No, that’s not the problem. Not the problem that’s relevant to this discussion anyway. The problem is that people are either relentlessly telling him that they didn’t like the art or hatefully attacking him for choosing that art style. Hateful is what made him decide to close comments and not share stuff anymore. But relentless, even if polite, criticism also takes a toll.

And art style quality is subjective. I, for one, don’t think he made a mistake. If it does hurt sales, it is an objective evidence that it was a mistake commercially speaking. Which is just one dimension. He might still be happy with his decision.

Regardless of sales effect though, I think people feel entitled to be heard by him. They are not happy only with voting with their wallets, or just telling friends that they didn’t like the art style, that are making a point of going to him pointing fingers that he messed up. That’s not fine in my view even if they do not use hateful words, which a minority does. But the majority is still pointing fingers at him.

For me Ron is doing the right thing in managing all this. Stop sharing stuff, close comments, go back working on it silence. If, because of that, the game is a commercial failure, so be it. It is his risk to take. People are acting outraged no because Ron is screaming rude things back to them, because he is not. People are outraged that he just won’t change the art style at this point. That he is not pulling a Sonic on this. And I think the behavior of those people demanding change is just silly. And dangerous when potentialzed by the scale of the internet.

So good for Ron going back to silence. It will be better for him and the team. And, I think, better for the game as well.