Tell that to the Fornite devs. And let's see what happens with underperforming exclusives, they are going to be in a funny place.

About this 2, they acted like a pair of idiots who let money go to their heads and seem to have forgotten they still need the game to sell, while nobody needs to buy their game. Don't know what else they expected to happen with that attitude and the way some people behave in the web. It's like going to a sleeping dog, kicking it and whine it bit back.

The press does tend to side with devs, entitled was the least thing thrown around after the Mass Effect 3 ending debacle. It took weeks for them to change their tune as they realized it didn't die down.

Well? Even if he did (which I don't think he did), Ooblets devs called people who don't like Epic Store to be "immature and toxic" right in their initial blog post. Are you saying me that them "burning of the consequences" (aka getting toxic answers in response) wasn't deserved?

This again...

3a) Tim Sweeny shows up and cheers on the announcement, causing even further ire because it makes it clear that the announcement was pure "FSCK you, got money" rather than something in good humor.

Now that you mention it.. when was hello.jpg created? I know the site launched in 1999 but the photo could be older than that?

I'm going to use the force to try and guess what the link is about.

Could it be related to this? If it is are Valve paying off shills on forums and youtube to do this or is it another case of someone sending threats to themselves or videogame journalists causing controversy again?

Welcome to planet Earth! Enjoy your stay!

I doubt you have to put people on the Internet on payroll for them to act this way. Just do something lots of people oppose on a large enough platform and you are bound to get threatened, namecalling and your fair share of graphic descriptions of what you or your family members deserve. It would just be weird if Valve decided to get their hands dirty when they can get the same result by just drinking coffee and wait.

These guys are poster children for poor PR with how they handled the initial complaints. However nothing justifies the hate they received in return, and the constant whinging about the Epic Store is ridiculous.

In short the internet sucks and brings out the worst of humanity, as usual.

Let me metaphorically sweep my arm across the table like a cat clearing a mantelpiece, and explain my thoughts as follows:

All the developer of Ooblets had to say was something along the lines of, "Please understand. Due to Epic offering us financial security, we have chosen to take a one year exclusiviity period. In due time, the game will release on other stores. But this is a year we will use to keep our buisness running and make the game greater than it already is. Thank you for your patience."

What they instead said was something along the lines of, "Don't get angry at us for taking an easy way out, think of the starving fish in the Sahara Desert!", which is just deflection and whataboutism; already bad enough.

Then following this, several valid points are bought up in the Discord; Epic has naff currency support so X can't buy the game, Epic has poor controller support so Y can't even play it due to disabilities, to which the developer responded in kind with words which if you read between the lines are "Screw you, got mine". Sure, one could suppose these were altered screenshots or staged, but I do have my doubts for a simple reason. Peruse the responses as you see fit.

See, the reason I feel that the screenshots can be held as credible, nay even plausible is that about a day into this drama, Tim Sweeny himself parts the clouds and bellows, "That condesending announcement was rad! Way to patronize the userbase!

Now, there's one last little thing to drop before I close this out. The developer had a patreon running, with over 1000 members before this exclusivity was announced. That at a minimum was 1000 dosh, but was likely much more dosh.
It is perfectly valid to suggest that one could not keep a programming team going on that kind of dosh, but considering what they had so far, they could have thought well to scale back.

The developers responded in a way which soiled the bed, and now this is their mess to clean up; they have no reason to act like the victim here. As the old urban adage went, "if you can't take the heat, don't play with fire."

1st off BIG BIG APOLOGY HERE: I didn't know the FULL story and thought it was just outrage mobs being outrage mobs attacking devs for little to no good reason. As such, i deleted that reply to you as it wasn't based on an accurate picture of what happened with that dev.

That said:

I do not think death threats and worse are warranted even though they devs acted like jerks to their clients and customers.

A bit of complaining without such threats would be ok in my eyes, though.

I can agree to that; hence my slightly sarcastic reply in the first place. I shed no tears, but I wish them no ill.

Meh. Who in their right mind take seriously death threats over the internet? The internet's anonymity makes people say all kind of stupid and exaggerated things. Personally I'd be more upset by being insulted, called stupid or something, than receiving death threats.

These devs deserve the backlash, they are the crybabies. Calling your potential customers "entitled baby gamers" and "entitled toxic gamers" is so immature. There's that saying, "the customer is always right" and these devs have no clue about its meaning. I have a feeling that they never had a real job in their life, like interacting with people face to face, and stuff like that.

So by that logic you think people who call people some names deserve death threats?

SMH

And yes, most can ignore them but that still doesn't make it right.....also in some areas that can land one in jail, and for sometimes good reason(one cannot tell who is serious with such threats or not).