Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon chimes in and agrees
There are a staggering amount of internet users who believe that they can say anything they want or act any way they choose thanks to the anonymity that the platform offers. Unfortunately, this kind of behavior — even when it's just a joke — can have real world consequences, oftentimes for the people these acts are aimed at.
Tekken 8 Director Katsuhiro Harada took the time to respond to a silly threat that was hurled his way by a fan on Twitter last night and pointed out how threats — even when they're made in jest — can actually negatively impact fighting games, the community, and event appearances.
This all started when a Twitter user addressed Harada directly in a tweet with your run-of-the-mill character demand for Tekken 8. The fan wants to see Eddy make a return in the upcoming game, and they made such a request with some fairly intense wording.
"I swear to f*** if we don't get Eddy in Tekken 8 I will hit [Harada] with a Burning Hammer," wrote the fan. Now, for those unaware, " Burning Hammer" is a wrestling special move that was introduced into King's move set in Tekken 5.
Obviously, this tweet is meant to be a joke and not a serious threat, despite being worded in such a manner. It's highly unlikely that this user actually intends to go to an event where Harada is and grapple him like King from Tekken simply because Eddy hasn't been announced for Tekken 8.
However, what this silly threat does do is act as a perfect opportunity for Harada to explain how even tweets like these can have real world impacts on the fighting game community.
"When people make these silly threats, I and everyone at FGC suffer the following losses (See attached image)," said Harada to begin his response.
The general gist of Harada's message here is that when people make threats online or harass video game developers — again, even when it's just a joke — it can impact several different aspects of the games themselves and the community. For example, if a developer like Harada is scheduled to attend an event like a tournament or an expo, these kinds of threats can make it so that the event organizers are forced to increase security, which increases the cost of running the whole thing.
Additionally, increasing these costs can impact event-goers, and in worst case scenarios the event organizers can even ask the developer to cancel their attendance to the event entirely.
Going even further beyond this, Harada explains that these kinds of threats can even make it so that the higher ups call for the cancellation of the content being demanded — even when it was already scheduled to be included in the game. Essentially, it sounds like Harada is saying here that, using this particular example, a character like Eddy could be cancelled and not added to a game like Tekken 8 even if he was originally planned to be in due to this kind of online harassment.
In general, Harada notes that the more people excessively make these kinds of demands in this manner, the more "the motivation of the development staff will decrease rapidly." He also says that acting in this way makes it so that the things fans are demanding become far less likely to actually come to fruition.
You can read Harada's full statement below.
Harada's response:
"When people make these silly threats, I and everyone at FGC suffer the following losses (See attached image).
"(1) The event operator overreacts and increases security, which increases operating costs and increases the burden on the players attending the event. In the worst case, the event management will request me to cancel my attendance at the event.
"(2) Company founders, board members, and lawyers 'Don't like to be intimidated,' so they ask me to Cancel inclusion in the game, even though, for example, the specification or character under threat 'Should have been included in the game in the first place.'
"(3) If the person making these threats uses the word 'We' instead of 'I' to represent the fans, the probability of the two aforementioned disadvantages occurring is increased (Many of them don't understand this. I do not adopt the views of those who use 'We' when expressing their opinions. It is up to Development Team to decide whether the opinion is majority or minority, and the person expressing the opinion says, 'Everyone around me says so! (at most 5-6 people around me)' is irrelevant).
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"By enthusiasts behaving excessively, repeating these words and actions, or Fake information and hoaxes, or Threats, the motivation of the development staff will decrease rapidly, and as a result, the requests of enthusiasts will be far from being realized," Harada concluded.
When people make these silly threats, I and everyone at FGC suffer the following losses (See attached image).
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) August 10, 2023
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(1) The event operator overreacts and increases security, which increases operating costs and increases the burden on the players attending the event. In the worst… pic.twitter.com/21dfMItVKe
If you think this might just be a knee-jerk reaction from Harada or that he might be overreacting, you're incorrect. Harada's response was further backed up by Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon, who retweeted the post with an "Amen 🙏🏻" to let fans know that he fully endorses it.
Those who are familiar with Ed Boon likely know that he deals with a ton of online harassment as fans demand characters be added to any and every game he's developing. Honestly, Boon might be the fighting game developer who receives the most harassment, so he certainly knows a thing or two about how all of this works.
Amen 🙏🏻 https://t.co/doUqcMnAOe
— Ed Boon (@noobde) August 10, 2023
The moral of the story here is that the next time you have the urge to make a strongly worded demand to a fighting game developer or even threaten them (even as a joke), you should probably think twice about it.
These seemingly harmless tweets and comments could actually result in very real consequences, including seeing the very content you're demanding be cancelled and never make it into the game.
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