Summary

  • Arrowhead Game Studios has shown a commitment to listening to player feedback and making important changes to improve the Helldivers 2 experience.
  • The studio is now actively seeking player input on new game features and progression ideas, asking for creative ways to utilize in-game resources.
  • While soliciting fan ideas shows dedication, Arrowhead should be cautious about potential legal issues that could arise from implementing player suggestions. Even if players don't have strong cases for lawsuits, having to deal with them costs money and time.

Arrowhead Game Studios, developer of this year’s breakout live-shooter phenomenon Helldivers 2, has proven time and time again to be the kind of studio that tries to listen to its fans. After months of players complaining about how difficult it is to get necessary strategic information within the game, the studio made some crucial changes to the UI that vastly improved the experience, finally adding supply lines. After players complained about the declining quality of updates and Warbonds, Arrowhead announced it would be slowing the cadence of patches to ensure quality over quantity.

When a patch making solo runs harder was received negatively, the studio rolled the change back. Perhaps most prominently, when players revolted against the belated enforcement of a PSN requirement, Arrowhead worked it out with Sony and made PSN accounts optional. The point is that Arrowhead is listening to players. But maybe it’s doing so a little too much.

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The studio has tried to solicit feedback from players multiple times over how the game should progress in future, such as what new Eagle Stratagems they’d like to see. This is understandable, since Helldivers 2 players are very opinionated, and there’s a wealth of ideas that the developers could draw from the fanbase. Considering that chief creative officer Johan Pilestedt said that the developers don’t play the game enough, maybe fans would know better.

Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani is now actively soliciting ideas from players through a Reddit post, specifically about how resources can be used for progression. A lot of regular players have reached the current level cap and maxed out their upgrades, meaning that the resources they continue to collect in the course of gameplay are just sitting there, woefully unused. Jorjani is asking players for “fun ideas on how to use resources (existing or new) for long term progression in a way that's still in line with the overall design of the game”, and says that Arrowhead has its own designs and ideas but wants to hear from the community.

Jorjani says the studio would like to formalise how feedback is collected into proper surveys at some point, but that Reddit will do for now.

It’s an admirable notion – after all, live-service games have to keep players happy, and what better way to do that than by going straight to them? But I can’t help but think about the repercussions of actively asking fans for their ideas, acknowledging those ideas, and implementing them in the game.

Last month, Tekken series director Katsuhiro Harada politely asked fans to stop sending him concept characters. It’s not that he hates your ideas and wants you to go back to the hole you came from, but that adopting specific suggestions (in this case, character ideas) could lead to legal trouble for the studio. According to Harada, regardless of how many fans are making suggestions out of the love of the game, there are still people out there who will file lawsuits over use of that idea. It’s not a matter of whether there’s a strong case or not – it’s still a hassle to deal with.

Harada is very clear that he still listens to the opinions of fans, but opinions and ideas are two different things.

To be fair, Harada has cooperated with fans before in designing characters, taking feedback and even working with specific players to create culturally sensitive characters. But these are very specific cases that are crafted specifically to avoid legal trouble.

I’m not sure Arrowhead is taking those same precautions. The post has a disclaimer saying that this is “just a friendly conversation” and that this post shouldn’t be a promise that these ideas will ever be used. Jorjani says he hopes that will give the studio enough “plausible deniability in the eyes of legal and the rest of you”. I’m not sure that matters.

Sure, you could argue that these ideas are nebulous and subject to change enough that there isn’t any legal case for a lawsuit, but let’s also keep in mind that Arrowhead is a much smaller company than Bandai Namco, and even a couple overly litigious fans unhappy with the amount of credit and compensation they receive for ideas could cause a lot of very avoidable trouble.

I respect Arrowhead’s intentions, don’t get me wrong, but unfortunately, plausible deniability doesn’t negate the potential annoyance of having to deal with lawsuits. Perhaps it’s best if the studio sticks to its own ideas.

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Helldivers 2

Shooter Systems 10.0/10 OpenCritic Reviews Top Critic Avg: 83/100 Critics Rec: 90% Released February 8, 2024 ESRB M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence Developer(s) Arrowhead Game Studios Publisher(s) Sony Engine bitsquid
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Do you believe in freedom? Can you stand in the face of oppression – and defend the defenceless? Wage war for peace. Die for democracy.
 

Join forces with up to three friends and wreak havoc on an alien scourge threatening the safety of your home planet, Super Earth, in this multiplayer co-op shooter for PS5 and PC from Arrowhead Game Studios. 
 

Step into the boots of the Helldivers, an elite class of soldiers whose mission is to spread peace, liberty and Managed Democracy using the biggest, baddest and most explosive tools in the galaxy. 
 

Helldivers don't go planet side without proper backup, but it’s up to you to decide how and when to call it in. Not only do you have a host of superpowered primary weapons and customizable loadouts, you also have the ability to call on stratagems during play. 
 

Helldivers 2 features Arrowhead's best cooperative gameplay yet. Collaboration will be vital: Teams will synergize on loadouts, strategize their approach for each mission and complete objectives together.1
 

Enlist in Super Earth’s premier military peacekeeping force today. We are heroes… we are legends… WE ARE HELLDIVERS.

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