PROBLEM CHILDREN
Let’s be honest with ourselves: gamers can be a notoriously difficult bunch. The same can be said for virtually every audience within the entertainment industry, but toxicity and vitriol are often widespread in gaming communities, whether that manifests itself as homophobia-riddled region chats or outright death threats aimed at individual developers on social media. The echo chambers of subreddits and private Discord servers are no help, especially when they are populated by gamers who have little idea of how the game production process actually works, or worse, have huge misconceptions about how that process can realistically be conducted.
It stands to reason, then, that some games are shut down not due to any fault of the developers, but because the players themselves are simply uncooperative and unruly. One of the most infamous examples of this was LEGOUniverse, a 2010 MMO from developer NetDevil, which saw players building in and exploring a collection of LEGO-themed worlds.
Despite initial successes and a player base that grew to 2 million within a year of release, NetDevil encountered an unforeseen problem: players simply wouldn’t stop abusing the LEGO construction mechanics to build giant phallic objects.
The sheer volume of penis-shaped monuments forced NetDevil to pour money into active moderation, and even try to create ‘dong detection software’ to automate the process. Players tried to conceal their structures to evade filters, and NetDevil was forced to shutter the game less than two years after launch, citing ‘unsatisfactory revenue’.
Another high-profile case came from the indie mobile world, with Dong Nguyen (creator of the legendary Flappy
Bird game) announcing in 2014 that he was shutting down his game due to the guilt and stress caused by its ‘addictive’ nature and the way it brought out the worst in people. This revelation came after a number of Flappy-Bird- related assaults (and one viral murder hoax) were reported across the globe.