The official Stellar Blade account on X has a removed a retweet promoting a Kotaku article after it was called out by former World of Warcraft Team Lead Mark Kern aka Grummz, who is leading a campaign to uncensor Stellar Blade.
Eve in Stellar Blade (2024), Shift Up
As noted by Kern on X, the official Stellar Blade account retweeted Kotaku’s article titled “Stellar Blade’s Eve Is Hottest When She’s Not Revealing Everything.” Grummz reacted to this retweet writing, “What does this mean Stellar Blade? Retweeting Kotaku’s post about outfits is not a win.”
What does this mean @StellarBlade ?
Retweeting Kotaku’s post about outfits is not a win. pic.twitter.com/yLef0KH6lq
— Grummz (@Grummz) May 3, 2024
READ: Gamers Begin Cancelling PlayStation Network Subscriptions To Free ‘Stellar Blade’ From Censorship
Kern further called out Stellar Blade as well as the Sony-published Helldivers 2 Community Manager. He wrote, “Community Manager for Stellar Blade retweets Kotaku on outfits censorship justification. Helldivers 2 CM, hold my beer. Really, these CMs are both terrible at their jobs. They are competing for worst crisis management in gaming.”
Community Manager for @StellarBlade retweets Kotaku on outfits censorship justification.@helldivers2 CM, hold my beer.
Really, these CMs are both terrible at their jobs. They are competing for worst crisis management in gaming. pic.twitter.com/quUGIy7iMF
— Grummz (@Grummz) May 3, 2024
The official Stellar Blade account has since undone the retweet of the Kotaku article. Grummz reacted writing on X, “Something is happening. Stellar Blade has removed their retweet of Kotaku’s outfit article! Progress! Keep those petition signatures coming! We are moments away from 75k!”
Something is happening. @StellarBlade has removed their retweet of Kotaku’s outfit article! Progress!
Keep those petition signatures coming! We are moments away from 75k!https://t.co/0Tzh6ODEBA pic.twitter.com/HKZMI0XJZc
— Grummz (@Grummz) May 3, 2024
As noted by Kern, the online petition, which is part of his 8-step plan to uncensor Stellar Blade is closing in on 75,000 signatures. As of writing, it currently has 74,437 signatures and over 4,400 people have signed the petition today alone.
On top of the petition continuing to increase in size — as hinted at by Kern — Sony has found themselves in the middle of another social media firestorm of their own making. This time the Sony-published and wildly popular Helldivers 2 game is facing a potential boycott in the wake of the game announcing that PC players will be required to link their Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network account in order to continuing playing the game after June 4th,
Helldivers 2 announcement requiring PlayStation Network linking
Since the announcement, Helldivers 2 has been bombarded with negative reviews by players at the request of the game’s own community manager. Spitz informed gamers in the Helldivers 2 Discord, “If you dislike the requirement to link your account, you’re more than welcome to change your Steam review to negative or do whatever it takes to make that dislike known, but attacking AH devs, the community team, our moderators or any other person who has no control or input into the change isn’t going to help anyone.”
Helldivers 2 Community Manager Spitz
As can be seen on the game’s Steam page, the game has received over 20,000 negative reviews on May 3rd. In the same time frame it only received 1,045 positive reviews. This is a stark contrast to the game’s mostly positive score with 78% of reviews being positive.
Helldivers 2 Steam reviews
Interestingly, the negative reviews might be even higher than what can be found on the main Steam page. SteamDB reports there have been nearly 37,000 negative reviews made for the game today.
Helldivers 2 reviews via Steam DB
A number of players have also indicated they will quit the game if this new policy is not retracted.
It’s too early to tell if the vociferous reaction will affect the game’s player base, but based on Steam DB’s Steam charts, the game’s player base has been in general decline since February albeit there were some peaks in the middle of March and the beginning of April.
Helldivers 2 concurrent players data via Steam DB
What do you make of Stellar Blade undoing the retweet of Kotaku? What do you make of these multiple firestorms that Sony has put itself in?
