After the Total War Warhammer 3 community joined forces to voice concern over the increased pricing of the fantasy strategy game’s DLC with Shadows of Change, developer Creative Assembly has issued a statement on Steam forum moderation about removing community members who “come here to be disruptive.” This includes “doomsaying, calls for boycotts, or spreading misinformation,” months after some of the community called for boycotts after the DLC price increase.
This all started when the Total War Warhammer 3 DLC price went up with Shadows of Change, and in response, players started being overly critical of developer Creative Assembly and review bombing Warhammer 3 on Steam. As of right now Total War Warhammer 3 is still ‘mixed’ on Steam, and CA has put out a statement about how players interact and communicate on Steam forums, in an effort to put an end to “disruptive” behavior.
“Steam has long been a space where we’ve allowed people to create the space they want to talk and discuss the game,” Creative Assembly says of the strategy game.
“Unfortunately, over time, discussions have grown increasingly off-topic (i.e. less about the game itself, more focused on other games or the call for new games), unconstructive (critical without offering solutions, or solely aimed at creating arguments), focused on attacking or calling out specific individuals (CA Staff, influencers, or members of the community), or rooted in speculation (rather than focusing on your experiences with the game).”
The CA team then adds that “Criticism is and always will be welcome,” saying it helps the development team stay informed on where to commit its energy and “bring improvements to the game.”
The team at CA then notes that it wants to remove players who come to the forums to be disruptive and non-constructive in their discussions and feedback. To that end, CA says moderation will be used in the following instances.
- Clear attempts to derail constructive conversation: players that don’t enter Total War Warhammer 3 debates with empathy and instead behave inappropriately.
- Responses aimed at undermining other players’ enjoyment: You can criticize the game and post about your problems with it, but you can’t criticize another player for simply liking TWW3.
- Doomsaying, calls for boycotts, spreading misinformation: CA says all of these things “contribute nothing to our community, and will result in our moderation teams stepping in to remove the content or individuals from the forums.”
- Calls for new Total War games: comparisons to TWW3 can be made, but everything needs to be about commentary for that game and not new ones.
The mention of boycotts from Creative Assembly comes after the Steam review bombing and calling for boycotts due to the Shadows of Change price. Players were not happy with the price increase and made that very clear to Creative Assembly.
Creative Assembly wraps up the community post by saying that being angry or critical is fine, as long as it’s both respectful and not antagonistic towards the community and developers. CA then says: “The right to discuss is a privilege – it is not an entitlement you earn by playing the game – and in our official spaces, we will prioritize the ability of those who demonstrate that they can converse and disagree thoughtfully, constructively, and inclusively over those who aim to disrupt, derail, and diminish those contributions.”
If you’re in the midst of playing TWW3 and want some help, we’ve got all you need to know about all the Total War Warhammer 3 races, alongside a collection of the best Warhammer games on PC right now if you want to delve further into the universe.
