Helldivers 2 Fans Rally Around Fired Community Manager
The "Helldivers" controversy that had fans requesting refunds is finally starting to die down, only for another debate to take its place. After initially planning to make PC players link their Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network account, Sony has backed down and decided to keep the game as it is. Unfortunately, Sony's planned update caused "Helldivers" to be delisted in over 100 countries, and the game is still missing from the Steam store in most of them.
It seems pretty likely that the kinks will get worked out on Steam, and everything will go back to normal. Some of the "Helldivers" community have already started celebrating, but others are hung up on a different conflict tied to Sony's PSN linking plan. In the fallout of the update debacle, Arrowhead Games has fired a community manager called Spitz. Some Helldivers are fully willing to turn this into another battle, but others have definitely sided with the devs on this one.
Spitz took a risk
As a community manager, Spitz was one of the people talking fans through the issue on Discord when Sony announced its madatory PSN-linking plan. Spitz empathized with the anger that players were expressing, but then he made an unorthodox statement. Spitz wrote in the official "Helldivers" Discord, "Players making their displeasure known through reviews, refunds, etc. gives us more pull in the discussion with Sony. It hurts to see the game's popularity suffer in ratings, but discussions are ongoing and on the side of players in this fight." This was one of many such comments Spitz shared in Discord last weekend.
Not long after, fans learned that Arrowhead had fired Spitz. According to GamesRadar, Spitz wrote, "Generally it's not a good idea to tell people to refund and leave negative reviews when you're a community manager." He added, "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." Spitz added that he'd happily continue with the company if he had a choice, then asked fans not to direct any hate at the devs and not to stir up trouble on his behalf. However, that may be out of his control at this point.
New debates for Helldivers 2 fans
Some "Helldivers 2" fans are already rallying around Spitz and calling on Arrowhead to hire him back. From their point of view, Spitz's call to use refund requests and bad reviews to pressure Sony helped save the game. Because of this, they've started a petition on Change.org that, at the time of this writing, has received just over 1,700 signatures. The petitioners don't just want Spitz rehired by Arrowhead, though, adding, "We additionally request the official canonization of GENERAL Spitz in 'Helldivers' lore."
While most of the "Helldivers" community acknowledges that refunds and bad reviews helped get Sony to change its mind, not everyone is sold on making Spitz an outright hero. On the "Helldivers" Discord, plenty of fans are pointing out that this isn't the first time Spitz has made a problematic post that stirred up the community. Some have pointed to inflammatory comments and troll-y responses to fan complaints in the past as possible contributing factors in Arrowhead's decision. It should be noted that these fans don't necessarily disagree with what Spitz said about Sony's planned update, but they do think his firing was justified in this case. With any luck, this new split among fans will eventually blow over without turning into another Creeker cape situation.