Trap Plan, a video game marketing company, was caught deleting posts after it was unexpectedly revealed that the key to its promotional success was WarRobots: Frontiers was the creation of fake Reddit accounts responsible for the wave of organic growth.
You read that right. On November 9, Trap Plan CEO Pavel Beresnev took to the company's website to explain his idiosyncratic strategy. The blog, titled “How We Promote WarRobots: Frontiers on Reddit,” explains in detail how the company created over 40 posts from fictional players who supposedly stumbled upon the game and found it too interesting not to share. How caught by Kotakuthese posts were found in places ranging from the PCmasterrace subreddit to r/PlayStation5, and were intended to cause a stir “before the next Twitch activation.”
Beresnev explained how the team went to great lengths to actually play the game and record good in-game moments that would feel authentic to players. “This created a constant stream of credible, diverse content that matched the natural tone of Reddit,” he said.
These fake posts weren't that easy to spot, as the company has done a good job of diversifying its content, using a variety of videos about movement, combat, and mechanical mechanics, accompanied by seemingly enthusiastic comments from real players. Moreover, Beresnev mentioned that the company deliberately avoided traditional marketing of the game. Trap Plan did not use direct advertising, instead choosing the most insidious method of trying to create a seemingly honest connection between gamers. Beresnev concluded that “most players didn't even realize they were part of a marketing campaign.”
Despite a successful campaign, attempting to access the same message will result in a 404 error. However, players can still access the original message via the magic of the Internet Archive.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of fake information that can be spread online with impunity without any legal consequences. This isn't the first time the company has attempted to promote a game in a possibly morally reprehensible way. However, this is probably the first time we've seen a company try to market itself by shooting itself in the foot.
In a statement to Kotaku, Beresnev explained that MY.GAMES, the people behind the development WarRobots: Frontiers he had nothing to do and didn't sign up for the Trap Plan marketing plan on Reddit.
“This was entirely our initiative and not an order or approval from MY.GAMES,” he wrote. “We understand that this was an error and have since removed the example. We sincerely apologize to MY.GAMES and Battle Robots: Frontiers team for the misunderstanding and any confusion it may have caused.”
Beresnev also explained that “[the company’s] “The intention was to experiment with a more organic way to promote games on Reddit – without using bots or fake accounts – and create a new case study that we could use in the future.”
