Epic Games: Massive Threats to Ooblets Creators are a Wake—up call for the Entire Industry
In the situation with the harassment of the authors of Ooblets, the creators of Epic Games Store did not stand aside. They defended the Glumberland studio and at the same time noted an “alarming trend”.
Recall that two developers — Rebecca Cordingley and Ben Wasser — caused a flurry of “tens of thousands” of contemptuous reviews by making a deal with the Epic Games Store. According to it, Ooblets will become a temporary exclusive in the Epic store; the latter reimbursed the amount that Glumberlands expected to earn from sales of the game in other stores. After announcing the terms of the deal, the developers faced the overwhelming hatred of the community.
Yesterday Epic Games released an official statement about this. The company saw an alarming trend in what happened with Glumberlands.
Epic Games Statement
“We at Epic Games often share our views on the gaming business and related companies. And we support the right of the entire gaming community to speak freely and critically on various topics, including Epic Games itself, our products and our store. When we all sincerely share our opinions, it means that in the end the best ideas will prevail.But the announcement of Ooblets highlighted an alarming trend.
An open, common-sense dialogue is being undermined by the malicious dissemination of fake information, including fake screenshots, videos, and technical analyses. Our partners are being persecuted, inciting the topic of hatred and threatening everyone who holds a different opinion.Epic cooperates with many developers and other partners to create, in our opinion, the healthiest and most competitive market for game stores.
We are loyal to our partners and will fully support them in solving the problems that have arisen. We say a big thank you to everyone who continues to defend and promote the concept of honest discussion in the gaming business and refrains from all kinds of insults.”
Speaking of fake information, Epic Games may have been referring to a screenshot posted online after the announcement of Ooblets. On it, developer Ben Wesser notes that gamers dissatisfied with the deal “should be put in gas chambers, although this, most likely, will not help.” Wesser has already denied the veracity of the screenshot on his Twitter. The response of the community was, in all likelihood, a fake video about how Wesser writes about “gas chambers” in the Discord channel.
Recall that Ooblets is a life simulator in which the player controls a small farm and grows creatures similar to Pokemon. The release date of the game is still unknown, although before the deal with Epic, she already had a Steam page.
Also on the topic:
