Disgruntled Helldivers 2 Fans Launch Petition to Bring Back Fired Community Manager

Helldivers 2 fans have started a petition asking developers Arrowhead to reinstate a fired employee in charge of community management. The employee, “Spitz,” was fired following the fiasco in which Sony told PC gamers they would have to link their Steam and PlayStation Network accounts to continue playing the shooter. Sony and Arrowhead changed their minds on the matter after player backlash in the form of over 100,000 negative reviews on Steam. The kicker? Community manager “Spitz” quietly encouraged players to continue the bombardment of reviews. This doesn’t seem to have gone well internally.

It’s a somewhat messy series of events. But basically, after Sony announced the decision to force players to link their Steam and PlayStation accounts, players complained that this process was either inconvenient, invasive, or impossible due to regional restrictions. Many began leaving negative reviews on Steam, with some asking for refunds. Meanwhile, in Helldivers Discord, community manager Spitz was battling fan discontent. After initially trying to convince fans of this requirement, Spitz suggested that negative reviews would give the developers some leverage to reverse the decision.

“Players making their dissatisfaction known through reviews, refunds, etc. gives us more leverage in discussions with Sony,” he said in a message captured by a Twitter user. “It hurts to see the game’s popularity suffer in terms of viewership, but discussions are ongoing and our team stands with players in this fight.”

Within days, the planned requirement to link accounts was abandoned. Player reviews may have had an effect on this decision, but other commercial concerns likely also played a significant role (the game was removed from sale in 170 countries where it was not possible to create a PSN account). Perhaps this is when the difficult drama stabilized. Except for one thing.

“In general, it’s not a good idea to tell people to refund and leave negative reviews when you’re a community manager,” said Spitz, who was removed from his position as a community manager. Arrowhead itself did not state the reason for its dismissal.

Shortly after, some players started a petition on Change.org titled “Rehire Legendary Community Manager General Spitz.” At the time of writing, this petition has over 1,170 signatures, with a stated goal of 1,500. The petition reads:

“SPITZ, the excellent community manager whose suggestion to continue review bombing in order to provide additional leverage with Sony, was the reason many Helldivers felt optimistic about returning to the game – and that’s probably the reason many of us haven’t attempted a refund On 7/5/2024, around 11:45 a.m. PST, the Helldivers discord discovered that Community Manager Spitz had been removed from his position and all the. Traces of his previously held position had been removed or otherwise removed from discord.”

It’s unclear whether Arrowhead will act on this petition, given the complicated and dramatic events of the past week (the legal aspects alone would probably be a headache but I’m not familiar with Swedish labor law). It is also unclear whether the terminated employee actually wants their job back or not. I wouldn’t want to return to an office after a bitter debacle like this.

“I knew I was taking a risk with what I said regarding refunds and changing reviews,” the manager said on Discord (screenshot by Videogamer.com). “I stand by it. It was my job to represent the community, that’s what I did.”