i actually agree with the fact that badspot shouldn't have been obligated to moderate the game but i think he forgeted up by sort of marketing it to children. blockland was never explicitly a kids' game, but it did have some marketing that made it appealing to kids.
to be fair, a lot of it probably couldnt have been helped, kids like legos.... but he should've have had a stronger disclaimer in regards to the lack of moderation and the very 18+ community.
from what i can gather, he was only up front about the fact he can't really moderate people's servers and that it would've been difficult to enforce rules when confronted by an upset parent, and was really crass about it too (badspot's mailbag).
after such incidents he should have been clear that this game is not moderated, not meant for kids, and that if you want your kids to be able to play it, the moderation is on your shoulders, he should've have put a disclaimer, written in layman's terms. of course it wouldn't mitigate the entire problem, because a lot of us were secretive about it. my mom is slightly nuts and would've actually cut the internet off altogether if she found out the type of community this game had.
however it would've been more professional on badspot's part. the game should have been kept within its own crowd and never should've had children mixed in at all.
personally i also wouldn't hold this against badspot though, he was probably overwhelmed or some stuff... this was also during a time where censorship, kids using the internet, online moderation and even video game ratings were relatively new. nobody really understood what the internet even was.
as for the game dying... Blockland really is wasted protentional. i think the game was given up on a little too quickly... but i also do not blame badspot for "giving up" or just feeling completely exhausted with the games' existence. i definitely cannot speak for another person but this is just what i assume after watching him glue and tape BL back together for years: it seems like it was a passion project, but the passion fizzled out before it could be improved upon and reach its full protentional without content created by the community.
i really don't wanna call him lazy, because i dont know how much bullstuff this madman had to endure to actually get the game barely functioning. despite the fact BL had small development team, i believe the first few years were solely badspot's creation and he took a majority of the work.
as an artist, i completely understand getting chained to large projects and just abandoning them because there's either no hope in fixing it (like it would be easier to scrap and start over) or you just burned yourself completely and spend years not even touching that same hobby.
i also recently started to delve into video game development and i absolutely cannot believe the actual hell developers go through. it's like all the torture of creating art (the insecurity, indecision, motivation issues) but now bundled with technical problems which is a recipe for immense suffering... and the games i make are stupidly simple.
i cannot imagine or comprehend the kind of patience required to develop a loving 3D sandbox with online multiplayer, maps, lighting, add on support, saving data, etc. no wonder he's batstuff insane
video games are art, and blockland seems like a compulsive sketch, which is absolutely raw and beautiful... but some of those sketches never become paintings. you can try to make them into paintings, but you might end up with a mess of paint all over your beautiful sketch and you just say "forget it, the next painting will be better." Putting the sketch away or allowing someone else to work and build off of that sketch sometimes happens (BL rebuilt, brickadia, etc).
of course being creative can be rewarding and fun, and even an outlet for mental illness, but it can also 100% become a form of self torture.
