Shooters like Battalion 1944 live and die by how they are supported. At the launch out of early access in June 2019, the game had a competent start for a low-profile shooter with nearly 10,000 CCU. That number has since dropped to about a tenth of what it once was.

As its playerbase spirals downward (leaving certain regions dead), most people who are still left defending Battalion 1944 say it will "get better" after they ship some updates from their roadmap. They mention that support will continue for "years to come." The CEO of the developer, Bulkhead, routinely posts on reddit to reaffirm that they are focused on squashing bugs and shipping content. They should be; the game is caught in a trajectory similar to that of 2017's notorious blunder Lawbreakers.

On more than one occasion, however, the developer not only refuses to take consumer issues seriously, but passive aggressively attacks them for criticizing the game. Hit registration problems and unreliable anti-cheat are two hot topics in the Battalion 1944 community, and posts by users on the subreddit that discuss these issues (among others) have historically been locked or deleted at the request of the developer. The CEO gave up his moderation rights on the subreddit recently to comply with the site's EULA, but his tone whenever he posts has not changed: "we're not trying to deny these problems exist, we just don't want factually incorrect information to spread."

Bulkhead are quick to defend their actions by saying users are spreading "false information." The problem with this approach is that, as the developer, you are permanently inserting your professional opinion that the issue has been looked into and decided upon. Users are now far less likely to look for ways to fix such basic issues as hit registration *for your benefit* because of the continual vilification of such discussion on the Battalion 1944 subreddit. Any healthy developer of a healthy game would react very differently. They would try to silently alter the conversation by trying to reproduce what users are talking about and fixing the issues they detect. The most useful conversations your users can have, Bulkhead, are those that they have when they think you are not there. If the problem exists, fix it; don't tell users how to discuss it. It will make the game harder to fix if your users are afraid to talk about problems.

Time and time again, the CEO of Bulkhead will insist that hacking reports and bugs should be reported via e-mail instead of posted on reddit. Perhaps it is a more useful way to message the developers, but any good developer understands that they are serving the consumer and not the other way around. Posting problems on reddit is the new normal. We use reddit because the public nature allows significant issues to get a lot more visible traction that developers can then clearly see the impact of. If a lot of people comment on one issue versus another, they know where their priorities should be. If you don't like that, tough. If you're afraid of bad press, then fix the game instead of telling users to keep the problems to channels where they can't be picked up on by potential buyers or journalists.

At this point, even if the game somehow makes a miraculous comeback and becomes legitimately popular, I will still struggle to support a developer like Bulkhead. It is clear that they are very actively concerned with message control surrounding Battalion 1944's very glaring issues. Instead of putting their heads down and working on them, however, they continue to tell their userbase how to behave to put up a front of success even as the CCU dwindles. Their flippant, frequent stubbornness is anti-consumer and has no place in video games. I regret my purchase.