Quick reminder: "that dragon, cancer" is a game/interactive fiction about a child dying of cancer and his parents. Game got kickstarted, got much coverage and was released on steam.....

steam, steam never changes....

..... well, needless to say that the game got a lot of critics from steamers on its forums for various "reasons" (price, religious POV, "it's not a game", bio story, etc....).....

The battlefield is there:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/419460/discussions/

And you just created the second battlefield some minutes ago .

So?

Just some usual steam users bashing....

Well people are going to have opinions.
I mean GOG has, among others, Bradley.

It looks like there are some upset people who don't understand or appreciate the game, art, expression or life.

Some people may have gone through a similar experience and would like to relate to it in a game. I'll raise my had there. I've spent a lot of time in a hospital with my son. He won't be able to walk again for a month and have limited mobility for almost the whole year in a few months -- surgery #6 for a boy of the age of 6. His 3rd birthday was celebrated in pain, lying on a bed. And playing a game on my own and working through someone else's pain and joys sparks something grand in me. It's a piece of sadness mixed with love. (I often think of the sadness-mixes in that Pixar movie that came out recently)

I have a friend who's a gamer who has lost a few very-grown children through miscarriages. He wouldn't touch this. He likes to be happy and he disdains sadness. And that's what works for him. That's okay.

What should have happened on the Steam forums is one person help the OP understand that the game isn't for them, and then move on. Instead, there's infantile name-calling and people throwing irrelevant opinions around. That's okay, I guess. It's just not a good read.

I hope to see more games dealing with deep, personal issues like That Dragon, Cancer. But I won't necessarily play them if I don't care or it would hurt too much.

Just imagine Bradley reproducing on GOG forums like the Gremlins :o)

PS: back to OP with just a comment I saw to illustrate that goes beyond the usual game "review":
"maybe you should have spent time with your dying kid instead of spending those years attempting to profit off his death" I'm raising my hand here as in my list of potential projects, I have one that deal with cancer (and personal experience thus) but with a very different angle/style than with "that dragon cancer".

So when I read the various comments/posts, I'm really asking myself if it's worth doing it (in terms of time and money) if it ends up like that....

Actually i'm going to eco the "so?" that was said on this thread. Here's what i think it will happen, this people will make a big deal about it even to the point to harass the developer, this will generate attention to the game/dev and the game will sell even more because people will be curious about the game or feel sorry about the situation.

Artistic people deal with things artistically. The parents were people and were dealing with their suffering and their child's suffering through artistic expression. They spent time with their kid, too. But they also spent time working through their hardships.

And if you're looking to do a project like that, do it! It won't be the next Call of Duty, but that's not what you're looking to do. So color the world a bit! I wishlisted it. I totally forgot about that game until I was directed to it. :)

What do you call an individual without an opinion? You? :p

I have an opinion about a lot of things, but not about this particular game.
I'd never heard of it before this thread, so that proves once again "there is no such thing as bad publicity".

Criticisms
-People shouldn't be making money out of children's deaths
-Religion, so its bad
-Not a game, so shouldn't be on steam
-No mechanics?

Counter-stuff
-''Hate speech''
-Gamers need to grow up

Doesn't really seem very different from the Gone Home or Dear Ester stuff. Generic biased and obviously wrong arguments fighting against eachother.

I'm glad you took notice I was messing around.

Not once in my life did I think: Hey, you are doing just fine right now. How about a downer to ruin the mood.
As if the internet wasn't full enough of cancer sob stories.

Really? This is criticism? I thought Steam hosted all kinds of non-games and games alike, even hosting coal! Were they living under a rock? Not implying that the aforementioned game is not a game.