Player harassment is becoming a major issue for developers – Fortnite

Toxicity in the video game industry has long been a major industry problem. Players can very easily insult each other during a game, on social networks or even on a Twitch chat. This time, however, the issue was raised by game developers who many say that harassment from different communities is serious and is not to be taken lightly.

The gaming industry plagued by players’ harassment of developers

A Survey of the State of the Gambling Industry was recently conducted by Axios and the results are quite disturbing. Indeed, more than 2,300 developers were surveyed for the occasion and, among them, more than 75% said player harassment was a problem ” serious »and even ” very serious “.

Even if they have not all been the target of insults or threats, they are nevertheless nearly 40% admit to having already been victims of such remarks. It is a phenomenon that also seems to mainly affect individuals who are not men or who belong to the LGBTQ+ community, although the male sex is not spared either.

According to the results of the survey, nothing turns out to be a pretext to insult the developers, whether it concerns a delayed game release, a modification of a feature or even the development of the plot rather than the style of fight. Some companies take this issue very seriously and thus alerted their community to what it was encouraging to go after their developers, as was for example the case of Respawn Entertainment last September. Others go further even taking legal action against Internet users responsible for the threats. However, a fifth of respondents said their employer had done absolutely nothing about it.

Among the comments collected, some say: I received death threats and they contacted my family on social media, but the company ignored my concerns. Although developer harassment has been going on for over a decade now, the phenomenon has been amplified in recent years because of social networks. It is indeed very easy for a player to get in touch with his victim via Twitter or Reddit for example.

Faced with this recurring problem and the inaction on the part of certain companies, more and more developers are leaving the video game industrywhich could have a strong impact on the industry in the years to come.