Have you ever heard about game communities boycotting their favorite video games? I am sure the answer is yes :)) But I wonder if gamers really can change anything with boycotts and petitions, or it is just an illusion and game developers follow the same course, giving them replies that were just a formality. Let’s look at a few cases.
Boycotting a game for fixing a bug
Anthem, developed by BioWare, became probably their biggest failure especially after they “fixed a bug”. The problem was that the players could not collect Legendary sets because of poor drop rates of loot in the endgame.
The situation got even worse when some sort of glitch caused a significant increase in loot drop rates within a few hours. No need to say the players were very happy but… it was just a bug and BioWare fixed it with the next patch. And that was something that the gamers could not accept. After that, the player named Afinda called on the gaming community to boycott the game and thousands of people supported the protest.
Yes, it was a great example of people getting united in trying to bring some good changes to the game they like. Unfortunately, as far as I know the loot problem is not solved till now. Do developers need more time to fix this issue? Or was it just an example of a formality? Who knows.
Boycotting Vikings: War of Clans for new features
Well, in the mobile game industry we can find the same examples: when players are not happy they boycott games trying to make developers hear their voices.
The developers of a popular mobile game Vikings: War of Clans keep players happy by bringing new content, features and events to the game in regular updates. The project is more than 3 years old, which is quite a lot for mobile games of this genre, but the popularity of the Vikings still seems to be growing, most likely due to the developers’ proper attention, as well as the strong gaming community. So what could go wrong?
The scandal broke after the Stronghold feature was introduced into the game. The Vikings is a clan multiplayer strategy, and teamwork is a very important part of the game. The developers introduced quite logical and expected mechanics for the fans – an opportunity to build a clan town that can be developed and improved by all clan members giving them additional bonuses. The town is surrounded by a special territory – Valley of the Aesir. Clan members could improve military and economic stats of their towns if they place the towns on that territory.
Of course, a new feature was welcomed by the players, but … not for long. Very soon the developers of the Vikings got a lot of complaints and even a petition against the new feature. Some players found the way to prevent others from gaining benefits from the Valley – they created one-day accounts and occupied the entire place in the Valley of the neighboring clans.
Fortunately, in this example, the developers listened to their community and eliminated the problem by adding the Supreme Thing created to expel strangers from the Valley of the Aesir.
Vikings War of Clans 