Mark Darrah is a developer of video games, most recently he worked in an advisory capacity to Dragon Age: The Veilguard. In a video he says: Disappointed buyers can of course express criticism of games, but the personal attack of developers is wrong. Just because someone pays $ 70, they don’t buy the right to be cruel. The Twitch streamer Asmongold apparently feels addressed by the criticism.
This is what Mark Darrah says: Darrah was at Bioware for 24 years, worked on Anthem there and brought it over the finish line. Most recently, he was involved in Dragon Age: The Veilguard in an advisory capacity. He is an experienced producer who “completed” games.
He says in a YouTube video:
Just because someone spent $ 70 for a video game, he wouldn’t have the right to be cruel to developers and personally attack individual developers.
The anger of disappointed gamers often meet the wrong person who cannot do anything to ensure that the game does not meet the expectations of the fans. Outsiders do not know what circumstances led to the finished product with which they are dissatisfied.
When people criticize, then prefer to at the studio or the publisher as a whole. Anyone who is annoyed by Ubisoft about a game should scold and criticize them about Ubisoft. Personal criticism of developers who degenerate into harassment can also lead to complaint.
People shouldn’t underestimate their effect. The teams get exactly what players are talking about and what they complain about.
If you celebrate that people will be released in a studio because the game you don’t like did not go so well, then you cross the limit to cruelty and in principle you should raise more grace for other people.
Actually, these are all understandable points that you have to agree. Actually …
Career and life of Asmongold in 3 minutes – what is it?
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Asmongold feels addressed and sees it completely differently
Asmongold says that: One of the great critics at Dragon Age: The Veilguard, who also enjoyed the fact that bioware had to dismiss so many people, is the Twitch streamer Asmongold.
His video about Darrah’s statements means “The type really dares to say that we are wrong” and that shows the basic mood. Then someone dares to contradict us, the angry gamers. Asmongold takes out the aim of speaking for all gamers worldwide – and they are angry.
In the video, Asmongold rejects Darrah’s criticism for large parts. He says (via YouTube):
The criticism of individual people is justified if they comment “racist”. In any case, gaming developers only started the dispute because they look down on gamers.
Managers in gaming studios would earn a lot of money, so that responsibility would come and they would have to live with being attacked.
In some cases, Darrah is right that it was unfair to criticize voice actors if the false instructions had received, but generally Asmongold already sees it that “Woke developers” who broken loved ones would have earned every hatred.
If you work in a restaurant and sell lousy food, you have to live with being criticized. Only in the gaming would those responsible be stiring around regularly.
He was particularly annoying that “activists wanted to take over the media with their agenda.”
The criticism of Games is no longer about the game
What is his point? Asmongold is not really about games or gaming, with no word he responds to any gameplay mechanics, but sees itself here as part of a cultural struggle “We against the-left against right”.
From the point of view of Asmongold, “left -wing developers” had started the dispute with gamers and would now complain that they will strike back.
So he says:
It takes two people to dance a tango. You have these developers who constantly demonize players and these people are not fired. They post extremist political opinions, they look down on players, they patronize them and then you are surprised when we say EY, we don’t like that. Is that a shit joke?
In other words: “But you started.”
How is the mood in the comments? While Asmongold endeavors to agree to Darrah in some points, the comments are full of rejection. The fans see themselves in the right to personally bet against developers:
At the end of 2024 Asmongold had a self-reflecting phase after being banned and forced by Twitch to leave the PC for 2 weeks. He realized that after a few personal setbacks and the loss of his mother and girlfriend, he changed himself into the “badest-possible version” of himself. He promised improvement and admitted some mistakes. Then he turned the PC back on.
Darrah’s original video has 27,000 views. Asmongold’s reaction has 600,000 views.