cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14614302
Promoting products on reddit by blatantly advertising in the comment section? Who would do such a thing?
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I saw all the Helldivers posts in a constant stream on Reddit, and thought, well very clearly that’s someone who’s figured out how to promote their product
Then I thought, you know what, maybe I am just cynical. Maybe this is some super high quality game that I’m not aware of because I’m not in the know, so much so that people just organically like talking about it and I’m seeing lots of posts for it in a way that I didn’t even for much beloved games like Lethal Company
Nope, it’s a microtransaction cash grab. Reddit is shit, what else is new
I’ve not played it, but I do have a bunch of friends playing it. I think there’s a decent chance that the stream of posts you were seeing were organic. I think it’s just the big trend at the moment; I was tempted to go and play it a while back, because so many people I knew were. There was a weekend a little while back where progress was being made on taking back a planet or something like that. It’s not necessarily a high quality game, but it’s certainly a superficially fun game. It gives me similar vibes to Lethal Company, because that too was everywhere recently
Maybe I’m talking out of my ass… I just saw this and jumped to an “okay I see how it is” reaction without knowing much about the game.
I mean, it would be possible for both to be true – the game could be actually organically fun and well designed, and at the same time the promo + microtransactions teams are on point about how to squeeze people non consensually for money and eyeballs to accomplish their goals.
Oh yeah, that’s sus as hell. I could also see this coming from someone who is a fan of the game who genuinely doesn’t feel impacted by the microtransactions. I’m also vehemently against microtransactions though and think that they reduce the quality of whatever game they’re in, so I’m definitely not speaking in favour of Helldivers 2
I think regardless of whether Helldivers 2 is a good game, Reddit is such a cesspit of corporate bot trash that it primes you to be cynical of whatevers big on there at the moment. Like, I’m more suspicious of Helldivers 2 because of how big it’s been on Reddit, because I’m more likely to see posts like the one you linked and just assume it’s corporate shills. It’s a large part of why I don’t use Reddit anymore, because that cynicism permeated basically all of my Reddit browsing, and it’s not like I can even say it isn’t warranted.
