Gems Of War - Bullying, Harassment, Exploits.

Hi everyone. This will be long but it needs to be...

It is with a heavy heart that I've come to this forum today to express my deep concerns for a game that I've been playing now for 3 years. Things are happening that are going unchecked by the developers or simply brushed under the carpet.

Everything started a while ago when they introduced an in-game Global Chat window.

(This game is intended for teens & up, before I forget to mention it later.)

For months now there has been consistent daily bullying &/or harassment by many various people, against many various people. The developers introduced a "report" function but if they do ban people, it's normally for an hour or a day, and so most of the time,
unless a person sees their email about the ban, they probably don't even know it happened.

It's a very unsafe place for children because the Global Chat often resorts to sexual content or drug related conversations. It goes unchecked.

There are no moderators.

The bullying is extensive. I reported someone yesterday along with screenshots of the chat, to the developers, and the response was "I see no evidence of bullying" so I had no choice but to copy & paste to them the very definition of Bullying from Wikipedia.
The person I reported was a very high level player in one of the top 10 Guilds.

I run a Guild & I'm proud of the well-oiled machine that it is, I'm protective of my members & treat them all like family. There is never any animosity, I would never allow it. One of my members was severely bullied, my whole Guild was attacked, we were
harassed, all because one of my members took 1st place on a high stakes prize leaderboard. He spent real money on the game (as did the bullies) to be able to reach that feat & he continued as far as he could until time ran out on the event, because it was
his money, why should he be stopped from playing? The bullying was so bad, it made him quit the game completely which was an extremely sad loss to all of us. He's a veteran with 4 years invested in that game. But the devs saw 'no evidence of bullying.'

The people involved were attempting to hijack Gems Of War by cheating. They were using the game's own mechanics, exploiting them, then harassing players who defied their efforts. Basically, it was an event that takes place in a rotation of a month, so it's
a regular event. They TOLD people not to play past a certain score level so that the top 4 #1 people can get their High Value Prize. The message was this: If you do not comply, we will rain down all hell on you & your Guild. My Guild member took that #1 spot
because why shouldn't he? He's skilled & awesome enough to do it & claim that personal victory! And what's even more awesome, he played it fair & square.

The developers are not even understanding that all of this is wrong, it's not how games should be, people should not intimidate, bully, harass, and threaten other people, people should not use exploits or cheat their way to the top.

In the email I received from the developers today in response to my bullying report, I was victim shamed! They accused me of starting a conflict! The conflict was already there, I watched it happen over a period of 10 hours and eventually I just said to
one person "Quit the bullying, it's just a game" - and that is what the developers considered as ME starting a conflict.

There must be many of you out there that play this game and are tired of the bullying etc that happens. So I'm asking for support here because something needs to be done to:

1: Keep the bullies in-check

2: Keep the developers in-check

3: Make it a safer game for our children to play

I hope you all can see that what has been happening is not right, it needs attention, it needs to be fixed & I appreciate any support from you. This has gone on far too long but the last straw is when the devs really don't mind exploits/cheating.

:)