Due to the recent pandemic, many studios have suffered from delays and not being able to meet timelines and release dates. This is a persisting issue in the industries and studios are hard at work to get things back to schedule and catch up with their timelines. Players have observed a number of game delays in recent times, most of them being pushed back by almost a year. This definitely causes pain to the players, but in no way is it an excuse to go after the developers.
These developers work day and night to provide the players with the games that they desperately want to play. Sometimes, strategic delays are needed in order to not compromise the quality of the game. We have seen many such situation where the game has released in order to cross out any further delays, but the players have received an unfinished game in the process. Due to the frequency of these delays, many players have started harassing or even resorting to threatening the developers. Respawn has issued a statement regarding this issue and has told the players that they have a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy for players that threaten or harass their staff.
In a recent post on Twitter, the Apex Legends studios stated the following:
Recently, we have seen increased harassment towards members or our development team. We welcome community input, however, the line between constructive feedback and the harassment of our dev team cannot be crossed. We want to remind our players that we have a zero tolerance policy for threats and the harassment of our developers. We will take appropriate action to ensure the health and safety of our team. We love hearing feedback and will continue to work alongside our community to foster a respectful, collaborative environment, and uphold the competitive integrity of our game.
— Respawn (@Respawn) September 22, 2022
These issue do not exist for just game release, certain live service titles receive a lot of harassment too. As Respawn stated, constructive feedback will always be accepted, but players should be mindful to not cross the line which results in to harassment. Bungie showed their support by stating that standing against toxicity and harassment takes all of us working together to build healthier communities, they are with Respawn in their effort to ensure the safety of every developer.
Standing against toxicity and harassment takes all of us working together to build healthier communities. We are with you in that effort @respawn.
— Bungie (@Bungie) September 22, 2022
