Have you ever wondered if the hateful things you say about a video game online have any impact on the developers? The short answer is yes, they do. I can’t count on one hand the times I’ve seen people on the internet trash a game they don’t like. Sometimes it even happens in our own comment section, because people can’t resist trying to hurt someone else’s feelings.

One of the biggest offenders is the NeoGAF gaming forums, where gamers congregate to talk about everything gaming. These people are some of the most hardcore gamers out there and in a recent interview with Edge magazine, RiME creative director Paul Rubio reveals the impact that some of the hatred on that site had for his personal life.

Even so, If I had read Neogaf at the time the game probably wouldn’t exist. I spent some time six months ago going through two-and-a-half years of comments on Neogaf, and I was literally crying for two days. Partly because I just don’t understand the cruelty, but more importantly because I could see those years over those two days, and I began to understand that maybe people can love something so much that they can hate it.

So why is RiME getting so much hate? Well, it’s had a long and storied history that has upset many hardcore gamers. The game was originally announced as a PS4-exclusive title back in 2013 alongside the original console reveal. Then it was revealed that the trailer shown off during that event wasn’t gameplay. Here’s the original rumor that set off the massive chain of backlash.

First of all, I was told that the reveal trailer was all cinematic. It was faked to mimic gameplay, assets, etc. from a real game but 0% of the game was implemented. So the real challenge for the studio was to put that vision into the final game. And apparently this has been impossible to achieve. This words are a direct quote from my source about this news and the studio itself (it contains his personal opinion): “Sony required about one month ago the DEV KITs to be returned and canceled the fundings into Tequila Works, due of the game had no-sense. Basically there wasn’t a game.

It is true that Sony allowed Tequila Works to reacquire the rights to the game, which is why it’s finally coming to Nintendo Switch. Granted, that release date is coming after the PS4 release date in May, but RiME has already ticked off Switch owners by being sold at a $10 premium over other versions of the game.

I guess the point here is that maybe we shouldn’t be so harsh online with our opinions of people who are genuinely trying to create something that millions of people can enjoy. I understand people are worried about getting bamboozled by games like No Man’s Sky, which will never live up to the hype it generated, but there’s a simple answer to that. Stop. Pre-ordering. Games. PERIOD.

Will you be getting RiME on Switch?

[via NeoGAF]