Lately there has been quite a lot of negativity around the gaming industry, with many developers receiving abuse from their "fans" that went way beyond acceptable criticism.

In order to push back against that deplorable trend, The Guardian’s Keith Stuart encouraged his fellow gamers to use the hashtag #welovegamedevs on Twitter, in order to send those that make the games we play and love some well deserved appreciation.

The hashtag has since hit the trending list in quite a few countries and has been matched with outpouring support by many gamers.

Finally, many developers decided to join in as well, some thanking the fans for their love, others expressing love of their own for colleagues and sources of inspiration. Below you can see a list of many of those tweets and messages, from developers you probably know.

PlayStation UK:

#WeLoveGameDevs is trending. Be rude for us not to get involved, right? Who you loving?

Xbox UK:

For all those amazing moments. The hours spent gaming in ever changing playgrounds. Thank you #welovegamedevs

Xbox Jobs:

Well, shoot, of course you know that #welovegamedevs! And we're always looking for more to love! xboxjobs.com #WorkInGaming

Insomniac Games:

Seeing the awesome tweets to us hashtagged #welovegamedevs is humbling & inspiring. Thank you all, so much. #welovegamefans

Thank y'all so much for the #welovegamedevs mentions. Just know that your passion and support always, ALWAYS keeps us doing what we love. <3

Blizzard Entertainment:

Thank you to the players who support us & other game devs who inspire us! We <3 games & we <3 you! #WeLoveGameDevs

Bethesda Softworks:

Nothing inspires us more than having you appreciate our games. Thanks for all the love! #welovegamedevs and thanks @BGS_Devs @idSoftware @machinegames @ArkaneStudios @BattleCry_devs @tango_gw_en & @TESOnline for your amazing work #welovegamedevs.

Guerrilla Games:

Thank you for all the kind words on #welovegamedevs. We love you back and feel very blessed with such awesome fans!

Ninja Bee Games:

#welovegamedevs because of the remarkable things they do, often chasing gigantic dreams on miniature budgets.

The Behemoth:

Thanks for all the warm msgs w/ #welovegamedevs. So grateful for your support! We keep doing what we do because, just like you, #welovegames

Square Enix Collective:

A shout-out to all the #indiedev teams out there, both on Collective and off. Don't ever stop being awesome! #welovegamedevs

Arc System Works:

@MDKII Nothing better than passing the torch forward from the developers who inspired us to develop games too. : ) /fistbump #welovegamedevs

Drew Thaler - Naughty Dog Programmer:

#WeLoveGameDevs: Games that made me play. @WarrenRobinett's Adventure. @PitfallCreator's Pitfall. Art Canfil's Taipan!

#WeLoveGameDevs Games that made me fly. @Nintendo's Super Mario World. @phoenix_rie's Skies of Arcadia.

#WeLoveGameDevs With my son: @notch's Minecraft. @ChAIRGAMES Infinity Blade. @hellogames Joe Danger. @DrinkBoxStudios Mutant Blobs Attack.

#WeLoveGameDevs Games that made me think. @Jonathan_Blow's Braid. @TheQuinnspiracy's Depression Quest. @jasonrohrer's Passage.

#WeLoveGameDevs Games that fought back. @SonySantaMonica's God of War, God Mode. @Naughty_Dog's Uncharted 1, Crushing.

Doug Holder - Naughty Dog Game Designer:

Seeing #welovegamedevs reminds me of how much I love to make games. Inversely #welovegamers

Hideki Kamiya -  Platinum Games Creative Director:

Lots of messages with #welovegamedevs Thanx!! XD

Ashraf Ismail - Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag Game Director:

Starting the day with #welovegamedevs as a trending hashtag, great day ahead me thinks! Thank you! : )

Thank you to @EpicGames and #unrealengine for giving me my 1st taste of releasing a game #CheckmateMod #welovegamedevs

Thank you to @EA for starting my professional career on @EASPORTSFIFA #welovegamedevs

Thank you to @Ubisoft @UbisoftMTL for allowing me to be a part of @assassinscreed - most gratifying experience in my career #welovegamedevs

Ken Levine - former Irrational Games Creative Director:

Thanks to @FiraxisGames for two games I've literally played my whole adult life. #welovegamedevs

Thanks to @Valve for re-defining narrative in games and changing the world with Steam. @welovegamedevs

Casey Hudson - Former Producer and Director of the Mass Effect series:

I’ll cast a #WeLoveGameDevs to my friends @BioWare, who taught me so much over the years.

As a player, my #WeLoveGameDevs goes to @Warren_Spector, Chris Jones @BigFinishGames, Ken & Roberta Williams, and the devs of Starflight!

Scott Hartsman - Trion Worlds CEO:

Thanks @rob_pardo, @notch, and @duvalmagic and teams for games I've enjoyed way too much #welovegamedevs #gamedevsloveotherdevsgamestoo

Ethan James Petty - Watch_Dogs Scriptwriter:

#welovegamedevs #weloveyoutoo . Most of us are devs because we love games / gamers / game devs too!

Amy Hennig - Former Creative Director of the Uncharted series, now working at Visceral on a Star Wars game.

So nice to wake up to so many kind messages this morning. Thank you all! #welovegamedevs #weloveyouback

Cliff Bleszinski - Boss Key Productions CEO:

What a nice thing to check the Twitter feed this morning and see the #welovegamedevs hashtag. We love you all back, except the mean ones! ; )

Robert Bowling - Robotoki President:

Thank you @Respawn @DoubleFine @Bethblog @CAPYGAMES @SupergiantGames for giving me so many moments of happiness.

Sean Slayback - Respawn Entertainment Game Designer:

Oooh I like this #welovegamedevs action. @devolverdigital @RockstarGames @WeArePlayground @UbisoftMTL and many more!

I shouldn't forget to love our spirit animals @platinumgames or fellow LA devs @Naughty_Dog and @insomniacgames. #welovegamedevs

Rare wrote a whole blog post about it, listing many of its developers most beloved gaming memories. You can find it here.

It's refreshing to see some positive feelings permeating social media, for once. Here at DualShockers we write about games because we love them, and we feel the utmost respect those that often go above and beyond the call of duty to feed our favorite hobby.

It's also nice to see so many gamers on all platforms getting together in a show of unity to support the development community.

In an environment in which everyone seems to want to demonstrate that he knows better, in which finger pointing and character assassination are unfortunately every day occurrences, we want to take the chance to join in ourselves and say that #welovegamedevs.

It's a simple concept, but love tends to be like that.

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