Yeah, just shows they really don’t care.
And I agree, devs should not act as community managers. That doesn’t seem to go well.
But to shelter them from the actual criticism the community has doesn’t go well, either.
Oh well, guess that’s just how it’s going to be as long as players keep playing and paying.
I don’t think it’s understandable. Well, I DO, but not because of forum angst. If you are running a live service game, you have to take the bad (internet toxicity) with the good (getting paid.) Period.
When you release a finished game to the masses, you have delivered a product. There is a certain expectation that the product functions as advertised, so hopefully developers take care of any bugs etc, post release. But, as long as the finished product works, communication is sort of extra.
When you are running a live service game, it’s literally a service, more than a product. A fundamental part of providing a service is communicating with the human beings that you are serving.
Anyway, I said I DO understand, because I think the terrible communication is probably not an internet angst problem and simply a lack of staff, problem. It’s still a terrible way to manage the game. However, I’d bet cash money that the people currently tasked with “communicating” with us, would be over-joyed to have that removed from their list of tasks and given to one dedicated community manager. There is just likely a bean-counter involved, that doesn’t want to spend the money.