The Helldivers team over at Arrowhead Game Studios was a proverbial “gamer’s game studio” from the outset. A CEO who was outspoken on socials and a commitment to community engagement made things look like smooth sailing for a game with an impossibly-large player base. That was until the first balance patch hit.
Amassed in a convenient post over on Reddit by user u/TinfoilPancake, the signups for mandatory PR training began just yesterday, shortly after a balance patch absolutely gutted the fan-favorite railgun. To the uninitiated, on higher difficulty Terminid (bug) missions, heavily-armored enemies like Chargers and Bile Titans swarm in droves, and there aren’t many reliable solutions for taking them down. When the railgun was nerfed, the community was left angered and confused as to the direction the game was taking. The developers’ responses paint an ugly picture not just for the difficulty of the game, but for community relations as a whole.
“Git gud, play easiest if you want to win, send in a ticket and complain and HR might have a meeting with me,” wrote one developer in the official Discord channel for the game. “Man watching u [sic] all cry, amuses me so much,” wrote a notoriously edgy moderator. “I’m feeding the rage a little for my own entertainment here,” remarked a developer on the Subreddit. “Enjoy your crutches while they last,” a developer “sarcastically” threatened.
Arrowhead CEO and Game Director Johan Pilestedt stepped in and attempted to put out yet another fire, saying “We are aware of this [behavior] and have taken action internally to educate our developers on how to represent the organization.” He expressed “extreme disappointment” in the behavior of the offending team members, and admitted to encouraging developer-community relations, but perhaps not anticipating these sorts of comments.
I just have to ask, what are we doing here? The team (at least some of them) seem peeved that players were spanking higher difficulties with overtuned weapons, and the response seems to be sadistic revelry in the upset caused by their removal. People get mad when you break their toys: The game’s community manager even remarked that he personally sympathized with feeling frustrated at nerfs. But with so many antagonistic comments, the once outwardly player-first studio has done a heel turn in the public eye.
Even I struggle to feel optimistic about the direction of the game, and I consider myself pretty level-headed and highly sympathetic to development teams. I get feeling frustrated when you have a thousand angry, faceless voices screaming at you over a simple balance patch, but to go so far as to kick the community that loves your game enough to care is probably not it. But hey, I’m not the head of PR.
