Online harassment of developers by gamers online is not a new problem, but it’s one that’s seen increasing scrutiny over the last few weeks. But until now, law enforcement wasn’t involved.
The FBI is apparently assembling resources to help developers deal with online harassment. Apparently the harassment has become so intense, they actually approached developers back in July, according to Polygon:
“I had a meeting with the FBI in July regarding harassment,” [Kate Edwards, executive director of the International Game Developers Association] said. “They noted a rise in activity. They themselves monitor this activity, but they’re focused more on cybercrime issues like hacking and very malicious harassment.”
A spokeswoman with the San Diego office of the FBI told Polygon that the July discussion was a proactive meeting.
This isn’t a new issue. Developers and journalists both tend to get at least some degree of harassment as a matter of course. As Birch noted yesterday, a set of articles hit all at once calling the community out for this behavior, and it angered a lot of gamers, who felt they were being unfairly lumped in with the jerks.
Hopefully, the fact that the FBI now views gamers the same way they view Juggaloes should hint at the severity of the problem. Keep in mind, this isn’t something the FBI was asked to do; they contacted one of the biggest trade groups for game developers directly for a meeting about this.
Harassment really isn’t something new, but it’s something that’s gotten more intense and more hostile as time has gone on. One hopes that some quarters of the gaming community might consider a little introspection now that law enforcement is involved, instead of blaming everyone but those at fault.