Can someone summarize the drama here?

[tyranid holocaust now]

Title.

[A.Pot]

Overreaction to a completely optional dlc has reached a tipping point

[Mepho]

Love these topics, this is one of the nicest tricks I've seen, although it's getting a bit stale by repetition.
Have one of your dudes fake ignorance and ask what's the situation, then have the brigade come in and reassure it's nothing important, just digruntled idiots and haters.

Does it even work? It's always the same dudes writing in each one anyway, I'm not convinced any true person even reads them anymore except the poor souls that still have the strength to actually explain what really goes on.

I only have one question: why?
Because if it's money, they really are super dumb. It would be much more profitable spending that money on improving the product rather than trying to improve its image by lying.
You know if they buy it they will see, right?
In this case the PR has been so incredibly dreadful that a person that genuinely wants to inform himself only needs read a couple topics or watch a youtube video, there's not even a hint of subtlety in this, lol.

[HolyGrail]

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥:

Title.

people are attracted to drama because it's a fun outlet to vent their frustrations and serves as a distration... oh and Warhammer has been neglected.

[Paraskeet]

ca is the meatshield here. when they announced that people have to cope with higher prices, I mentioned how there is no silver lining for this.

I'm just surprised it took so long for this ship to sink. I estimated 2017 but I underestimated how low the warhammer fans are ready to stoop. from rehashed content to bugs, they swallowed the rotten load with fervor and kept asking for more.

better late than never right?

[Sarcastro]

Corporate nitwits think customer's opinions threaten their bottom line by exposing their failed ideas.

[Miro]

Originally posted by Drakenhof:

Originally posted by TheMetalfreak360:

I mean that crosses the line ofc, but a lot of people have grievances with the company as a whole and their treatment of the games, fans etc. And those in my eyes at the very least are valid and should not be removed like they have.
Whether they should be listened to is up to them. But CA is the most thin-skinned company ever, whatever you say, whether it is critisism or joke, they take it to heart for some reason.

The toxic enviroment created by trolls and haters makes harder to differentiate between valid criticism and outright ranting and harassment.

So the whole issue has nothing to do with CA? and its cancerous internal culture dealing with issues, or more like hiding behind the shell-like turtles or appalling treatment of its paying customers?

[EvilNando]

CORPORATE.
GREED.

[Coldhands]

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥:

Can someone summarize the drama here?

There was the sliiightest pushback and rules enforcement from CA. Gamers hate it when a company suggests it might not be completely beholden to a mob of toxic drama queens on a third party forum.

[cb4n28]

There's a small group of dedicated bad actors who have been spreading false information and rumors critical of Creative Assembly and Total War Warhammer for the past several years. You know, people spamming the forums with aggressive posts about the game being completely unplayable or the series being cancelled and abandoned. Mostly they just want attention and argument and honestly it's not that unusual for a gaming community and it hasn't been very well moderated. It hasn't really been a huge problem until the launch of the third game in the series.

What changed is that some of the YouTubers/Twitch Streamers figured out that they can get a lot more views by fomenting controversy and hyperbolic outrage than they can by having a sane and sober discussion about the merits and flaws of the latest patches and releases of the game. So they started spreading rumors and false information (Warhammer is bad because all the resources went to Hyenas is a popular one) and built an entire business model on declaring that the sky is falling and everything Creative Assembly does is terrible. It's crisis farming and they're essentially the same narratives the bad actors on the forums have been spewing for years.

Make no mistake though, it's about manipulating people for money. Those streamers are not able to be entirely honest, because even if they truly feel that the game is in a bad state, if that ever changes and they stopped feeling that way and said so, they will lose significant revenue. They are aware that the outrage is where their money is and they will always do everything they can to keep it going.

It's been going on basically since Warhammer III launched and Creative Assembly didn't do much about it. Over time it's created a subsection of the community that is perpetually outraged and panicking and convinced that Creative Assembly is evil and hates Total War fans. It's just sort of been stewing a long and has hit a boiling point.

There are, of course, legitimate bugs and issues with the game. There's a legitimate discussion to be had about DLC pricing and the frequency of patches. We aren't having that discussion because people are too busy screaming and crying and grabbing attention by spamming the forums with their speculative end of the franchise narratives. They also spend a lot of time insulting anyone who says anything positive about the game or Creative Assembly or Warhammer in general.

So, finally, CA is starting to address the bad actors both in the forums and on YouTube/Twitch and they are freaking out about it. As far as the forums go, they are literally being held to the same standard as the rest of us have been for years.

[Moonie]

Woefully tone deaf PR post that probably got the cretin fired because his boss had to work overtime to clean the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up

[Humble]

I don't know why they had not make medieval 3 or something like that, medieval 2 was very popular at a time. Was it 17 year ago when Medieval 2 came out?

[Shrek]

Not only does CA have such a thin skin, but they ban people from unaffiliated forums. Ban me. Please. You're never getting another dollar out of me or anyone in my gaming group. You have zero morals and absolutely no pair swinging. If you're looking for an illegitimate reason to ban, here you go:

"Pharaoh" has as much historical accuracy as Netflix's "Cleopatra". So not only has CA proven that they don't have the gall to shoulder criticism, but they're also a bunch of wokies.

Enjoy the Bud Light treatment. Warhammer was good, but you're a one trick company, and I hope you're thinking of what you've done after you're out of a job.

[zidane]

Just FYI OP - If you look up the definition of a strawman on wikipedia, it will link to this thread.

[Blacklight]

Originally posted by cb4n28:

There's a small group of dedicated bad actors who have been spreading false information and rumors critical of Creative Assembly and Total War Warhammer for the past several years. You know, people spamming the forums with aggressive posts about the game being completely unplayable or the series being cancelled and abandoned. Mostly they just want attention and argument and honestly it's not that unusual for a gaming community and it hasn't been very well moderated. It hasn't really been a huge problem until the launch of the third game in the series.

What changed is that some of the YouTubers/Twitch Streamers figured out that they can get a lot more views by fomenting controversy and hyperbolic outrage than they can by having a sane and sober discussion about the merits and flaws of the latest patches and releases of the game. So they started spreading rumors and false information (Warhammer is bad because all the resources went to Hyenas is a popular one) and built an entire business model on declaring that the sky is falling and everything Creative Assembly does is terrible. It's crisis farming and they're essentially the same narratives the bad actors on the forums have been spewing for years.

Make no mistake though, it's about manipulating people for money. Those streamers are not able to be entirely honest, because even if they truly feel that the game is in a bad state, if that ever changes and they stopped feeling that way and said so, they will lose significant revenue. They are aware that the outrage is where their money is and they will always do everything they can to keep it going.

It's been going on basically since Warhammer III launched and Creative Assembly didn't do much about it. Over time it's created a subsection of the community that is perpetually outraged and panicking and convinced that Creative Assembly is evil and hates Total War fans. It's just sort of been stewing a long and has hit a boiling point.

There are, of course, legitimate bugs and issues with the game. There's a legitimate discussion to be had about DLC pricing and the frequency of patches. We aren't having that discussion because people are too busy screaming and crying and grabbing attention by spamming the forums with their speculative end of the franchise narratives. They also spend a lot of time insulting anyone who says anything positive about the game or Creative Assembly or Warhammer in general.

So, finally, CA is starting to address the bad actors both in the forums and on YouTube/Twitch and they are freaking out about it. As far as the forums go, they are literally being held to the same standard as the rest of us have been for years.

Oh yes the famous "it's just a conspiracy of conspirationnist"... It's funny how you are assuming they only do it for the money but at the same time they create an entire grift out of nowhere trying to insult a "beloved" company that did nothing wrong...

No the reality is that ressentment was brewing for ages against CA (since empire for me) and they kept pushing the game in a direction that only a few could defend.
And now this was the straw that broke the cammel back between the awefull SoC launch , hyena being canceled and pharaoh launch back to back they crystalised this ressentement. There reaction is just a proof of how far they have grown from their community and they even admit it.

So NO there IS issue and even THEY admit as much

[President Jyrgunkarrd]

Sure. Quick summary:

CA legitimately burned a lot of their publisher's money on a garbage project (Hyenas), and then Pharoah - which was supposed to be a headline historical title - flopped spectacularly. It's actually a perfectly good game, but it just didn't sell.

These things would be little to nothing in isolation, but they come after extremely disappointing WHIII support (or lack thereof), the binning of 3K and a general background context of the world at large going fckn' nutty.

So there's been genuine problems, though nothing really exceptional when it comes to games industry news.


But some folks really decided to run with this and make an outrage career out of it and built an entire cult following just spewing not-evidence-based commentary about CA, posting 'leaks' and 'former developer testimony' that is unverified and not supported by any evidence and forging what amounts to a conspiracy theory cult akin to Wallstreet Bets that believe they have unique insider knowledge about CA and CA's future.

And those guys are now howling and celebrating the layoffs and studio closures AS FORETOLD IN THE YOUTUBE SCRIPTS even though layoffs and studio closures are an inevitable reality of the industry and being able to predict them is akin to being able to predict that some businesses will fail sometimes.


If you think I'm being unfair, I mean, go check the metrics the cult leaders are providing. The only falsifiable things that can be checked.

They are laughably inflated and ridiculous; the latest claims are that 'thousands' of users are being banned in a massive purge of the Steam forums. Even though there aren't thousands of users here to begin with.


And none of the specific predictions and claims made in the leaks (specific people being fired, specific numbers for layoffs) line up with actual reality at all.

Bad faith content creators are cashing-in on bad times and a general public vibe of the world going to Hell in a hand basket to become well-paid doomsayers.