Sites like reddit become obsolete once you take charge and actually embrace interacting directly with your fanbase rather than trying to manipulate the narrative from the sidelines.
Whether or not Blizzard is actively engaged in hiring sockpuppet users, the possibility that they might feel they need to is enough for me to, well, engage my “carin’” chip so to speak and suggest the following:
One thread a week with your community manager, an appointed developer, designer or even animator on these forums where you actually respond directly to players (NOT from a pre-selected list of questions several hours before an AMA even starts) would do wonders for your company’s PR.
Far more help than any number of “hired goons” on third-party websites (where you have almost no control of what content they end up posting, nor any sort of real say in the harm they do to your company’s good name through essential misrepresentation).
In other words, even a few meaningful actions from the people you already have hired can completely render an entire potential department’s (or contract’s) cost completely superfluous.
Sockpuppet users are already obsolete.
Your customers are far smarter than many of your executives think.
(I wonder why that might be :D)
Why waste money, time, and most importantly, any of your remaining reputation with sockpuppet manipulation?
I suggest maximizing your actual communicative efforts.
I think the reason they would rather use reddit is because their own forums are too strict on how people have to talk to each other to get an honest opinion about things.
On reddit… whatever pops up in your mind becomes the post they read…
Corporations have ever increasing layers of space between themselves and their customers along with ever nebulous layers of ‘communication terms’ with ever more draconian enforcement to snuff out any criticism about their products or services.
Trees to tinken reddit be garbage either way mon. Why go der? Dat entire site be over run wit paid shills, advertisers and political propogandists. Most sub reddits down to dem mods be baught and paid for mon. Facebook, twitter and countless others be no different mon. Even tings like google be given artificially scewed results dependin on da search.
Stop usin dem platforms. Its all a scam broddas and sistas. Every last one of dem.
I’d agree that it probably counts for very little in the eyes of the current executives and management (based on the way they’ve handled things up to this point).
I’d also say that’s the very basis of why things aren’t going so well for them.
We can’t coddle the mindsets of these “titans” of industry.
That’s a pretty wild allegation you just made there and you don’t have the evidence to back up that claim.
I’ve merely made a suggestion to save a company money before it potentially goes the same route many others have made (if it hasn’t already, which I stated in the OP I certainly couldn’t confirm ).
You’re the one making some claims without evidence here, buster.
Should I make a joke about tinfoil or something now?
).