My initial thought was that the quoted statement was an interesting (as in quite strange) take on things for someone who joined the forums around the time of VT2’s release. It seems that you didn’t engage in the forums until DT’s release though, which makes more sense when posting this.
As a lot of people has mentioned, it’s obviously not ethical, moral or legal to reach out to individuals with death threats and it’s even a bit worse if it’s to a non-public person on their private account, home address, etc. If you’re a private individual or a public person, it’s just not okay.
My guess is that the people entertaining such practices aren’t exclusive to the gaming communities but are, frankly, disturbed individuals that get a feeling of power or accomplishment by acting in that way (anonymously). It’s probably the biggest downside of the internet and anonymity in my opinion.
For Fatshark the quote the above sums it up well. For context they fail at all three points for the most-part. I’m not saying that they’re doing it intentionally or that any specific person is to blame, but I dare say they don’t only fail at those points but that they are repeat offenders (as a company). This ties in to my comment about when you joined the forums. This is not my first rodeo and I’m not alone in being stupid for purchasing another of their games at release.
I don’t know what the personal inboxes of employees look like, but on the official forums and Reddit the critique is for the most-part aimed at the company. Some critique has been directed at Martin Wahlund, the CEO, some have been directed at the Victor Magnusson (context: the interview in Corren late December) and Hedge has received some flak for a few statements that were made post-release (for the most part the majority of the community is rather protective of the CMs).
I don’t know the details of the survey they based the article on, but it did give me vibes similar to the statement of the producers(?) of the Witcher (tv series) contra the statement from Cavill concerning the fan base. One interpretation was “toxic community” and another interpretation was “devoted fans that feels let down”.
Going back to Darkide. Obviously Fatshark is running the show and making all the final decision about the product. But. If you market a product in a certain way, release a product radically different from what you marketed, don’t address it, release the product in a very unfinished state, fail to communicate about it, while failing to address the unfinished product you release interviews about how happy you are about the state of the product, then you don’t get to blame the community.
It’s not rocket science and it’s definitely not a fire that was started by a loud minority within the community. @Dizzy721 You should re-visit this topic in 6 months and see if it aged well. I mean that sincerely.