Too Human Boss: Forums Destroy Society!

Silicon Knights president and founder Denis Dyack is worried that forums such as NeoGAF are destroying society. He also points out - rightly so - that forums are also used by rabid fanboys making statements based on no actual facts.

Speaking in a podcast on 1Up - he lays out his reasons for beginning a NeoGAF thread asking for people to opine on Too Human - a game that is central to the future of his company. "I was basically calling out people who had no way of assessing the game.

"All I wanted to point out to people is that this is so ridiculous."

So far, so sensible. Metal Gear Solid, Ninja Gaiden and Grand Theft Auto fanboys have in recent months flooded forums with inane outpourings prior stating in absolute terms how their favourite franchises are going to be the best games in history. These often pompous and always groundless posts have come prior to code release.

Too Human has taken a battering on NeoGAF. The majority of those battering it will not have had access to the game. (It has also, however, received unfavourable reports in previews. Dyack has blamed the fact that early showings of the game used Epic's Unreal Engine 3, which Silicon Knights is taking Epic to court over.)

While the premise of what Dyack says about folk judging games before they have played them might seem sensible, however, his execution of the point is not. Here's how he kicked off his original post - “I think it is time to draw the digital line. Too Human will be out in August and I think there is going to be a lot of trolls crying here.

"Either way when the game comes out this forum will likely be on fire. So in order to try to put it out some gasoline on this fire (sic) I will ask those interested to stand up and be counted.”

Keep that bit about gasoline and fires in mind - it will come in useful later. It does, however, appear to be a strange edit. Was Dyack saying that he wanted to quench the fire "try to put it out" but then changed his mind "some gasoline in the fire?" We don't know. We wonder if he does.

Back to the present and Dyack proceeds to enter confused lawyer-cum-philosopher mode, "NeoGAF and other forums like this that don't have good management are not only hurting society and hurting the videogame industry, they're in decline, and they need to reform quickly before people stop listening to them...

"If the moderators and people who run the site think they aren't doing any damage, they are sorely mistaken, and it's only a matter of time before something bad happens."

Let's get this straight: the ideas here are that forums (or fora) require 'good management' and that without 'good management' the forum will either (a) fail or (b) lead to 'something bad' happening (c) that something bad will either happen to the forum - it will be sued (d) that something bad will happen to society.

So, what does Dyack hope to gain? "I did it in the hope of reforming the way people think about forums, technology and the effect on society and the integrity of journalism and what a review versus a preview and the thing Neil Postman calls 'Scientism', where people use statistics meaninglessly to affect society in very negative ways."

We're not entirely sure why statistics get a look in here; nor that Postman was tremendously hung up on them. He was more concerned with the decentralisation of information in a society that he saw as relying too much on technology and scientific method to inappropriately describe all elements of social interaction.

Here's one point he raised about Forums (back in 1996) in fact:

"However, it is possible for us to learn how to control our own uses of technology. The 'forum' that I think is best suited for this is our educational system. If students get a sound education in the history, social effects and psychological biases of technology, they may grow to be adults who use technology rather than be used by it."

Back to Denis and his explanation for the NeoGaf post, "The question I have to ask the moderators of GAF: Are you going to follow your own rules? With people making GIFs of myself that are, I would say, attacking me... why haven't 180 people been banned now? If I wanted to move in and shut that place down, do I have grounds under their own forum policy?"

Right. So, not so much about Scientism, journalism or reforming people's perceptions of decentralised information then?

Does Denis have any advice for NeoGaf? "If you're going to look at the NeoGAF forum as a non-profit organization, if it does not reform itself, it's eventually going to crumble. There's going to be a point where they step over the line where someone's going to shut them down. That would be a loss for everyone."

We assume by this that he means that someone is going to take a forum to court for defamation.

In the podcast the question is asked, did he snap in starting the forum thread? His response comes in the form beloved of politicians the world over, "History's going to be the judge, ultimately", he said.

When it comes to history, however, Dyack might like to refer to once slice of it:

In September 2007, Australian software company called 2Clix attempted to sue Simon Wright, the owner of the Whirlpool forum over statements posted on Whirlpool that 2Clix claimed were false and likely to cause it serious monthly losses in revenue. Following a massively negative backlash from Whirlpool users, 2Clix dropped the lawsuit.

Aside from opening a large box belonging to Pandora by posting to a forum as popular and opinionated as NeoGaf, calling out fanboys and then retro-fitting a mixed bag of philosophy (see Dyack's references at the end of this piece) there is a wider issue.

The single most obvious issue is: what are forums for (discuss this in the SPOnG forum of course)? As far as we can see, they are for debate. This debate is - by its nature - disparate and open to intoxication as well as sense.

One thing is certain, however, if you are going to post an inflammatory opening message (remember that gasoline and those fires) you are going to feel some heat. No philosophy in history is going to stop that.

You can catch the podcast here. Move towards the last third for the goods, but be warned – you might be there a while.

We would, of course, be pleased to offer Denis right of reply at any time. That would, obviously, also be open to SPOnG forum members to comment on.

As a note, Dyack mentions several influences to his thinking, including The Essential Drucker by Peter Drucker, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins and The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks.