RARE are truly a disgusting developer.

[ʙᴜɴ.ᴇ]

Alright so, Need to get this off my chest because I have been having a right nightmare of a time recently with RARE. Let me go to the start.

I recently got back into playing Sea of Thieves with some friends, Now this game is among the worst I have played for audio cues since most everything is tied to being able to hear, ship taking on water, enemies boarding your ship, loot spawning, cannons firing, enemy spawns, etc are all heavily tied to sound cues with no visual alternative to this information. Being practically deaf I can't hear these cues and countless times have made me miss treasure my friends have heard, not to mention getting spawn camped by other players being able to sneak up on me with guns that one shot because I don't have the luxury of hearing them. List goes on with how much it negates my overall experience with the game.

Anyway I put it upon myself to do as I normally do with games with clear and distinct audio advantages and push for accessibility features to help balance the game out for everyone. Now RARE claim to be all for accessibility, but from my experience that couldn't be further from the truth for during this ordeal I have been at the receiving end of constant post deletion, muting, being spoken down to and pretty much made to feel inferior by those in charge of community moderation for RARE.

My first ban came as an immediate permanent without warning from the entire Steam hub for Sea of Thieves because aside from putting out ideas for deaf accessibility I posted once to a solo player asking if he should buy the game to play by himself with no friends, now the game is a horrible solo experience and I only recommend the game for groups of friends so I simply told him not to buy the game as its bad solo, this was met with instant permanent ban which bizarrely mentions trash talking users/studio which has never happened as seen here: https://i.postimg.cc/kgRmMS62/sotsteamban.png

I tried to appeal this weird and unnecessary ban via RARE support, only to be met with ignorance and refusal to investigate and look into it, eventually ended up with a threat to having my entire Xbox service account banned, just for appealing, (can they even do that?)

So onwards ignoring the blatant power abusing Steam mod and onto the official forums I go for more accessibility discussions. I had a thread on deaf support I made over 2 years ago which I brought back but that was instantly deleted for necro even though the thread was still relevant and my new post perfectly on topic, they did not even bother to read my accessibility request from 2 years ago because theres been not a single update for hard of hearing players in the games entire 5 year lifespan.

So I remake the thread, as usual get next to no support from others so the thread just gets lost down the pile, RARE has an accessibility request on their support which I did use in the past but after submitting all I got told was to make a thread on forums as I did. But that appears to do nothing.

Now aside from getting pretty much ignored by both players and the RARE employees that frequent the forums, there are also hand picked moderators that do not work for RARE that as you can imagine think they are above everyone else and will talk down to you and make you feel like dirt because they are untouchable. Think Steam volunteer mods but with an ego and an attitude problem.

Ok so moving on aside from having random posts deleted and been spoken down to by mods on various topics for voicing my opinion I check out the insider program forums, basically the games "PTR" and see a thread for upcoming accessibility changes, and its another narration feature because apparently its more important to have the game read to you like a childs bedtime story than making the game even baseline playable for the entire deaf community.

The game already has a plethora of features for those with visual impairments already and not even a basic feature for those that can't hear. So I post to the thread asking if there are any plans for deaf accessibility, the response? my post deleted and a 48 hour mute. wonderful!
Looking into it the person that handed out that deletion and ban was a new RARE employee of just 2 months and their only job is to gather data from the PTR to give to the developers, thats it, monkey work. Yet they are on an insanely high pedestal and love to abuse the power granted to them, oh and this person claims to be an advocate for a disabled gamers charity. Let that sink in for a moment, deleting and silencing a disabled players cry for help yet claiming to be all for disabled gamers.. something doesn't add up there does it?

So anyway after I get involved in a brief chat with this person and plead my case I am once again spoken down to and made to feel like I simply do not matter nor does my request for accessibility.

Now there was brief silence for about a week, I kept my accessibility thread up to date with new ideas and trying to keep discussion going on it in vain hope it might get any minuscule attention from the dev team but the thread kept getting no posts but my own, simply ignored and made redundant.

But today I go back to check in to see if anyone has added any feedback or suggestions to my request or if its even been seen or passed onto development, but nope. I am apparently now perm banned on that forum too for get it, Ableist slurs!

How please tell me can they justify perm banning a deaf disabled person that has been for years trying their hardest for a basic update of subtitles to the game for the reason of ableist slurs? something I get bashed with on a daily basis when I game. I am speechless.

Here is the ban message that greeted me: https://i.postimg.cc/GpknG1jr/rareban.png

So RARE, a company that claims to be all for accessibility and making their game for everyone has pretty much discriminated and banned a deaf person pleading for help for ableism of all things!

I am disgusted with RARE I truly am, I have never had this from any other developer in all my years gaming, never had a ban for suggesting accessibility, never had posts deleted asking about accessibility and never had a permanent ban from any community, especially for nothing reasonable.

TL;DR version:

I have been perm banned on two of RARES forums for no logical reason and the recent ban was pretty much discrimination on the back of abuse from their support and moderation team just because I was pushing for accessibility for deaf in a game that has a million sound cues.

[ZZZZZ]

Escrito originalmente por Here is my card:

I guess this thread will soon be locked, so prolly not much point to take a part in...

But anyhoo, I think Irene with a heart made a good answer (though I don't know who has the right to do what and all that). The only thing I am certain of is, that the bigger the company is, the bigger shredder they have at the end of the customer service. Its mostly math. Business goes hand in hand with math. One people yelling at the end of the line - it doesn't matter if it is in cause or not - silence it, if there are seven enjoying the product and bringing in the money. Do good pr, use and state good universally accepted values and keep up the appearance of a profitable company. That's just practical decent business behavior. And in case of a point, and I mean when some player has an actual point, just say hey, we can't please 'em all, sorry that this product wasn't suitable for you. That always works.

You Bun may actually have a good point on what you are trying to... make happen, but this way, or doing it in this way... its easy to make the monster and the bully out of you.

rare is actually one of the companies that says "we decide whats fun".. they dont care about any kind of complaints, they dont care if it would make them more money either

[Goose]

Escrito originalmente por CaptainG:

Escrito originalmente por Here is my card:

I guess this thread will soon be locked, so prolly not much point to take a part in...

But anyhoo, I think Irene with a heart made a good answer (though I don't know who has the right to do what and all that). The only thing I am certain of is, that the bigger the company is, the bigger shredder they have at the end of the customer service. Its mostly math. Business goes hand in hand with math. One people yelling at the end of the line - it doesn't matter if it is in cause or not - silence it, if there are seven enjoying the product and bringing in the money. Do good pr, use and state good universally accepted values and keep up the appearance of a profitable company. That's just practical decent business behavior. And in case of a point, and I mean when some player has an actual point, just say hey, we can't please 'em all, sorry that this product wasn't suitable for you. That always works.

You Bun may actually have a good point on what you are trying to... make happen, but this way, or doing it in this way... its easy to make the monster and the bully out of you.

rare is actually one of the companies that says "we decide whats fun".. they dont care about any kind of complaints, they dont care if it would make them more money either

i'm a stormworks player, our developers are like that, unfortunately.
they barely listen to the community.

[GloriousZote]

At least they aren't Blizzard, who not only doesn't listen to their players, they actively hate them.

[$2 Hero]

Nobody messes with Bun on my watch.

[chickabumpbump]

Oh they are banned, ha ha hardy ha.

Now we can get back to helping rabbit lady

[Rhila]

the game ruined by hackers.
last time i played it they took us hostages and wanted to force us to buy their cheats.

for your hearing issue.
if you have MSI motherboard or headphone from Steelseries try Nahimic app it has option for sound tracker on screen.

[AUTI5T1X]

Escrito originalmente por GloriousZote:

At least they aren't Blizzard, who not only doesn't listen to their players, they actively hate them.

I mean, to be quite fair in the case of Sea of Thieves, people have absolutely begged for PvE servers for more than two years at this point (which harm nobody in the slightest, might I add), only for Rare to completely shut down any notion of them, and to double down on their "we decide what's fun" gatekeeping arrogance as if their community doesn't get to have a say in what would make the game better.

Rare as a developer, are the embodiment of narcissism, and it blows my mind that people don't see it.

[ʙᴜɴ.ᴇ]

Escrito originalmente por chickabumpbump:

OP

I worked for Rare a long long time ago on Kinect one, I can speak for the dev side of things that people were nice but this sounds like it could be a contractor type or agency person as many people were hired back then via Volt Europe.

Honestly, dont take this the wrong way, but in the era we are in with people being more outspoken about issues....you should take it to twitter. Using a public platform, companies HATE that because it means everyone can see it and it can easily go viral.

Twitter complaints that go viral are always addressed and the companies ask people to PM them, so its hidden away again..

So go onto twitter and start ranting at them in posts, tag Kotaku or any disability groups and it gets views and clicks Rare WILL respond.

Yeah thats what I was thinking too, its not unusual for studios to outsource their support and community moderation to third parties, I am confident RARE do the same but these guys are representatives of RARE and should be taught how to treat customers not be abusive, power hungry, lack empathy and not care enough to do their job properly, but why should they when they still get paid?

I do have a twitter but I have hardly used it, might make some tweets at some point regarding this ordeal.

[Kamiyama]

Escrito originalmente por Good Night Owl:

I'm not saying RARE wasn't being unfair to you, but... You do tend to get a bit "wordy" when you're angry. Just saying.

Words are pain and the only polite conversation is when people are able to form all of their thoughts in a single sentence.

Like Donald Trump. I've never seen him use a paragraph when speaking to the public.

[crunchyfrog]

Escrito originalmente por Shiro♌:

From what I've read and understood..

You were suggesting a change to help deaf people and people like yourself, which is all fine, but that requires them to put in extra hours of work, and they're not gonna get paid any more for that.
Besides, the percentage of deaf gamers is so low that it's not worth the time for most developers, unless they're doing it to shine over the others in public.

But, what you've resorted to doing next is the bad and critical mistake.
Telling others to stop playing it or buying their games just because you've had bad experiences means a serious threat to the company, basically attempting to shut down or lower their incomes by doing so.
They have no obligation to pay you some extra money or anything just because you're deaf, and so they've decided to silence you instead.. Well, that's onto them.
They might've lost one customer, but that's nothing in comparison to how much of a damage you might've already caused with your actions.
In my opinion, they've done the right decision from the business perspective, but a completely justified decision when it comes to morale.

There's also another thing, which is.. You can't actually tell whether you were being ignored by them.
Some people may have read your suggestion and considered it, possibly even brought up to the developers, but because you have no proof of that happening, you've assumed that you're being ignored and all of your effort was in vain.

The question is.. Were you banned before you've resorted to telling people to stop paying for their products, or after you've already proceeded to suggest people to avoid their products?
Either way.. The latter makes silencing you a lot more reasonable, but doesn't make the first possibility unreasonable, as you're already being a threat to the company by actually going against them just because you've had unpleasant experiences.



To sum it up..
You've acted without thinking twice about the consequences of your actions, and if you have thought about them beforehand.. Then we just don't see eye to eye.
Your actions do seem completely unreasonable and entitled.. Thinking that they have the obligation to listen to your suggestion and act according to your likings, or I may have misunderstood it all.. I guess.
Either way.. This isn't really a discussion, is it?
It seems fishy, as if it was another rant, another one of the actions that I'd consider unreasonable.. Yet, another action to convince people to stop buying their products, but that's only if I add all the assumptions.. Which, unfortunately for you, people love to add and later on form their opinion based onto them, unless they're being proven otherwise.
I do gotta say, you're not making the situation any better by creating this thread, regardless of what was truly your intention.

If that's the case, that's VERY poor behaviour.

If they're deaf what they should have done is try getting help from other disabled gamers (like myself) or going to the guy who runs caniplaythat.com or Able Gamers.

They will likely either have advised them better or got on board with helping them get a case pushed forward.

It does speak volumes that they went to bad behaviour instead.

[ʙᴜɴ.ᴇ]

I've tried contacting Able Gamers in the past in regards to pushing for deaf support in games with heavy focus on sound cues, they don't do a thing because developers are never interested in exploring such features.

[crunchyfrog]

Escrito originalmente por 💕 𝓑𝓾𝓷 💕:

I've tried contacting Able Gamers in the past in regards to pushing for deaf support in games with heavy focus on sound cues, they don't do a thing because developers are never interested in exploring such features.

Actually they do.

I've seen them work with Blizzard to get the colour blind options in WOW. I've seen them work with Activision to get control options in Call of Duty and more.

Of course, don't assume that because you don't get results it equates to they didn't bother.

It doesn't mean that - it might mean they couldn't get results is all.

[Siluva]

Escrito originalmente por 💕 𝓑𝓾𝓷 💕:

I've tried contacting Able Gamers in the past in regards to pushing for deaf support in games with heavy focus on sound cues, they don't do a thing because developers are never interested in exploring such features.

Because they have no legal obligations to do so. They have no obligation to invest money into features that will be barely used. Yes that's may sounds awful but that's how it works, companies have no reasons to appeal to a specific cast of people unless they gain out of it.

Hell, iirc you're musician and partially deaf, you could get in touch with modders and help to develop a mod for deaf people, but instead you choose to rant about your bans (that you probably deserved) to get moral support from your simps.

You're not helping anyone with that attitude and it just show a serious lack of maturity.

[AdahnGorion]

They can ban you without reason. That is in their TOS.
This however was a very awful move by them, but I reckon they just label you as a cheater and a troll... they don´t have the resources to actually look into whom you are and why you are acting why you do (giving advice and asking for stuff)

The best thing you can do is avoid such games or be silent about their issues, unless you wanna risk accounts ofc. Vote with your wallet, don´t support them again


Personally I would also go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlp1e_ZBuoo

[ʙᴜɴ.ᴇ]

Escrito originalmente por Siluva:

Escrito originalmente por 💕 𝓑𝓾𝓷 💕:

I've tried contacting Able Gamers in the past in regards to pushing for deaf support in games with heavy focus on sound cues, they don't do a thing because developers are never interested in exploring such features.

Because they have no legal obligations to do so. They have no obligation to invest money into features that will be barely used. Yes that's may sounds awful but that's how it works, companies have no reasons to appeal to a specific cast of people unless they gain :Dosh::Dosh::Dosh: out of it.

Hell, iirc you're musician and partially deaf, you could get in touch with modders and help to develop a mod for deaf people, but instead you choose to rant about your bans (that you probably deserved) to get moral support from your simps.

You're not helping anyone with that attitude and it just show a serious lack of maturity.

Theres no possibility for mods, it needs coding into the game itself so it lines up with activation of sound files in the games data, and you don't know the full story of my experiences with rare so you can't really comment on if I deserved bans or not, quite clearly if you knew what I had been through with their lack of empathy you would see even a temp ban would be insulting not a straight permanent without prior temp bans, something only used for the very worst offences not just having an opinion or pushing for disability inclusion.

Escrito originalmente por crunchyfrog:

Escrito originalmente por 💕 𝓑𝓾𝓷 💕:

I've tried contacting Able Gamers in the past in regards to pushing for deaf support in games with heavy focus on sound cues, they don't do a thing because developers are never interested in exploring such features.

Actually they do.

I've seen them work with Blizzard to get the colour blind options in WOW. I've seen them work with Activision to get control options in Call of Duty and more.

Of course, don't assume that because you don't get results it equates to they didn't bother.

It doesn't mean that - it might mean they couldn't get results is all.

Every game has colourblind options because its so simple to integrate.

The truth is the worldwide population statistics of visually impaired to hearing impaired is about the same and by that I don't mean glasses but disabilities that can't be corrected such as colourblindness.

In fact over 1.5 billion people worldwide have hearing loss with 430 milliion having disabling hearing loss so its not like its a none issue when balancing out gaming for everyone.

Its simply that one thing is easier to implement than the other or theres poor assumption that deaf people are a small minority, its not the case at all, many people have tinnitus for example and can't hear subtle sounds, not as severe as my hearing loss but its still detrimental in enjoyment and fairness in a competitive gaming environment.

I will forever be campaigning for more deaf awareness and if I am to get banned for it, so be it.