone, of course. It's perfectly natural to stand by the developers who deliver what one likes. It's also natural for me to notice that.

Really disappointed in DB and those that defends them. The reviewer even says the game is a blast.

Originally Posted by Ripper
No, they don't.

They think they're entitled, and that's the problem.

On the topic on entitlement:
in this case, some categories are entitled, others are not.

Are entitled: the crowdfunded studio. They are entitled to be paid, no matter the output of their work.

Are entitled: that part of players who lobby hard enough for the game original specifications to be moved towards their tastes, in a switch and bait move. They are entitled to the resources put by other players to make the product even better according to their tastes.

They are the entitled in the story. It is not an issue of entitlement, since some parties are clearly and undubiously entitled.
It is an issue for people who think they are entitled because they somehow buy an entitling ticket.

Their perceived entitling ticket does not entitle them in getting a product meeting the original specifications. It does not entitle them either in voicing the observation that the output is a failure.

The only thing they should be entitled to: shutting down their mouth so that the entitled categories might enjoy quietly their entitlements.

Originally Posted by SER
Well, read the amendment. It means that you will not be punished, or imprisoned by the GOVERNMENT for your speech, opinions, etc. This is mainly meant to protect people for being imprisoned or executed, or otherwise punished by the GOVERNMENT for their political views. There are exceptions, like inciting people to riot, or yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater.

You are not protected from societal punishments, like having your review of $20 game deleted, or being called names on twitter.

This wasnt charged for. That is the good point. For the rest, a government does not exist in a vaccuum. It exists as connected to a society. Civil discord ultimately is handled by the government, which sets terminal rules for people to abide by.