Cities: Skylines 2 devs warn they may 'pull back our engagement' with community due to toxicity

The CEO of the developer of Cities: Skylines 2 has written a blog post about the growing toxicity in the game's community, and how that might potentially mean the devs pulling back from engaging with players as a result.

PC Gamer spotted the post, in which chief exec of Colossal Order, Mariina Hallikainen, writes:

"Last but not least, we have seen a growing tendency of toxicity in our community, something we have not experienced to this extent before. Not only directed towards our devs but also our fellow community members - resulting in people hesitating to engage with the community."

"In the long run, this will really hurt not only the mood and the happiness of community members but also discourage creativity and modding, something we would be very sad to see."

Hallikainen adds:

"As the mentions of this in previous entries do not seem to have moved the needle, perhaps you have a constructive way of telling us how we can improve the way we communicate with each other. Should we add more moderation or is the only option to pull back our engagement on our end? How can we make sure the community is a safe place for you to share your thoughts and hopes for the game?"

A respondent from the community replies that the problem of toxicity is bound up in the "state the game released" comparing the Cities: Skylines 2 launch to Cyberpunk 2077. That poster then notes that if the devs keep improving the game based on feedback, they will hopefully get a "redemption story for CS2 too and [toxicity] will probably will turn into praise after some time."

Steam reviews were pretty negative about Cities: Skylines 2 upon its launch, or some of them were, and they remain mixed, with a number of criticisms levelled that the game is essentially still a beta. (Alongside complaints about performance issues, and broken parts of the game mechanics).

Hallikainen replies to the above respondent:

"Toxicity and criticism are different things, I'm sure you understand that. Toxicity is threats, attacking people and being outright mean. It has nothing to do with explaining what the issues with the game you might be facing and what you wish for the devs to fix or improve on first. We don't want praise, we want a community where we can discuss with the players about the game, what is working and what is not without facing abuse."

Which is, without doubt, a perfectly reasonable request. Many of the other replies to the forum are in favor of some kind of moderation of posts, and perhaps a preapproval process for posts to eliminate those deemed toxic.

Whatever the state of a game, you can voice your disapproval without resorting to abuse, surely? But yes, this is the internet, so what should happen often doesn't...