Ooblets devs get harassed by diaper-wearing “Gamers” after Epic Games Store announcement

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Perhaps you’ve heard by now, or maybe you haven’t but Ooblets is going to be an Epic Games Store exclusive. The cutesy sim game with Pokemon-like elements will have an exclusive PC release through Joe’s least favorite online storefront. Before we get too far into things, the deal will allow the devs, Glumberland, to guarantee that they will at least break even on their indie game.

This should be great news for anyone looking for a competitive indie market that isn’t bogged down with Steam asset flips and hentai games made with RPG Maker. Instead, we have entitled baby-“Gamers” that decided that it was OK to harass the devs through all channels available. The worst part is that Glumberland isn’t guilty of more than being a little cheeky to those that found outrage in them trying to guarantee some success.

Once the announcement hit, the dev team took to social media and Discord to throw some sarcasm at those Steam fanboys and girls that were upset. Looking at the conversations in context shows that the team was quite unfazed by those that threated to hold their non-existent purchase over Glumberland’s heads. Out of context, Glumberland kinda looks like the asshole.

That’s exactly where things went south

So word got out that team Glumberland was pushing back a little against the community. Screenshots and doctored images painted the team as flippant devs that didn’t care what the community thought. This further continued to whip up anime avatar Twitter users into a frothy range of entitlement.  How dare Glumberland want to make more money, how dare they want more control of their game?

Unfortunately, the story of Glumberland being jerks was what hit the news first. I, myself, was prepping a piece admonishing the duo, but then I saw the Medium post by Ben Wasser. In the post, Ben details the abuse that he and his wife have dealt with since last week’s announcement. They have recieved “tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands” of nasty, vile threats and harassing messages since last week.

I’d like to hope that our readers aren’t internet tough guys that are looking to verbally abuse an indie dev team. If any of you are, hopefully, you can learn to grow the fuck up. It’s fair that you can be upset that the game isn’t releasing on your preferred marketplace. You can have an open and honest dialogue about it. Everyone is entitled to their opinions but shit, can we at least look at this situation and realize that a dev finding a guaranteed revenue stream is better for us all?

Personally, I don’t care about Epic Games Store and don’t mind the platform having exclusives if it means that Steam can be less of a shitshow

On the other hand, our own Joe hates the Epic Games Store and apparently thinks the marketplace is a front for the Chinese government or something. I dunno, we argue about it a lot. Joe is an adult though, he doesn’t go onto the Ooblets subreddit and post threats to the devs because he needs to click the Epic Games shield instead of the Steam logo to buy his game. Be more like Joe.

If you’ve read Ben’s post, I’d have to agree with his primary point: there most certainly is a subculture of the gaming community that is dangerously toxic. While I’d love to see this subset excised like an infected boil, I’m not honestly sure how to remove them from the picture. To ignore them is to blame Ben and his wife for being upset at the harassment. To call those out that are harassing Glumberland is basically returning their bullshit in kind.

I’m all for airing grievances with devs. When Bloodstained’s demo first hit, I was critical of it. The game turned out far better due to everyone’s response. You should, however, be completely ashamed if you are going out of your way to threaten harm because someone online hurt your fragile little gamer feelings.

I hope Ben and his wife can quickly find normalcy and some good money when their game comes out, but in the meantime, allow me to finish how I started:

DO. NOT. HARASS. PEOPLE. ON. THE. INTERNET.  PERIOD.

What do you think? Surprised that people act the way they do? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Josh Knowles

Longtime games journalist and Florida resident. I'm a Guinness World Record holder, wordsmith extraordinaire, MOBA fan, devoted dad and husband. I'm here to spread the gospel of video games.