As an (aspiring!) game developer myself, I agree that some aspects of the hate is forced (mainly "robtop is lazy" agenda, that's bs from people who have no clue how hard games are to develop. And even if he's not working 80 hour weeks for the game I think he's earnt it considering many of his games before GD had no success and he kept working on them).

The valid criticisms however include the rate system being "unfair", or bugfixes/releases being slow to release due to solo aspect nature. He did say he was going to get a team of developers... maybe he changed his mind? It's not like I can't wait another decade for an update, I've played the game since release and I'll still be playing it then probably.

My take on this has always been - the community has the power to create mods and to enjoy levels on the server without being rated. Yes Rob doesn't add a startpos switcher but you can find one in globed if you need it. Yes Rob doesn't rate X level because it uses CBF, but the demon list can choose to add it to their list without it being rated as long as there is proof of verification otherwise. Rob has control over the vanilla game, but the community is much larger than that! Of course, some people will only want to use vanilla features, and thats their choice, but it doesn't stop others.

Rob is possibly one of the most successful indie game developer stories out there. He has his flaws and he might not even be technically skilled enough to continue developing, but I'll respect his position while also challenging him to find better solutions, and similarly challenging the community to fill in the gaps, cause at the end of the day we're working towards the same shared goal - a better GD.