Developer Arrowhead Game Studios has fired its Helldivers 2 community manager after it was revealed that they encouraged players to review-bomb the game on Steam in retaliation for the mandatory PSN account linking fiasco. The swift backlash from the community led to Sony reversing its decision to implement the PSN account requirements.
As reported by PlayStation LifeStyle, Helldivers 2 community manager, known as “Spitz” on Discord, was recently fired from their position for a couple of reasons. They seemingly butted heads quite often with the Helldivers 2 community but recently switched sides after Sony revealed that PC players on Steam would be required to link their accounts to an active PSN account in order to continue playing the game.
Spitz rallied users to review-bomb the game on Steam in the hopes that it would get Sony to reconsider the decision. While Sony did eventually backtrack on the controversial requirements, the community manager failed to take into account that the company might trace their rebellious behaviour back to Discord.
Screenshots captured by Wccftech revealed Discord messages of Spitz encouraging mass refunds and review bombings. In one message, Spitz admits that it wasn’t a “good idea” to continue rallying the community against the game’s public perception they were supposed to manage but showed little remorse for their actions. As a result, this led to them being let go from Arrowhead Game Studios.
Sony isn’t done with trying to push the mandatory PSN account linking. The company revealed that the upcoming release of Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut will still require Steam users to link their accounts to an active PSN account in order to enjoy the online multiplayer mode Legends, though it seems like the single-player campaign won’t need this requirement. It remains to be seen if Sony will continue trying to push these rules going forward. We can only imagine it won’t sit well with the community either.
Source: PlayStation LifeStyle
