Recently, there's been a rather interesting trend that I've noticed in the way game developers and publishers treat their customers. Perhaps not so coincidentally, it coincided with the popularization of internet trolling. Now, I'm not going to pretend that trolls haven't always existed, but in the past year or so it has gotten to be a bit excessive, especially with memes and general *chan culture finding its way into the mainstream via sites like Reddit and Facebook. Trolling has changed as well - it used to simply be things like griefing (think "that one guy who stands still in the hallway as your team tries to push through so you all die a horrible death when an enemy eventually notices").
These days, the most common method of trolling appears to be consistent repetition of intentional logical fallacies or insults with no real basis. It's exceptionally stupid (and in my opinion, not even nearly as entertaining), but it's very widespread these days, especially on any site involving video games. In a way, it should be expected - internet culture has been tied to video game culture for a long time - but it has resulted in some unexpected consequences. For every obvious trolling attempt where someone says "this game sucks, needs more ponies," there's a legitimate complaint that rabid fanboys, or worse, the developers themselves, will write off as "attempted trolling." Overzealous forum moderators like Bioware's infamous Stanley Woo eventually see anyone who isn't licking their organization's boots as a troll, regardless of whether or not their complaint had a point or a well structured argument. This ultimately impacts how companies see their customers as well.
