A few weeks ago, Gaijin, the developers of War Thunder, announced their intention to implement some (and to put it mildly) taken unfavorably economic rebalancing In-game. Changed the cost of vehicle repairs significantly, which increased the overall cost of repairs for most higher tier vehicles. This change would result in making the game very difficult to play without a premium subscription. The players revolted, bombing review the game. The saga only escalated from there, with players forming a War Thunder Players Union, with the eventual goal of taking over the direction of the game by organizing a boycott – which ended in a disaster.
The seeds of insurrection
Gajin went back on the planned changes, or at least said they would take a look at walk backward planned changes and issue a general apology – while promising more transparency in the form of a roadmap for the future. This blog post was met with skepticism, with gamers claiming it was a temporary ruse to stop the review bombardment (following this, Gaijin removed the link to their Steam page from their site). ‘editor).
The players were still unhappy and decided to organize a Players Union with the end goal of a boycott. The goal was to inform Gajin of their complaints and steer the game in a more community-friendly direction.
Gamers came together on Reddit and formed the subreddit /r/WarThunderPlayerUnion. They decided that May 26 would be the day of action where all members were supposed to boycott the game. Their stated demands were to readjust the in-game economy to be friendlier to non-premium players by making small purchases more viable, reducing repair costs, reducing drudgery, and allowing in-game items to be added. be sold on Steam. Marketplace, among others.
All is not well
May 26 arrived and the effects of the boycott were not quantifiable, at least not by publicly available measures. Steam player account showed no visible drop; they were near record highs, while some union members remained hopeful that the strike would have an impact – this was hampered by union members being unclear about the proposed duration of the boycott.
In addition, union members spotted the organizers of the Boycott play the game on Discord. Discord server administrators banning anyone mentioning the fact that a large percentage of Union leaders were playing War Thunder on the day they were supposed to have boycotted the game. Conspiracy theories abounded, with community members claiming that Gaijin artificially increased the number of players:
Union members were looking for reasons why the strike failed, accusing Gaijin of fraud because “honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me, then they can tell their investors that everything is fine and nothing is wrong.”
Some players have claimed that Gaijin was logging into War Thunder on their Steam accounts, playing while away, stating that the user in question had logged into Steam and that War Thunder was running, presumably on a PC owned by Gaijin:
Union organizers eventually began to quit, disillusioned by both their fellow organizers and members’ complaints, issuing a lengthy message in the divisive union:
They said as parting message, “You are union leaders. Communicate. Talk to the player base, figure out what we’re all really doing here, figure out how you’re going to score yourself – CORRECTLY, I might add – or this “movement” will sink. Organizers urged the community to stick to the founding principles of “The Document,” which is their formal list of demands.
Where does War Thunder go from here?
Gaijin is proceeding as planned with his changes overhaul, the War Thunder community has more or less evolved, and the War Thunder Player Union community is up and running. Although the Discord has become increasingly fractured, with incrementalist members wanting to make more reasonable demands, extremists trying to organize another general boycott, and non-aligned members trying to bridge the gap between the two factions. Even if the boycott didn’t succeed, it was an entertaining episode, and surely Gaijin noticed the intent, if not the execution, of the move.
Article source https://blog.playerauctions.com/featured/war-thunder-players-union/