I think what bothers me the most is this idea is that in wveryone has to put up with the virtol and not show any sign of their own frustrations. Theyve been criticized for being to PR and now criticized for not being family friendly or something.
Im used to people like Harada (tekken producer) calling people out and not taking shit from people. Im honestly surprised no one has snapped already.
I think it's more the avenue in which the response is being given. Venting in-person to friends shouldn't be seen as unprofessional, nor should posting something to a private social media account (though of course either isn't bulletproof if someone leaks something to the public).
But in this case, it's his public Twitter account, in which he himself writes "Pokémon designer and Art Director of Pokémon Sword and Shield at Game Freak." as the first line in his bio. If I work for Company X, what I say about Company X and its consumers still reflects on the company even if I do it on my own time. There's definitely more nuance involved if, for instance, I say something on a private Twitter account that I don't associate with the company, but in this case it seems fairly cut-and-dry.
For the record, I agree that attacking the game creators personally over the changes Pokemon has made over the last few generations is going too far. However, in this case the issue is the message that is being sent by the designer's action, not something about the person himself: he is making himself seem dismissive of a subset of fans and essentially telling them either that he is aware of their grievances and does not care about them, or he does not understand their grievance and does not care to. The professional response to online vitriol is to not engage, or if you're feeling particularly masochistic, to try to reason with them. In no way is it the right play to antagonize them, unless you don't care about losing that subset of the fanbase (ie: when you have a supportive fanbase that is on your side and you're arguing against a few critics whose opinion you really don't care about). But even in that case, it sends a clear message that you
don't care about those critics and their opinions, which in this case means that you don't care about fans who are against some of the changes made this generation.