TOFU

The thing that confuses me about the whole TheBurntPeanut and DeadByDaylight situation is that a gaming community seems genuinely surprised that a content creator was given things to help showcase a game. For some perspective, it can cost anywhere from $10K to $100K+ to get a creator of that size to play your game, run advertisements, or make an appearance at a convention. The fact that this game received a massive influx of fresh eyes is a win for everyone involved. If I were the Community Manager, I would have done the exact same thing: make sure the creator had an enjoyable experience and give them every opportunity to showcase the game to their audience. That’s just good community management and marketing. What bothers me more is how quickly the conversation turned into personal attacks and some pretty serious accusations about someone’s character. If you’ve ever watched TheBurntPeanut, you know his humor can be edgy. He occasionally walks that line of saying questionable things for the sake of comedy. You don’t have to enjoy his humor, and it’s perfectly reasonable to criticize something you find inappropriate. But criticism and turning someone into the target of an online mob are two very different things. Serious accusations deserve serious consideration, context, and evidence. They shouldn’t be casually thrown around because someone dislikes a creator. From the outside looking in, some of this backlash feels less about the game itself and more about resentment toward a creator who has found success. That’s a strange amount of negative energy to carry around. I genuinely think some folks would benefit from sitting down and asking themselves why this situation has made them so angry. You can dislike a creator. You can disagree with how a developer handles its community. You can even criticize the decision to give someone special treatment. But none of that requires attacking someone’s character or treating their success as something they should apologize for. And to anyone preparing to respond with hate or accusations they can’t substantiate, maybe take a moment to consider whether that energy could be better spent enjoying the games and communities that brought us all together in the first place. Gaming is supposed to be fun. Let’s not lose sight of that. Now give me back my raccoon memes and clean up my timeline!