Disgruntled Helldivers 2 fans start petition to bring back fired community manager
Review bombing causes fallout
Fans of Helldivers 2 have started a petition asking developers Arrowhead to reinstate a fired employee in charge of community management. The employee, "Spitz", was let go following the fiasco in which Sony told PC players they would need to link their Steam and PlayStation Network accounts to continue playing the shooter. Sony and Arrowhead changed their mind about that after player backlash in the form of 100,000+ negative reviews on Steam. The kicker? Community manager "Spitz" was low-key encouraging players to continue the review bombing. This doesn't seem to have gone down well internally.
It's a bit of a messy series of events. But basically, after Sony announced the decision to force players to link Steam and PlayStation accounts, players complained that this process was either inconvenient, invasive, or impossible due to regional restrictions. Many started leaving negative reviews on Steam, with some asking for refunds. Meanwhile, in the Helldivers Discord, community manager Spitz was firefighting this displeasure from fans. After initially trying to get fans on board with the requirement, Spitz suggested that negative reviews would give the developers some leverage to reverse the decision.
"Players making their displeasure known through reviews, refunds, etc. gives us more pull in discussions with Sony," he said in a post captured by a Twitter user. "It hurts to see the game's popularity suffer in ratings, but discussions are ongoing and our team is on the side of the players in this fight."
Within a couple of days, the planned requirement to link accounts was dropped. Player reviews may have had an effect on this decision, but other business concerns likely played a significant part too (the game was pulled from sale in 170 countries where it was not possible to create a PSN account). This might have been the time when the rocky drama levelled out. Except for one thing.
"Generally it's not a good idea to tell people to refund and leave negative reviews when you're a community manager," said Spitz, who was dismissed from his role as community manager. Arrowhead have not themselves stated a reason for the dismissal.
Soon after, some players began a petition on Change.org entitled "Re-hire the legendary community manager General Spitz". At the time of writing this petition stood at over 1170 signatures, with a stated goal of 1500. The petition reads:
"SPITZ, the outstanding community manager whose suggestion to continue the review-bombing in order to provide additional leverage with Sony, was the reason many Helldivers felt optimistic about returning to the game -- and is most likely the reason many of us didn't attempt a refund. On 05/07/2024, at or about 11:45 PST, the Helldivers discord discovered that Community Manager Spitz had been relieved of his position, and all traces of his previously held post deleted or otherwise removed from the discord."
It's unclear if this petition will be acted upon by Arrowhead, given the complicated and dramatic events of the last week (the legalities alone would probably be a headache but I don't know Swedish employment law). It is also unclear if the fired employee actually wants the job back or not. I wouldn't want to re-enter an office after a souring debacle like this.
"I knew I was taking a risk with what I said about refunding and changing reviews," the manager said on Discord (screengrabbed by Videogamer.com). "I stand by it. It was my job to represent the community, that's what I did."
