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When a troll starts to spout shit on some high-profile and influential site on the internet, you have a problem. It’s a very thorny problem because even discussion about the fact that it is a problem is license for the rest of the internet to start trolling you.

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Firstly, gamers aren’t very nice people. Yes, you. You are not a very nice person. Statistically speaking. By which I mean, independent game developers get more nasty shit from gamers than they get praise. Right now you are preparing to lecture me about how I talk to customers, or how I deserve to be broke and unsucessful. If you’re feeling particularly sanctimonious you’ll tell me you’re never going to buy any of our games again. If you’re especially spiteful you’ll also tell me that you were about to buy one of our games (for a dollar! ho ho), but now you’re not going to.

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If only Phil had kept his mouth shut, we say. If only Phil hadn’t fed the trolls, we intone. If only.

If only.

F*ck that! Phil Fish, you f*cking told them what you thought. You told them how you felt. You told them the actual score. What was actually going on. The internet however decided it didn’t want to hear it, because the internet is mob and the wisdom of crowds is inversely proportional to the square if its size. But deep down we all know, really, that Phil Fish was right. He said what we were all thinking. He said what we want to say. But you can’t do that. It’s taboo. It’s censored! Not allowed.

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And lastly, the worst, most hideous truth at all, and there’s a bit of history behind it.

You are worthless to us.

What? Did he just say that? I? Your f*cking customer? You just said your customers were worthless! F*ck you!!!!11!1!! I’m never buying anything from you again! I’m even going to uninstall all your games you ignorant self-important cunt! How dare you speak to me, your customer, like that?

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Once upon a time, back in the early 2000s or so, games would sell for about $20 or so. Some developers did really well at that price point – I mean really well. Most of us didn’t do that well, and made beer money, but we carried on making games anyway because that’s what we liked to do, even if nobody wanted them. When we got a customer we were able to treat them like royalty. Apart from there not being that many of them, twenty bucks is a pretty reasonable chunk of money and you should damned well expect it to work properly.
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Then Steam came (and to a lesser extent, Big Fish Games).

Things changed fast. So fast that in other industries it would have been seen as a cataclymically disruptive event. The upshot of it is, within 5 short years, the value of an independent game plummeted from about $20 to approximately $1, with very few exceptions. Steam is great! You can sell loads of games! But only if they’re less than $10. Technically Valve don’t actually dictate the prices we charge. Actually, they do. Utterly. It’s just not talked about. In fact technically, I don’t think anyone’s allowed to talk about it.

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Now you’re worth $1 to us. If you buy every one of our games, you’re worth $5. After Valve and the tax man and the bank take their cuts, you’re not even worth half a cup of coffee. So, while we’re obsequiously polite and helpful when you do contact us for support, even if it’s just the same old “please install some actual video drivers” response, you really should be aware that you are a dead loss. Even if you buy everything we ever make again. Even if all your friends buy everything we ever make again. You just cost us money. Not just fictitious, huge-piles-of-filthy-lucre indie-game-developer who made-it-big money. All our money. We barely scratch a living, like most indie game developers. You quite literally cost us lunch because the shop sold you a computer with broken software on it.

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But we’re not allowed to say it, because it makes customers feel bad. Customers all think they’re worth everything in the entire world to us. The funny thing is, you are. Without customers, we’re dead in the water, homeless and living in a cardboard box outside Berko sewage plant. But individually, you’re like ants. And all of developers secretly know it and don’t talk about it. You’re not worth supporting. It’s far, far better to completely, totally ignore support, if you want to make a living.

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I’ll show you where they do add up – on Steam, on the App Store, on Big Fish, on Google Play. That’s where all of the money is going these days, great sucking, black holes, spewing out tat on their event horizons and hoovering up pennies from wallets worldwide. You can yell about how important you are into the black hole if you like. No-one cares. You can “take your money elsewhere” and “never buy another product from you again, EVER”, and the black hole will continue to treat you exactly as you deserve – with impassive, voracious, inexorable silence, and still ever-growing. Because you’re worthless.

Does anyone think we wanted it to happen this way? Seriously?