I'm going to take the opportunity here to try and answer the whole "Paradox is putting the blame on their players for toxicity" thing that has been making the rounds in the community since that article from PC Gamer and some other coverage following the latest HOI dev diaries, as well as the Leviathan release.
First, and I think this has been raised by everyone who made that point before: we welcome feedback and people being critical of your games, business, and/or actions. I don't believe we've ever silenced, banned, or stopped working with someone because they were critical of us. It's not always easy, and sometimes it stings more than others. If you spent weeks (or months) working on something and it doesn't get a good reception in the community, regardless of who's right or wrong, it can really suck. We're all humans with feelings and emotions after all. But it doesn't change the fact that yes, you're welcome to be critical of us, here or elsewhere.
That being said, we have observed in recent times that some of our developers feel less eager and enthusiastic about interacting on the forums with the community. This is what was raised by
@Archangel85 in the latest HOI Dev Diary, which has been picked up in the article linked above. It's also a conversation we've had internally in the last couple of months. It's a complex topic, and I personally don't believe that it's as simple as the "
us vs. them" situation that it's sometimes been summarized to. Neither is it as simple as "
our fanbase are toxic assholes" or "
our developers are snowflakes who can't handle feedback". These certainly make for catchy headlines and good memes on Reddit, but let's try to be constructive here. There are several things into play:
- It's a vicious circle. I think the biggest value of these forums is the presence of developers active on them, to chat with the community, listen to feedback, get inspiration, answer questions, etc. I also believe that's one of the key reasons lots of you guys are active here. If devs are less present here, the forums lose some of their value, and the community rightfully gets frustrated, and maybe they're less constructive and chill, then the devs feel even less eager to be present here, etc. Until we break the cycle, it pretty much continues this way with everyone being frustrated in the process.
- It's about balance. It's fine to be critical and share constructive feedback, but if it's done with a constant negative, snarky or dismissive tone, it gets exhausting to read through it. it's the same when it comes to wild speculations and crazy conspiracy theories, or straight-up disbelief of any explanation or answer we can provide. When it eventually leads to harassment or straight-up attacks towards our staff or the community, it's absolutely unacceptable. Does this mean that all critics should be shared with a big smile and coated in honey and three layers of praise and compliments? Of course not. Does it mean people shouldn't get annoyed when we release something that doesn't match their expectations? Certainly not. Should we have less tolerance for people being overly or constantly negative and assuming by default that we're dishonest? Maybe? It's not easy to draw where the line between being critical and being toxic is, and at the end of the day, this balance, we need to find it together.
- The standards have changed. Our company is not the same as it was 15, or even 5 years ago. We're bigger, more profitable, publicly-traded, etc. Your expectations for us are not the same as they were when we were just a small scruffy Swedish studio, which is absolutely normal and fair. Our industry has also changed quite a lot, and the internet landscape and the way online conversations are handled too. You don't manage moderation the same way on Twitter, Discord, or on our good old forums. In that regard, the forums are a bit 'old school'. It is something we want to keep, but that might also need some adjustments to fit in our larger online community and ecosystem. If you're a dev who's used to how we moderate other platforms like our official Discord servers for example (where we have much stricter moderation rules because it's a platform that requires it due to its faster and more intense pace), it can be confusing to see conversations and feedback in the forums being more intense than what you're used to. Once again, there is a balance to be found there.
I think overall, we all want the same thing: forums with more active (and happy) developers, and great and constructive conversations between them and you, our most dedicated players. So, what are we planning to do?
- Ownership of the forums has changed internally to be under the direct responsibility of the Community team. That probably sounds like vague corporate lingo bullcrap, what it actually means is that it's going to more peoples' responsibility (specifically Community Developers/Managers) to spend time on the forums, care for the platform, and ensure it gets the attention and content it deserves.
- The role of the forums among our other community platforms has been formalized. Back in the days, the Paradox forums were the one core central platform for all Paradox games. But now the internet has evolved, our portfolio has changed, and while the forums remain super relevant for some of our games (namely and mainly the core PDS grand strategy titles), they're not always the best place for some other titles and communities. If you look at Cities Skylines, Prison Architect, or World of Darkness games for example, for various reasons the communities for these are more active and present in other platforms than the Paradox Forums, which often lead to these sections being rather deserted and inactive. Rather than forcing their presence there, we'd rather focus our energy and time on where these communities already are. This will most likely lead to some Paradox games not having a dedicated section on the forums in the future (but don't worry, all PDS titles will. It also means we'll be focusing our efforts on making the forums good for the community already living there (that's you!), rather than attempting to make it the perfect place for every title & community in our portfolio.
- We're going to do some adjustments to moderation. I'm being super careful with this point, and please don't go widely speculating about what this means just yet. It's still very early in this conversation, and we need to discuss with the moderation team, and people directly involved with the forums (including you). Generally, my hope is to strike that perfect balance to make the forums a bit more aligned with our community guidelines on other platforms, without losing their identity and uniqueness. It's that sweet spot where you feel empowered and allowed to be critical, and frustrated about things, but our developers still feel like they're welcomed here.
- Finally, we'll work to support more developers' presence here. The hope is to "break the wheel" of the vicious circle I've presented above if you will. We'll rely on the actions above, but also plan more dedicated activities there beyond dev diaries and the usual conversations (if you have ideas, suggestions, or expectations, let me know!)
Funnily enough, all of the above was already discussed a couple of weeks ago and isn't a reaction to the latest events. I guess the latest rightful complains and issues just showed us that we were right to identify that we needed to focus on this, and definitely helps to put it on a higher level of priority.
Damn, I wrote a big ol' wall of text. That felt weirdly good and brought back some memories from my days moderating old phpBB forums myself. Hope it provides you all with some perspective and reassurance for the future. At the very least, I hope it shows that we care and are working on improving things even if that's not always obvious or visible. Happy to answer questions and discuss this more, I happen to have a pretty open day for once!
