Former PR

Reddit is a devil pit for developers. Players often deliberately play power games — claims the former Communications Lead of Riot Games.

No matter what game it works: Each has its own forum on the page Reddit, a so-called Subreddit. The latest topics, exciting developments, but also criticism of the games is discussed here. But for game developers Reddit is something you want to avoid if you want good feedback — which at least says a former Riot staff.

Who speaks? Ryan Signed, he worked from 2018 to 2020 as a global PR boss of League of Legends, before he was already 3 years at Riot Games in the PR and as an author. In addition to his work on Lol, he also worked for PUBG and Apex Legends — his career he started from 2006 to 2014 as a gaming journalist (via LinkedIn).

Some users could know him as Riot Cactus, because in the sub -geddit of League of Legends he was very popular for years. In conversation with Invent Global he now talked about the shadow sides of Reddit.

On Reddit is about power and mastering

What was said? Signed makes little good at Reddit. He believes that the discussions in the respective Subreddit of a game have been led no longer with the purpose of pure discussion or to exchange views. Almost always a certain agenda of a few players are behind it to bring the developers to implement a very specific change in the game:

I'm year 2021 we can say goodbye to the view that discussions in the video game Subreddits represent only pure player opinions. On Reddit it is not about discussions — it's about power and mastery. Only one opinion can win and that is represented by the comment, which collects most up votes. Our brains have a strong bias when it comes to socially confirmed ideas.

Thus, Signed says: If we see that an opinion has gotten a lot of encouragement from other people, then we are also more inclined to accept this opinion as a fact or correctly.

MIT Reddit has happened that many people have understood this momentum: If an opinion gets many up votes, then they also influence many other people to agree. If you have an opinion on a game on Reddit and gets a lot of attention, then you can see it in other places on the Internet.

It must be remembered that in the Subreddit often only a small part of the community was — and often a pretty louder. Even if only a fraction of the community is represented on Reddit, it can work as if everything was just negative in a game.

Was almost all Reddit users understand this momentum means that the game Subreddits have changed so that it is about influencing the development of games instead of discussing them. That's just a fact and nobody who uses Reddit regularly would contradict the.

Reddit crashes developers in depression

However, Signed has already experienced that Reddit can have actual consequences for developers. Since Reddit often brings only the most negative to daylight, the developer affects that regularly on Reddit.

Du See you work and can watch the enthusiasm slowly wear out of your eyes. I lived right next to an 'Environment Artist', who has worked on 'The Last of Us Part II' and a certain part of the Subreddits had committed itself to the task of tearing the game when it came out. That was crazy, because many people believed that it was a terrific game, but my neighbor could not see this bright page. He became depressed. He thought the crowd hated this thing that he had devoted years of his life. Ultimately, he has left the games' industry.

If you confront the speech leaders on Reddit with such incidents, they often go into a defensive attitude, Signed continues to explain. You can then just say it was merely honest feedback.

[...] They say then things like: 'I just believe the progress system should be better, may not I say that? That's feedback! Players should be able to give the developers to give their feedback! 'It just can not do that to bring these people to look at the bigger whole to admit them to admit that they are part of a submission ritual.

According to Signed, it does not bring anything to discuss it, because that would end up only in dead ends, in which one can only lose as a developer.

EIN the top comments [under this interview] will be of a guy who says that all this [on Reddit] is entitled feedback due to X, Y and Z. The best way to get power is simple To do so as if it gives it power not.

Despite all that, Signed does not believe that Reddit is basically bad.

ES is a fun website. It's fun to see which comment has received the most up votes under a news story. I use Reddit every day.

But developers are doing well to use other platforms to contact the community. Currently, Discord complies with many developers quite well, because that is always a 'snapshot'. There you talk to individual players and gets different opinions without making an opinion particularly highlighted.

ES is always worth to go where the players are. But for this daily interaction, I believe, developers should make much more selective.

What do you think about this view? Is it true that you should not give so much on Reddit as a developer? Or is Reddit just feedback that you have to consider as a developer?

Sometimes developers give the demands of the players but also — and they simply play their game, like New World.