#15 - March 10, 2010, 6:15 p.m.
Gin helps.
Really though, I've been in this industry for awhile, and you just get to a point where you let the negativity roll off of you. I talk to enough players to know that by and large most of them still love the game. In fact, many of the haters still love the game or they would have moved on. They only get upset because it's important to them (or else they just enjoy trolling).
You can't take the venom that shows up in every public forum (whether you're talking about games, movies, politics or global warming) as an indication of the health of the entire community. I'm a gamer at heart, so I make it a minigame of never getting upset no matter what the nattering nabobs might say. It's a game I almost always win. Gin helps.
Finding good info here is one of those needle in a haystack deals. We have some exceptional posters, and their feedback makes it all worth while. If we ever get to the point where those A+ comments stop showing up, then I probably will as well. So far, it's still worth it to get a sense for what players think of the game, what problems they're having, or when they are or are not having fun.
On the flip side, whatever you guys can do to improve that signal to noise ratio is in your best interest. You want information getting to the developers as quickly and succinctly as possible. The occasional offtopic thread (like this one) isn't a big deal. Very long threads that essentially rehash the same idea over and over again are more of a stumbling block. Ranty threads with little actual information are just wasting everyone's time.
Edit: Turns out "nabobs" has no Y.