1 Year after the War Thunder Boycott

With the War Thunder Boycott anniversary coming up really soon its time to talk about the whole situation 1 year after one of the biggest controversies in War Thunder.

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About: War Thunder boycott and player union is about to turn 1 year old in may so its time to look back to that period of War Thunder to see how it has changed. Also Escape from Tarkov is having a similar situation where Nikita is killing the game.

Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:34 Simple review of the "Boycott"
1:28 Steam Review Bomb
2:55 Gaijin goes into Panic Mode
10:36 War Thunder Roadmap Announcement 2023
13:35 WTPU (War Thunder Player Union)
18:11 Being a Tarkov "True Believer"

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#WarGames
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#HistoricalSimulation

[kviinto]

I think you kinda miss the point with review bombing. Yes, it hurts the game, that's kinda the point? When Gaijin announces changes to completely fuck the economy and are deaf to feedback, the players can only threaten what gaijin cares about - the money, make the revenue loss from negative reviews outweigh the revenue loss from an economy that doesn't force you to pay to progress at a decent pace.

[strangera]

Review bombing, aka making Gaijin lose money is the only way to force them to change. When new players see those reviews and give the game a pass Gaijin dosent get

[Junshido]

There is no ground mode. There is only mixed(dump on ground vehicles by planes and helicopters) mode. I wish there was only ground mode.

[zentarion.]

im still laughing my ass of from the "most don't pay" quote, been grinding USA air ar 11, 3 lately and on average im counting between 560-840 dollars worth of F4S's per game

[pershing]

I am sorry to say that I completely disagree with your view of the Review Bombing. It makes no sense. Of course you are a War Thunder CC so you most likely need to remain polite about Gaijin or maybe you trully believe that they did very little wrong. But saying that review bombing is hurting the game without even adressing the reason why people would review bomb or even just leave the game in general is weird. You did not give any numbers, you did not give an ETA for grinding one part of a Techtree.

For the average player it would cost them 9, 427, 300 rp (give or take) to unlock every single GROUND United States vehicle. Earning on average 2000rp (no premium) at top tier, that would take roughly 4, 713 matches. If we have an average of 12 minutes per match that would equal 56, 561 minutes (942 hrs) needed. So roughly 39 days of non stop, continuous play. That is not possible for the average player to ever reach the end of top tier within their first year (Unless they have a month of non stop play).

This is ridiculous and only for ground US tree. Imagine that for all the other trees. You may think that it is all right or maybe new players should just buy top tier premiums, but that isn't fixing the problem. If losing some "potential" players is what is needed to get Gaijin to lower costs or to update research modifiers, then I'll gladly do it again.

Also note that War Thunder won't die until a better alternative for players comes along. Since 2013, there has been none, so there is no way that the review bomb would have ever caused the game to fail and shut down. As you pointed out yourself. Even the Union was playing because Gaijin holds the monopoly and those people still needed to grind out the event.

[xenophobicsokkorean]

The snail doesn’t give a flying f unfortunately

[jeffmeadows]

You can’t blame people for review bombing the game, Gaijin doesn’t care about the players & the game legitimately isn’t fun to play 90% of the time, so why not destroy it to get their attention.

[WarDaddy]

Gaijin won’t give the Abrams its DU armor because they don’t have the info on it so they say it’s not historical but gives the T-80 thermals even though they never had them historically. Yeah I quit this game a long time ago.

[u]

To put it bluntly: player dissatisfaction was a real thing, "player union" was a Reddit thing.

The point is that the boycott was more successful than not. Gaijin simply got too greedy and now they had to intruduce new things to satisfy players. I am more than happy with the current state of the game compared to prior to the boycott, which of course wasn't something that changed literally everything, but I'm glad with how it turned out overall.

Also, there is a visible dip in the player steam charts, which I'm sure also meant something to Gaijin, so I think only Leddit failed, but the dissatisfied players did win something in the end.

[RogueBeatsARG]

We need Another... Ground RB is ungrindable

[MrRedzac]

Steve jobbs would be crying if he was alive today

[Kyrine]

For the most part the actual dedication to the boycott was a joke like you said. However, it did cause a lot of positive changes. The repair cost change is the biggest deal of it all since I had actually stopped playing the game prior to the boycott for that reason. 8k SL repair for the IS-2 was very nuts compared to how much a kill gave you. (Yes, it was partially a skill issue, but I was new.) Afterwards the Skill Bonus they added is a great help and has allowed me to speed though the first half of the American Tech Tree. Now I think the Economy (RP and SL) is in a great place.
At this point I just wished they would work on improving the issues of volumetrics, general balancing, and round damage consistency. On top of that, they need to find ways to better counter spawn camping. I remember a fellow WT CC (Dollar) recommending an area where you could click anywhere in that area to spawn. Which would make pinning down spawns harder.
For the overwhelming parts of the game, a simple introduction/tutorial should pop up when you buy a vehicle with radar or any fancy mechanics.

Lastly, the average player wouldn't care about anything I just wrote. All they care about is that the game is still fun to play. For those of us who do care and wish for a better experience, Gaijin hosts polls on the forums and conducts surveys. The forums are a great place to suggest ideas as well.

[SteelxWolf]

People say and agree with the “vote for your wallet” but then coward out of it when they realize it’s not what you thought it would look like.

Review bombs get the attention spammed negative reviews or not. Not spending money shows a company that you are serious.

Gaijin destroying the quality of the game for the sake of their marketing teams schemes is something thats pretty obvious. Look how top tier premiums have destroyed top tier lobbies because of the easy access. As well as the tweaks to the earnings and rank earnings of lower tier premiums over time.

[callsignsaint]

Bro thought he was the chef when cooked, he is now the janitor

[thewaffleman]

Gaijin is just sad they didn't get away with it, they'll only listen when their money whales won't buy their stuff which hurts their greedy company

[kotsios]

my boycott lasted a year, you are very certain it doesnt affect everyday players but i seriously was considering stopping forever! such leach devs dont deserve anything. but seeing a playable economy i did come back. i am still cautious to invest a lot of money scared of future changes

[FireXsoldier]

Big L take on the review bomb. It made Gaijin decide to do roadmaps, improve repair cost and not ruin premium rewards and more. But the improvements to the game itself is still very lacking. Many half assed mechanics and encredibly inconsistent damage model. Atleast people are starting to bend less and fight back.

[RogueBeatsARG]

You call the boicot a joke but it worked

[Frost_x_NB]

Tbh the economy still needs a rework. Yeah it was better than what it was, but it still needs help. Like even if you play the game completely free and with no money spending at all it’s almost impossible to progress. Like people who don’t live on this game and play maybe 3hrs a day are suffering. People shouldn’t have to be forced to rely on paid progression for a free to play game. I personally am not a completely free to play player I spend money every so often on sales, battle passes, etc. but I can only imagine how they must feel.

RP and SL still needs improvements for someone who spends money on the game it should feel like your getting your moneys worth. As a premium player it’s ridiculous when a really good game comes around and drop 7-8kills in a game and only getting 13k rp in return is sad. I think if they implemented 2x RP and SL events like weekends or maybe even nation specific events to get more players to try other tech trees, plus I think this would be very good for the player base. Having more opportunities for the economy to be health will greatly boost the games performance and will make people want to play more other and feel like they are getting something in return.

[vodkat]

it didn't change much tbh... +4k hours on steam and the game still feels overwhelming if you actually want to play different vehicles