this post was submitted on 07 May 2024

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Helldivers 2 Community Manager Seemingly Gone After PlayStation Login Meltdown (kotaku.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 140 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Better/additional info here: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/third-person-shooter/helldivers-2-community-manager-seemingly-fired-after-encouraging-negative-reviews-over-now-canceled-psn-mandate-i-knew-i-was-taking-a-risk-with-what-i-said/

Spitz:

"Generally it's not a good idea to tell people to refund and leave negative reviews when you're a community manager. TIL," Spitz said. "I appreciate all the support and I appreciate even more that everyone can play the game again without restrictions. I knew I was taking a risk with what I said about refunding and changing reviews. I stand by it. It was my job to represent the community, that's what I did."

They added: "I wanted to work for Arrowhead because they're my all-time favorite studio. I got that chance. I'm thankful for that opportunity. I'd happily continue working for them if I had the choice, but that isn't up to me or anyone else in here. I can walk away happy and I don't want anyone causing trouble on my behalf, especially not to people I still have a lot of care and respect for."

This definitely sounds like Sony wanted them out and Arrowhead wanted them to stay.

[–] [email protected] 84 points 7 months ago

He is a bit dickish before the debacle but I also appreciate him jumping on the grenade for telling people to leave bad reviews and refunding.

[–] altima_neo 44 points 7 months ago

Truly someone with the strength and courage to be free

[–] [email protected] 98 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It makes sense. I respect the hell out of the guy for being honest and true of his morals and standing by his community, but I'm sure he knew what he could get into by doing that, and he took the shot anyway. I hope he's just been shuffled around elsewhere and still has a job.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

As a former corporate manager: lol, no. Scapegoats are slaughtered to save those higher on the rungs.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 7 months ago

Corpos are incapable of learning the right lessons. I wouldn't be surprised if the take away from this at Sony was to eliminate internal voices that were against the decision so it's easier to pull off next time.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago

be community manager manage the community to save the game fired for some reason

[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Looks like someone setup a petition for Spitz to get rehired. https://www.change.org/p/re-hire-the-legendary-community-manager-general-spitz

[–] [email protected] 25 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Fuck that, review bomb and refund again!!!

I doubt it would work a second time, but that would be fucking hilarious to watch Sony get slapped twice by their own community.

It would be less funny when the Helldivers II servers suddenly shut down...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

As funny as that would be I don't think it would be as funny as when the internet memed Morbius into bombing twice, which was also Sony

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

If you haven't listened the How Did This Get Made episode about Morbius, you owe it to yourself to do that immediately.

They get into some stories about Jared Leto's antics on set and trying to do improv and it sounds more like an Ambien-induced dialogue than a description of actual human behavior.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Seems like his job was to "manage" the community in the control sense.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Why else would large companies pay for such positions? It's a marketing role.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Right, but cynics like ourselves need to jump on the proof that we were right to spread our jadedness to the masses.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Yes that should always be assumed.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

[–] CluelessDude 6 points 7 months ago

I understand the sentiment that everyone has overall but it seems that most aren't aware that He was cunt 90% of the time. What he did was commendable but I'm sure it was more of a "leave me alone" sort of situation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Even if I side with the community on the turnout, I feel like a community manager’s job is to represent the company’s interests to some degree. Kind of like a defense lawyer.

They shouldn’t go as far as lying to people or making bad promises, which can make it a tough job, but they definitely shouldn’t be siding with the players against the company, or the internal employees are catching flak from both sides.