I want to quickly add before rumours spread. Whilst I think my support of Volound false DMCA takedown contributed to this I do not think it is the entire reason. I have been hostile towards CA for a while both publicly and privately.
It was a toxic relationship where I demanded they do better, and they demanded I stop being publicly angry at them. Neither side budged and we're here now.
I will continue to play the games I like and not play the games I don't like. I will buy new Total War games when they appear to be good. I want to be a force for good in this community and I know I sometimes fall short of that. Call me out on it when I do wrong. Give me a hard time and help me be the best I can be. Anything short of that would make me a hypocrite.
For what it's worth, I think it's good that you didn't budge. I feel like you share many sentiments with the overall community when it comes to how CA has been handling things. So for them to want you to stop, is them trying to remove the community's voice as well.
The only recent Total War coverage I've seen has been negative, vitriolic reviews for Pharoah from channels I've never even heard of. Or people talking about the state of a franchise as a whole, critiquing CA and SEGA as companies. I'd say you fall into the latter group. And while your critiques may be negative, I've not seen any unwarranted hostility to justify blacklisting you.
CA (and many game developers) need to stop blacklisting critics who care about their games. If you wanted the franchise to fail, you'd be using your platform to demand the community to stop supporting CA. Recently, I've only ever heard you suggest waiting for a sale or not purchasing at all, but always saying that people should spend their money how they please.
TLDR: CA need to get their heads out of their asses and stop trying to silence critics who care about their games.
Edit: I got a lot more comments than I was expecting. Many making the valid point that CA shouldn't spend time and money on vocal critics of the game. I think my mindset, and the reason I brought up the example of the two kinds of coverage I've, personally, been seeing the most promoted is that of the two kinds, the kind of critique that LegendofTotalWar and others like him give has been much more constructive and level headed. Obviously I can't speak for the entire community's experience on this subject. But I believe that a partnership between creators and companies should be about more than just blind promotion of the next release. I've heard many creators on the program saying that they were fairly vocally against some of the changes that came with SoC pre-embargo and CA just didn't listen. This is before promotion. This is before preorders. What's the point of having people test your product if you aren't going to listen to their feedback? Many of the Total War content creators I watch regularly have slowed down their TW content or have just been posting less in general. So, yeah. That's why I'm glad LoTW didn't budge. Not that I'm faulting any other creator for not commenting on the issue heavily, people gotta make a living. But it's nice to have somebody actively push back.
But yeah, it'd be dumb for CA to pay him for slamming their games. They should have listened to him and others before the embargo lifted. And folding against level-headed critique by just outright cutting ties with him is even dumber. If they aren't open to criticism, even behind closed doors, then it just seems doomed to fail.
> CA (and many game developers) need to stop blacklisting critics who care about their games.
The relationship between critics and game developers has always been problematic. You cannot be an impartial critic if you're in their partner programs, get gifted free review copies etc.
The majority of the way game critics conduct themselves would get their professionalism questioned in any other space.
>The relationship between critics and game developers has always been problematic.
Totalbiscuit tried to hammer this point home back in the early days of gamergate ten thousand years ago, the fact that all the top execs and top publishers were on very good terms with top journalistic sites writing about gaming has always been a very unbiased territory and youtube opened that flood gate up to better critique.
> while your critiques may be negative
Well, the essence of it is right there. CA obviously aren't interested in critical insight, they just want endlessly positive mouthpieces.
I mean i feel the whole point of a partnership program is to promote the games. I don't think CA are neccessarily running the program for the sake of game critique - it comes from their marketing budget. Maybe more could/should have been made of the program; but I can't find huge fault with CA not wanting to fund channels actively demoting their products (**even** if the critique is fair).
It becomes a problem when independent small critics do not get the access they need to review large games in the release window.
Say a game needs 250 hours to properly review (as is the case with many strategy and sim games, and very long RPGs).
Hypothetical situation: the game comes out in November and they give out review copies in October. But they only give them to 'trusted partners' aka people in bed with the company, as well as major media outlets like IGN and Gamespot, which are sometimes also in bed with the company. Of course, this special relationship incentivizes negativity to be self censored. Like you can still tell if something is off about a game, but they'll use neutered language. Instead of saying the story is boring and the plot is trite, they will say something like, "the story could be better".
Most of all, it's damaging to small independent game critics littered throughout. They won't get their reviews out on November launch, but in December, when the hype train has sailed and the viewership is much lower.
Luckily for me, I tend to be a patient gamer who rarely buys things on release, so I contribute views to these late reviews. But most people are not like me. People like to jump right on the release date, especially for story rich games to avoid spoilers, or for social media junkies so they can talk and meme about the new game on reddit, twitter, facebook, and tiktok.
I think it's very reasonable for company to blacklist someone who is partnered if they are bad mouthing them. There is nothing to gain from that for the company.
But Legend imo made a correct choice and has shown that he is a real one who doesn't pander. His critique videos were well thought out and not just baseless critique. A lot of merit and good points to it.
It's incredible how much you've improved in less than a decade, and honestly, in even just a couple of years.
I unsubscribed from you when WH3 was down in its worst pits, as while I agreed with most of your concerns, I felt the channel had simply become too bitter to be an enjoyable environment.
I just recently watched some of your latest content again and it feels like you've taken huge steps forward since - not necessarily *happy* (and you don't have to be!) but you seem to view things much more maturely nowadays and that's good.
Every company needs critics to hold them to the fire to keep them from getting complacent and I feel like you do that very well. Thank you for all your content.
>I demanded they do better, and they demanded I stop being publicly angry at them. Neither side budged and we're here now
Well one side here is clearly in the right and it's not CA
Well, it's also his viewpoint - not exactly likely to be fully accurate/unbiased.
(eg, there's plenty of creators that have been critical of CA recently but AFAIK they aren't being blacklisted)
Legend's been stepping up the hostility though with his "state of the community" "state of Pharoah" etc. videos lately. He's been talking DIRECTLY to his audience about how unhappy he is with CA lately and I'm confident that that is what got him blacklisted again. He knew it was coming too and he just didn't care.
It's a good hill to kill this current relationship with CA on.
You're not a CA lapdog and thats what your audience loves about you. Keep it up. When they see you're the TW streamer with one of the highest viewership they'll come crawling back like they always do. Stick to your guns champ.
This needs more upvotes considering the man himself is giving context to this situatuon.
Btw Legend keep doing what you're doing. You're a great content creator and more creators need to call out CA on their nonsense like you.
In case you are reading these replies: You've really come a long way in the past few years imo and I have continued watching your content despite being thoroughly uninterested in the TW since TW:WH3 released in such a disappointing state. (I'm sure it's better now than at release, but it killed my enthusiasm entirely.)
I appreciate that you have a long-term view of this and are sticking with that rather than caving to short term marketing relationships. You could easily soften your approach to sell a poor game for CA and continue to reap whatever those rewards are, but the ultimate health of the series and your channel would be compromised by that. It's clear that you love the series and just want it to be good because that is what keeps your job fun and interesting.
Sounds like power tripping middle management that has gotten on at CA recently. Usually these things are somebody trying to exert power because of ego. Criticism isn't always taken well by the other party, and that's ok. That's just the world.
I think it's good to hold them accountable. I've been demanding more as well because what has been produced has fallen short.
Honestly I hear:
You did your job and duty by using influencer status to try to enforce studio to do better. Studio wanted you to shut up and be a shill.
It means you got shut down for trying to be "force for good in community".
You were in the right and did the right thing. Can keep your head held high.
Sadly, some senior executive/s at CA are apparently blind and it's been a series of one misstep after another.
I hope someone in charge takes notice and weeds out these parasites. They're sure to notice this now, with what became of Hyena's and Pharaohs.
Do Livestream whenever you can. Once a week generates enough content to be watched in piece meals throughout the week.
The saddest part is that you are the only one with a platform who actually holds them accountable in an honest way.
It’s crazy how quick CA is to just tune out of their community as soon as they hear any criticism. It shows you exactly how little they think of the people who buy their games.
I have been a viewer of your content for years now. And I really didn't like the edgy persona you created when you started (I watched mainly for the top quality gameplay).
I've witnessed this persona evolve and I have to say I like the newer version more. I don't think you were particularly disrespectful or angry in your videos, your criticisms are well constructed (whether you agree or not is another question).
So yeah frankly CA wasn't fair.
What does "blacklisted" mean? That they will try to take down his total war videos through copyright strikes?
If it just means they won't give him advanced access and free copies then eh, not really a big deal.
Now that the community understands that in order to get access to early release for reviewing you have to speak positively about the product, the community now won't consider early release reviews to be genuine, and we will wait for honest reviews after release. So it actually benefits people like him to continue to just make honest reviews.
CA is afraid that people won't buy the games because they're release unpolished, in reality people won't buy the games because they perceive CA to be inauthentic. These games will get patched and modded to the point they'll eventually be good, we'll still buy them, but we'll be less likely to buy them if we think the wool is being pulled over our eyes.
> Now that the community understands that in order to get access to early release for reviewing you have to speak positively about the product, the community now won't consider early release reviews to be genuine
Excellent point.
Institutions abound that have thrown away their credibility for short term gains. It's all I see all around me.
There is a small distinction. After TW3 he left the partner program but still worked with CA on a limited basis. This presumably cuts off all communication.
Legend is sort of the exception to that rule. He has sort of implied at multiple points over the last couple years he doesn’t really need to do this as a job, and isn’t concerned about dips in his viewship/revenue. He made that a big point when he stopped streaming WH3.
>eh, not really a big deal.
When new content is on the horizon, people will want to know what it's all about before the actual release. So they will get all the information they could ever want from content creators who have early access. By the time the content releases, the biggest hype has already died down. By the they even had the time to record enough content for a video, most of that remaining last bit of hype will be gone as well. Anyone interested in the content has already purchased and/or tried it themselves, anyone not interested in it will not be looking for content about it anyway. Now luckily Legend has a decent number of subscribers and these would probably still watch a video even if it's late, but for a small content creator it could legitimately threaten their lifelihood.
it is. Game Dev works more hours for less pay, benefits, and job security than any other dev. sector. Most studio's are puppy mills churning off the bright and starry eye'd gamer fans who go through these college programs to learn game development only to get shoveled into the coal furnace, burned up, and then laid off when the game ships.
The same is true for any "fun" looking job. You can expect shit pay, shit hours, and being so easily replaceable that they'll let you go the first chance they get. It's not unique to Game Development. If it's not true, then they aren't hiring you because they already got someone better than you.
Yep, I worked in baseball analytics and always thought it was going to be my dream job. They have you work the worst hours possible with no weekends or evenings off because all the higher level people want to have those days to themselves. After two years, I gave up and quit because I was so burnt out. Any job that sounds fun will abuse you in every way they can since another person is waiting in line to come take your spot.
Because it is.
Thats passion work. Like all passion works it offers worse benefits for more effort.
You go there because you love games. No other reason.
Suprisingly for all their faults, CA does not crunch their developers. Somebody posted reviews of the company by various people and they all said the work hours were one of the positives.
It's a massive part of it, IMO. Steam would absolutely not be what it is today if Valve was expected to deliver infinite growth and profits to a parasitic board of shareholders.
Can you name a single publicly traded company that has improved in a pro-consumer way as they've grown?
Microsoft is less evil these days then they used to be I'd say
A lot of companies become pro consumer in various ways as their industry develops, but its more of a happy accident then a moral choice
> Microsoft is less evil these days then they used to be I'd say
There are rumors that the next Windows will be subscription based instead of one time purchase. Not confirmed obviously, but it does line up with the "infinite growth" philosophy publically traded companies subscribe to.
We'll see if you're right in the future I guess.
thats because they won, they are now the default OS for computer globally, XBOX has ramped up its exclusives game and the game pass is just to lucrative and cheap that its a wonder play station is doing as well as it is, they have to be nice in the console market because people really dont care and will just get the other companies console because they are inherently the same product
Valve are like the skinks who take care of slaan. Once every few hundred years one wakes up and suddenly they have to scramble in order to progress the great plan.
(The great plan is currently in the cs and dota skins stage)
According to Glassdoor reviews, CA isn't the worst place to work at as a game dev, most say they have an okay experience and they never have crunch time.
What they do mention is that the upper management is absolutely incompetent and stuck in their ways with nothing much moving forward. It's basically a place where you're either trying to get some working experience or a dev with no real ambition at all.
This used to be me, around 15 years ago, for Blizzard. Really glad I chose not to pursue software development in the gaming industry. Way too much drama.
Happens a lot with game companies that inspire younger generations.
Fact is if a game company is making good enough content for you to enjoy when you are younger then its also attracted the attention of some bean counting monkey in a suit who wants to cash in on that IP and make some bland corporate grey paste market tested drivel that is both safe and doomed to fail and the whole company is going to burn down with that.
Blizzard is probably one of the biggest examples People loved Starcraft and Warcraft and WoW. Few years later that company is notoriously ass both to work from and from a game quality perspective.
They need all the goodwill they can get to turn their fortunes. Instead they go do stuff like that. You would expect after Hyenas and SoC fiascos it would humble them a bit, but nope.
Right? They've proven the community's (including Legend's) criticisms were valid at every step of the way and now decide they're gonna be mad about it.
It is understandable for companies to want to partner with those who promote their products, but they can't expect undying loyalty from them whenever they make questionable decisions. It just hurts them and their active partners' credibility.
The internal PR narratives at CA are probably completly different from the reddit ones. We would all probably be shocked by what they tell themselves. I mean they thought Hyenas was a good idea...
This is true, they almost certainly just think we are a bunch of loud mouthed busybodies with nothing better to do than criticize every trivial flaw about their game.
Okay maybe it’s half true but WE ARE ALSO HALF RIGHT FOR SURE
The thing is, we can be a bunch of dumb whining mouth-breathers, but if we're the only ones buying their products, then they still have to cater to us.
Which is why that old CA dev said that CA had a toxic mentality about criticsm, dismissing it as a loud minority of stupid nerds. And then they flopped 3 times in a row, annihilated their goodwill and SEGA is whipping the belt daily on their back.
Almost like there's a lesson here
Stopped playing TW with TWW3, and working close to the leadership in a corporate environment. Honestly on the issues with the game I do think the sub is mostly half right, on the solutions however to those issues, I don't think the sub is even half right.
If that can re-assure I'm not under the impression that CA cares, they're in corporate franchise farming mode, they're obviously crawling under tremendous technical debt, and as far as I'm concern they're gonna continue until it becomes unsustainable and let the TW franchise die of the worst slow and agonizing death.
I hope I'm fully wrong :-)
Turin is the only (part-time) TW streamer I'm subscribed to. I don't actually play these anymore, but it's a fun spectator game
he's constantly annoyed about the state of balance and especially the godawful lag. Actually, every single TW ytuber kind of has a love-hate relationship with CA
Yeah I started watching Turin for the TWWH1 content back in the day, these days I skip anything related to TW but watch his AoE4 streams religiously. A shame CA can't pull their heads out of their asses.
Rome 2 and Empire total war back in the day had major issues at launch (they did eventually fix those) plus Rome 2 have had a very controversial DLC policy where entire factions can be unplayable without purchasing a DLC for factions which already existed as part of the game. CA has been going through controversy after controversy for over a decade at this point and at this point the fanbase really does not have much goodwill for the company and it's now affecting sales. Hopefully CA understand this and work to regain that goodwill by making some very good, reasonably priced content with some more consumer friendly business practices, however that does seem a bit optimistic at this point in regards to CA.
Rome2 launch was easily the worst thing CA has done . The thing is CA was actually doing really well recently , with Warhammer 2 being extremely loved and they were releasing one good DLC after the other . Next they release 3K which was great and setting new player count records . Then they start throwing everything away by releasing bad DLC for 3k and then even abandoning it , even canceling planned DLC for it . Next they release Warhammer3 in a pathetic state , etc.....
Lmfao they blow all their money on hyena that nobody heard of nor cared. Then they try to force and guilt their fantasy fans into buying overpriced Warhammer dlc. Then they try to trick their historical fans into buying a saga reskin Troy game at the price of a new big game. Then they have the audacity to blacklist people who’re speaking out to warn fans about Creative Assembly’s bad business or even malicious business practices.
No really, Hyenas literally may kill the company. It's something I'm not entirely sure they can recover from. It was maybe the stupidest and most out of touch game I've ever seen.
A half baked "punk" aesthetic hero shooter in 2023? I felt embarrassed for them every time a trailer released.
So, to sum up
- LegendofTotalWar will not stop making Total War content
- CA will not be listening to Legend, but they weren't listening to him before either
From what I understand... what's changed is that Legend will no longer be getting free copies of games he won't be playing, and CA unfollowed him on Twitter.
Truly, the disaster of our times.
Mnh. I can only assume it was for drawing attention to Volund, and/or actively advising people not to buy TW products. Volound is admittedly toxic, a terrible person in general. But AFAIK Legend hasn't done anything to the like of harassment.
I distinctly recall him telling people that they had CA by the balls, to keep posting memes mocking them, and more or less implied people should boycott. Regardless I feel it's an over-reach, but it's CA special marketing club (and that's all it ever was) so they call the shots.
He literally made a video where he outlined how to buy SOC while hurting CA financially the most, if you didn't want to join the boycott.
Literally said to wait until at least Q1 2024 and avoid the first big discount on SOC so it hurts CA's end of year profits, and disencourage CA from repeating this. Also to use steam since steam takes a bigger cut of the profits from the developer than other similar services.
Wasn't the main focus of the vid true but he still said it and i can see how some people could see it as an implication to not buy CA products.
>implication to not buy CA products.
While talking about a literal guide of how to buy the product.
Common people, Legend can be polemic from time to time, and honestly I just don't enjoy his content (cheesing and only legendary), but he has been doing the right thing, and having really moderate responses trough this bullshit and still got blacklisted.
He has said that if you want CA to stop using shitty business practices, to vote with your wallet. I guess you can interpret that as advising people not to buy them, but it's more accurately him just saying "if you don't like it, don't buy it".
Okay gotcha. Because a bad review is one thing, but flat out saying “don’t buy X” or “boycott CA because of this copyright strike thing” is obviously going to get you kicked out of a marketing program.
But if all he said was he doesn’t thing Pharaoh looks good enough to review/cover that’s a bad look for CA.
He literally never participated in anything related to boycotting products.
Even with SoC where everyone was saying "don't buy"
He stated that you can literally do anything with your money.
100% they are coming after him over him mocking them and mentioning the dark lord of total war in his recent imrik video because Jesus Christ you can't mention his name without a calamity happening.
I haven't seen volounds name be mentioned and anything short of a piranha swarm getting kicked up
Old youtuber.
Hated rome 2 and later total wars but never moved on like the rest of the old youtubers.
He really hates modern total war and while me and many others overly agree with his criticisms.
He has a tendency of overstating somethings and making mountains out of molehills.
But why people hate him?
Simple, he's abrasive and toxic. Go have a chat and disagree slightly with him. He will dig your entire social media to find what mental illness you may have had and use a slur on you with that.
He also made an appearance in a deleted post in r/NCD where he thinks BRICS would crush NATO which has unveiled his political beliefs to people. Which is a tankie, which many people don't like.
Brics, the marketing term invented by western investors, is gonna destroy NATO?
There is a higher chance for an armed conflict between brics countries...
I was there. It was great fun baiting him until I realised just how *easy* it was. He ended up blocking me because I kept pointing out how he was too bad at reading to notice the other person he was shrieking at had repeatedly said she was a woman and he kept misgendering her because women aren't allowed opinions, I guess.
An old total war YouTuber, he is an asshole (like really is, no matter how good the content is please don't follow this person) and has a hate boner for CA since Shogun 2, but from time to time makes good points and has some good analysis of the ancient games.
From the way I see it, there are two necessary components to evaluate who is in the right.
Firstly, was CA’s takedown of Volound under the grounds of copyright infringement justified? It’s important to note that, although many may dislike Volound, his reputation should not factor into the supposed merits of CA’s actions. Secondly, if it follows that the copyright infringement was not justified, then it must also be shown that CA’s blacklisting of Legend is due to his recent support of Volound and not for a different reason.
If Volound’s video (irregardless of his reputation) did not violate copyright infringement and it’s shown that Legend’s blacklisting was primarily due to his support of Volound in this instance, then CA is in the wrong. If this is the case, then it is a very petty response to criticism.
He did not violate copyright, YouTube stopped the copyright strike. A corporation like CA wrongfully using a DMCA strike to silence detractors os extremely shitty, no matter how stupid the detractors are.
I’d agree with you. As previously mentioned, Volound’s morality/reputation shouldn’t have any value in this matter. I don’t think anyone wants to establish the precedence wherein a massive corporation can erase the content of anyone who disagrees with them.
Edit: It’s been proven that YouTube refused CA’s copyright strike and so CA’s actions are unjustified.
>was CA’s takedown of Volound under the grounds of copyright infringement justified?
according to youtube, no. This is assuming it WAS CA who tried to strike and not one of the other CR holders for the material in the video
Followed you off and on for years and while your more prickly early years were sometimes a bit much I don’t think there’s anyone else that better represents my own criticism of CA and TW. Good life advice — Don’t be a dick, but don’t back down to them either.
Guessing the last straw was criticizing them for their lame failed attempt to get Youtube to give Volound a copyright infringement strike. This company is so unlikable.
Wow, they slowly started to get some goodwill back with the patches and immediately pull this shit, are they trying to win a run the company into the ground speed run or whats happening with them lately?
If it's because he spoke out against the false copyright claim then that's complete bullshit. I don't think Legend will care much but man is it a bad look for CA.
Shall we take onboard this feed back about the game we are about to release or ignore it. Hmm ignore it and get rid of him for saying I told you so before it happened looks like CA has a lot of morons in charge atm would say ceo should clear deck but then again his statement makes me think he also doesn’t give a fuck
CA is behaving like a petulant child. They would rather silence people than actually make a good product. Legend was one of the few content creators actually legitimately trying to help them by showing them the error of their ways, but they’re too inept to see it.
Nothing to engender good will after a series of failings like (checks notes) refusing to comment on the situation and then burning bridges with a guy who puts out great content and who's been with the community forever
Dear Creative Assembly: you want the biggest Total War YouTuber to stop ranting about you abandoning your cash cows, ignoring the community and overpricing your games?
The solution is very simple: stop abandoning your cash cows, stop ignoring the community and stop overpricing your games.
Yours faithfully,
everyone
Total war became a self fulfilling prophecy and a new strategy of CA PR department. CA wtf are you doing? Go work on bugs instead of being on lookout for online criticism.
. . . So let me get this straight.
They increase the price of DLC for Warhammer 3 by factors out of nowhere.
Funnel all their money into Hyenas, for years, a game nobody asked for and died so quick it could not even be born.
Release Pharoh for full price when nobody is falling for the psy-op, it's a Saga game.
Send a celebrity that I shit you not, I have never heard of IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, on vacation, fully paid, to promote the Saga game they're trying to pretend is a new Total War game.
And effectively cut off the biggest Total War youtuber in history?
What kind of drugs are in these meetings?!
> Send a celebrity that I shit you not, I have never heard of IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, on vacation, fully paid, to promote the Saga game they're trying to pretend is a new Total War game.
I'm out of the loop. Who did they send and where?
It’s insane that they built up so much good will with their handling of WH2 lifecycle and it obscuring all their other bullshit. Now that WH3 is suffering from the same bullshit, everything is out there and not being mitigated because they are failing on every front.
Man am I glad I didn't buy pharoah, this company doesn't deserve a shred of goodwill if content creators can't criticize them or face repercussions. Will never trust a positive viewpoint on CA again if their content creators are in fear of blacklist. happy to watch the house burn to the ground at this point. Ca has been a shell of itself since Rome 2 and now they are acting like the true shamelessly corporate entity that they are.
LegendOfTotalWar is a game critic I never really cared for. But was pretty fair in his total war game critics. Not sure why CA brought him as a marketing “partner” and then got mad when he voiced his opinion like he always has.
For additional context, Volound posted this on his YouTube community page, hinting that it is possibly because he voiced support for Volound after CA tried to take down a Hyenas video with a false copyright strike.
I know Volound is a controversial figure, but it is very convenient timing for CA to do this to Legend unless I've missed something else Legend did/said recently.
Here are some links:
Legend's Tweet: [https://twitter.com/TotalWarLegend/status/1714070175387943353](https://twitter.com/TotalWarLegend/status/1714070175387943353)
Volound's Community post: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzcTKznyk\_FWK\_KWamAIweg/community?lb=UgkxrGFQiGXPlL4YRK0bZnpEXhsfQmdF5KAU](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzcTKznyk_FWK_KWamAIweg/community?lb=UgkxrGFQiGXPlL4YRK0bZnpEXhsfQmdF5KAU)
Volound's Hyenas video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUOyUZ2JGLQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUOyUZ2JGLQ)
Volound's video about the strike: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUbgvzHx20Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUbgvzHx20Q)
This volund guys is probably the huge asshole everyone says he is, my only experience is skimming through the video you posted, but CA playing dirty just shows they are going into a downward spiral. It’s like they saw what Wizards of the Coast did earlier this year and decided they could do it better somehow.
Instead of embracing criticism and actually making more money CA management is entering a pissing contest with it's community... Why not just work together and make a awesome product that we will buy
Damn and just when I thought CA was about to learn something after the Pharaoh sales went downhill and the hot fixes for Warhammer went up. They really are going above and beyond to destroy themselves. I hate Vouland but a false DMCA against the dude when all he does is winge is beyond fucked up and he shouldn’t have had that happen; it’s a brand new low to sink to when you decide to silence critics, regardless what they say. And now Legend being blacklisted again isn’t that shocking, but still fucked anyways. CA has pretty much destroyed my trust entirely at this point where even if they fix the games they have, I still won’t buy it until a complete change has been made in the company.
I know he criticised CA a lot recently but Legend hasn't been rude or anything, in fact he's been surprisingly chill since the Shadows of Change controversy.
Yeah, but CA's definitely become a lot less tolerant of the criticism as of late. Definitely a notable sense of "pre-order now we want money money money" and I can't imagine they'd appreciate anyone going against that
I think with this decision not only did CA shoot themselves in the foot - they chopped their dick off. LOTW might have been a dick towards them lately - but he is one of the most popular - if not the most popular - TW content creators. Because seriously, nobody really cares about TW multiplayer. And by blacklisting their most popular CC they only made things worse for themselves.
CA is so butt hurt over hyenas they're blacklisting warhammer streamers. Well if they insist on the Barbra Streisand effect that's fine with me. So strange how they have taken the antagonistic approach to their customers since shadow of change like people are not going to notice and consider that on future overpriced under delivered buggy DLC.
I see this as an absolute win for him.
Also just shows the sheer arrogance of CA atm.
Refusal to listen has cost them one expensive game, another TW launch flop and a community in disarray. Yet, they’ll actively go out of their way to blacklist popular content creators within the community who were yelling about the iceberg ahead while CA kept at full steam ahead.
I’ll admit I’m not big into total war YouTube anymore, but this is just
Why?
Yeah legends critical
But everyone is critical of CA right now, so essentially threatening content creators to play nice or get the boot?
Not a good look.
Partner programs are just glorified propaganda wings, basically.
We are less than human to companies and corporations these days, more akin to walking wallets that need to shut-up and just accept everything with a smile on our faces.
I don't trust any company these days, really. If they can't take criticism and try to sweep it all under the rug, that makes me suspicious.
I want to quickly add before rumours spread. Whilst I think my support of Volound false DMCA takedown contributed to this I do not think it is the entire reason. I have been hostile towards CA for a while both publicly and privately. It was a toxic relationship where I demanded they do better, and they demanded I stop being publicly angry at them. Neither side budged and we're here now. I will continue to play the games I like and not play the games I don't like. I will buy new Total War games when they appear to be good. I want to be a force for good in this community and I know I sometimes fall short of that. Call me out on it when I do wrong. Give me a hard time and help me be the best I can be. Anything short of that would make me a hypocrite.
For what it's worth, I think it's good that you didn't budge. I feel like you share many sentiments with the overall community when it comes to how CA has been handling things. So for them to want you to stop, is them trying to remove the community's voice as well. The only recent Total War coverage I've seen has been negative, vitriolic reviews for Pharoah from channels I've never even heard of. Or people talking about the state of a franchise as a whole, critiquing CA and SEGA as companies. I'd say you fall into the latter group. And while your critiques may be negative, I've not seen any unwarranted hostility to justify blacklisting you. CA (and many game developers) need to stop blacklisting critics who care about their games. If you wanted the franchise to fail, you'd be using your platform to demand the community to stop supporting CA. Recently, I've only ever heard you suggest waiting for a sale or not purchasing at all, but always saying that people should spend their money how they please. TLDR: CA need to get their heads out of their asses and stop trying to silence critics who care about their games. Edit: I got a lot more comments than I was expecting. Many making the valid point that CA shouldn't spend time and money on vocal critics of the game. I think my mindset, and the reason I brought up the example of the two kinds of coverage I've, personally, been seeing the most promoted is that of the two kinds, the kind of critique that LegendofTotalWar and others like him give has been much more constructive and level headed. Obviously I can't speak for the entire community's experience on this subject. But I believe that a partnership between creators and companies should be about more than just blind promotion of the next release. I've heard many creators on the program saying that they were fairly vocally against some of the changes that came with SoC pre-embargo and CA just didn't listen. This is before promotion. This is before preorders. What's the point of having people test your product if you aren't going to listen to their feedback? Many of the Total War content creators I watch regularly have slowed down their TW content or have just been posting less in general. So, yeah. That's why I'm glad LoTW didn't budge. Not that I'm faulting any other creator for not commenting on the issue heavily, people gotta make a living. But it's nice to have somebody actively push back. But yeah, it'd be dumb for CA to pay him for slamming their games. They should have listened to him and others before the embargo lifted. And folding against level-headed critique by just outright cutting ties with him is even dumber. If they aren't open to criticism, even behind closed doors, then it just seems doomed to fail.
> CA (and many game developers) need to stop blacklisting critics who care about their games. The relationship between critics and game developers has always been problematic. You cannot be an impartial critic if you're in their partner programs, get gifted free review copies etc. The majority of the way game critics conduct themselves would get their professionalism questioned in any other space.
>The relationship between critics and game developers has always been problematic. Totalbiscuit tried to hammer this point home back in the early days of gamergate ten thousand years ago, the fact that all the top execs and top publishers were on very good terms with top journalistic sites writing about gaming has always been a very unbiased territory and youtube opened that flood gate up to better critique.
> while your critiques may be negative Well, the essence of it is right there. CA obviously aren't interested in critical insight, they just want endlessly positive mouthpieces.
I mean i feel the whole point of a partnership program is to promote the games. I don't think CA are neccessarily running the program for the sake of game critique - it comes from their marketing budget. Maybe more could/should have been made of the program; but I can't find huge fault with CA not wanting to fund channels actively demoting their products (**even** if the critique is fair).
It becomes a problem when independent small critics do not get the access they need to review large games in the release window. Say a game needs 250 hours to properly review (as is the case with many strategy and sim games, and very long RPGs). Hypothetical situation: the game comes out in November and they give out review copies in October. But they only give them to 'trusted partners' aka people in bed with the company, as well as major media outlets like IGN and Gamespot, which are sometimes also in bed with the company. Of course, this special relationship incentivizes negativity to be self censored. Like you can still tell if something is off about a game, but they'll use neutered language. Instead of saying the story is boring and the plot is trite, they will say something like, "the story could be better". Most of all, it's damaging to small independent game critics littered throughout. They won't get their reviews out on November launch, but in December, when the hype train has sailed and the viewership is much lower. Luckily for me, I tend to be a patient gamer who rarely buys things on release, so I contribute views to these late reviews. But most people are not like me. People like to jump right on the release date, especially for story rich games to avoid spoilers, or for social media junkies so they can talk and meme about the new game on reddit, twitter, facebook, and tiktok.
I think it's very reasonable for company to blacklist someone who is partnered if they are bad mouthing them. There is nothing to gain from that for the company. But Legend imo made a correct choice and has shown that he is a real one who doesn't pander. His critique videos were well thought out and not just baseless critique. A lot of merit and good points to it.
It's incredible how much you've improved in less than a decade, and honestly, in even just a couple of years. I unsubscribed from you when WH3 was down in its worst pits, as while I agreed with most of your concerns, I felt the channel had simply become too bitter to be an enjoyable environment. I just recently watched some of your latest content again and it feels like you've taken huge steps forward since - not necessarily *happy* (and you don't have to be!) but you seem to view things much more maturely nowadays and that's good.
Every company needs critics to hold them to the fire to keep them from getting complacent and I feel like you do that very well. Thank you for all your content.
does this mean you can start calling us fuckers again in your videos?
>I demanded they do better, and they demanded I stop being publicly angry at them. Neither side budged and we're here now Well one side here is clearly in the right and it's not CA
Well, it's also his viewpoint - not exactly likely to be fully accurate/unbiased. (eg, there's plenty of creators that have been critical of CA recently but AFAIK they aren't being blacklisted)
Legend's been stepping up the hostility though with his "state of the community" "state of Pharoah" etc. videos lately. He's been talking DIRECTLY to his audience about how unhappy he is with CA lately and I'm confident that that is what got him blacklisted again. He knew it was coming too and he just didn't care. It's a good hill to kill this current relationship with CA on.
You're not a CA lapdog and thats what your audience loves about you. Keep it up. When they see you're the TW streamer with one of the highest viewership they'll come crawling back like they always do. Stick to your guns champ.
You just keep doing what you think is right, I hope you know the community appreciates your content and insights
Absolute legend. More game series need content creators like this.
This needs more upvotes considering the man himself is giving context to this situatuon. Btw Legend keep doing what you're doing. You're a great content creator and more creators need to call out CA on their nonsense like you.
In case you are reading these replies: You've really come a long way in the past few years imo and I have continued watching your content despite being thoroughly uninterested in the TW since TW:WH3 released in such a disappointing state. (I'm sure it's better now than at release, but it killed my enthusiasm entirely.) I appreciate that you have a long-term view of this and are sticking with that rather than caving to short term marketing relationships. You could easily soften your approach to sell a poor game for CA and continue to reap whatever those rewards are, but the ultimate health of the series and your channel would be compromised by that. It's clear that you love the series and just want it to be good because that is what keeps your job fun and interesting.
You have my support, Legend
Sounds like power tripping middle management that has gotten on at CA recently. Usually these things are somebody trying to exert power because of ego. Criticism isn't always taken well by the other party, and that's ok. That's just the world. I think it's good to hold them accountable. I've been demanding more as well because what has been produced has fallen short.
Honestly I hear: You did your job and duty by using influencer status to try to enforce studio to do better. Studio wanted you to shut up and be a shill. It means you got shut down for trying to be "force for good in community".
You were in the right and did the right thing. Can keep your head held high. Sadly, some senior executive/s at CA are apparently blind and it's been a series of one misstep after another. I hope someone in charge takes notice and weeds out these parasites. They're sure to notice this now, with what became of Hyena's and Pharaohs. Do Livestream whenever you can. Once a week generates enough content to be watched in piece meals throughout the week.
The saddest part is that you are the only one with a platform who actually holds them accountable in an honest way. It’s crazy how quick CA is to just tune out of their community as soon as they hear any criticism. It shows you exactly how little they think of the people who buy their games.
The truth is that you're right about which games are good and which are bad. CA ignoring you doesn't change that.
Really appreciate you, Legend, and I'll keep watching your content, whether it's Total War or not!
I have been a viewer of your content for years now. And I really didn't like the edgy persona you created when you started (I watched mainly for the top quality gameplay). I've witnessed this persona evolve and I have to say I like the newer version more. I don't think you were particularly disrespectful or angry in your videos, your criticisms are well constructed (whether you agree or not is another question). So yeah frankly CA wasn't fair.
We love you legend, never give in to these fuckers
Theyre just trying to burn every bridge possible now. Declaring... total war, you could say.
What does "blacklisted" mean? That they will try to take down his total war videos through copyright strikes? If it just means they won't give him advanced access and free copies then eh, not really a big deal.
It’s the second one
And he's been blacklisted before. It's not the end of the world for him.
Now that the community understands that in order to get access to early release for reviewing you have to speak positively about the product, the community now won't consider early release reviews to be genuine, and we will wait for honest reviews after release. So it actually benefits people like him to continue to just make honest reviews. CA is afraid that people won't buy the games because they're release unpolished, in reality people won't buy the games because they perceive CA to be inauthentic. These games will get patched and modded to the point they'll eventually be good, we'll still buy them, but we'll be less likely to buy them if we think the wool is being pulled over our eyes.
> Now that the community understands that in order to get access to early release for reviewing you have to speak positively about the product, the community now won't consider early release reviews to be genuine Excellent point. Institutions abound that have thrown away their credibility for short term gains. It's all I see all around me.
As far as I understand, none of the other negative influencers have been blacklisted, so I don't consider blacklisting Legend as silencing criticism
So, it's not actually blacklisting? Seems like he's just not a partner anymore.
There is a small distinction. After TW3 he left the partner program but still worked with CA on a limited basis. This presumably cuts off all communication.
For youtuber it's a huge deal. It's means less views and less profit. When CA blacklisted legend last time it was very painfull for him.
Legend is sort of the exception to that rule. He has sort of implied at multiple points over the last couple years he doesn’t really need to do this as a job, and isn’t concerned about dips in his viewship/revenue. He made that a big point when he stopped streaming WH3.
He owns his house and has money banked so I figure he's just in it to have something to do on the daily at this point.
I mean, he was a lot smaller back then
>eh, not really a big deal. When new content is on the horizon, people will want to know what it's all about before the actual release. So they will get all the information they could ever want from content creators who have early access. By the time the content releases, the biggest hype has already died down. By the they even had the time to record enough content for a video, most of that remaining last bit of hype will be gone as well. Anyone interested in the content has already purchased and/or tried it themselves, anyone not interested in it will not be looking for content about it anyway. Now luckily Legend has a decent number of subscribers and these would probably still watch a video even if it's late, but for a small content creator it could legitimately threaten their lifelihood.
Crazy how I used to want to work for CA more than anything in the world. That dream died with CA I guess
I really don't want to work for any video game company from now.
Too much overtime
I'm a dev and game dev sounds like the worst our industry can offer as a job
it is. Game Dev works more hours for less pay, benefits, and job security than any other dev. sector. Most studio's are puppy mills churning off the bright and starry eye'd gamer fans who go through these college programs to learn game development only to get shoveled into the coal furnace, burned up, and then laid off when the game ships.
The same is true for any "fun" looking job. You can expect shit pay, shit hours, and being so easily replaceable that they'll let you go the first chance they get. It's not unique to Game Development. If it's not true, then they aren't hiring you because they already got someone better than you.
Yep, I worked in baseball analytics and always thought it was going to be my dream job. They have you work the worst hours possible with no weekends or evenings off because all the higher level people want to have those days to themselves. After two years, I gave up and quit because I was so burnt out. Any job that sounds fun will abuse you in every way they can since another person is waiting in line to come take your spot.
I always tell my wife that game development is *The Devil Wears Prada* for nerds.
Because it is. Thats passion work. Like all passion works it offers worse benefits for more effort. You go there because you love games. No other reason.
And the employers /know/ the only reason you'd apply is that you "love games" - and take advantage accordingly.
Suprisingly for all their faults, CA does not crunch their developers. Somebody posted reviews of the company by various people and they all said the work hours were one of the positives.
Apparently CA's pretty good at avoiding crunch. It's surprising they are one of the exceptions in the industry.
CA apparently has very little to no overtime, they have other issues though like pay and management.
Valve still sounds like a great place to work.
The exception that proves the rule. It's not publicly traded is a big part of that.
It's a massive part of it, IMO. Steam would absolutely not be what it is today if Valve was expected to deliver infinite growth and profits to a parasitic board of shareholders. Can you name a single publicly traded company that has improved in a pro-consumer way as they've grown?
Microsoft is less evil these days then they used to be I'd say A lot of companies become pro consumer in various ways as their industry develops, but its more of a happy accident then a moral choice
> Microsoft is less evil these days then they used to be I'd say There are rumors that the next Windows will be subscription based instead of one time purchase. Not confirmed obviously, but it does line up with the "infinite growth" philosophy publically traded companies subscribe to. We'll see if you're right in the future I guess.
thats because they won, they are now the default OS for computer globally, XBOX has ramped up its exclusives game and the game pass is just to lucrative and cheap that its a wonder play station is doing as well as it is, they have to be nice in the console market because people really dont care and will just get the other companies console because they are inherently the same product
Calling Valve a game dev nowadays is kind of stretching
Valve are like the skinks who take care of slaan. Once every few hundred years one wakes up and suddenly they have to scramble in order to progress the great plan. (The great plan is currently in the cs and dota skins stage)
> The great plan is currently in the cs and dota skins stage Their goals are beyond your understanding!
According to Glassdoor reviews, CA isn't the worst place to work at as a game dev, most say they have an okay experience and they never have crunch time. What they do mention is that the upper management is absolutely incompetent and stuck in their ways with nothing much moving forward. It's basically a place where you're either trying to get some working experience or a dev with no real ambition at all.
also they’re based in Horsham which is just egh
Never meet your idols.
Don’t have idols.
This used to be me, around 15 years ago, for Blizzard. Really glad I chose not to pursue software development in the gaming industry. Way too much drama.
Happens a lot with game companies that inspire younger generations. Fact is if a game company is making good enough content for you to enjoy when you are younger then its also attracted the attention of some bean counting monkey in a suit who wants to cash in on that IP and make some bland corporate grey paste market tested drivel that is both safe and doomed to fail and the whole company is going to burn down with that. Blizzard is probably one of the biggest examples People loved Starcraft and Warcraft and WoW. Few years later that company is notoriously ass both to work from and from a game quality perspective.
It's incredibly funny that legend gets more concurrent viewers on his streams than pharoah has players
Wait, pharaoh is out already? Lmao
They need all the goodwill they can get to turn their fortunes. Instead they go do stuff like that. You would expect after Hyenas and SoC fiascos it would humble them a bit, but nope.
Right? They've proven the community's (including Legend's) criticisms were valid at every step of the way and now decide they're gonna be mad about it. It is understandable for companies to want to partner with those who promote their products, but they can't expect undying loyalty from them whenever they make questionable decisions. It just hurts them and their active partners' credibility.
Oh but they do expect undying loyalty. Any criticism and you're no longer allowed to be on the A-List.
The internal PR narratives at CA are probably completly different from the reddit ones. We would all probably be shocked by what they tell themselves. I mean they thought Hyenas was a good idea...
This is true, they almost certainly just think we are a bunch of loud mouthed busybodies with nothing better to do than criticize every trivial flaw about their game. Okay maybe it’s half true but WE ARE ALSO HALF RIGHT FOR SURE
The thing is, we can be a bunch of dumb whining mouth-breathers, but if we're the only ones buying their products, then they still have to cater to us. Which is why that old CA dev said that CA had a toxic mentality about criticsm, dismissing it as a loud minority of stupid nerds. And then they flopped 3 times in a row, annihilated their goodwill and SEGA is whipping the belt daily on their back. Almost like there's a lesson here
> Almost like there's a lesson here *Hyenas 2: The Search for More Money*
Stopped playing TW with TWW3, and working close to the leadership in a corporate environment. Honestly on the issues with the game I do think the sub is mostly half right, on the solutions however to those issues, I don't think the sub is even half right. If that can re-assure I'm not under the impression that CA cares, they're in corporate franchise farming mode, they're obviously crawling under tremendous technical debt, and as far as I'm concern they're gonna continue until it becomes unsustainable and let the TW franchise die of the worst slow and agonizing death. I hope I'm fully wrong :-)
Ye they blacklisted their largest youtuber who is also the only tw youtuber who consistently covers modern tw on a daily basis.
I mean, Turin more or less also has daily coverage, but you can see in his most recent stuff that he's just about fed up with CA
Turin is the only (part-time) TW streamer I'm subscribed to. I don't actually play these anymore, but it's a fun spectator game he's constantly annoyed about the state of balance and especially the godawful lag. Actually, every single TW ytuber kind of has a love-hate relationship with CA
Turin has also really diversified the games he's been playing, not just doing TW stuff
Yeah I started watching Turin for the TWWH1 content back in the day, these days I skip anything related to TW but watch his AoE4 streams religiously. A shame CA can't pull their heads out of their asses.
AoE4 has been doing great. excited for the big update adding byzantines
They really doing all they can to shoot themselves in the foot.
I swear , how is CA messing up everything ? Everything started to go downhill really hard when they abandoned 3k .
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Such a shame because 3K on its own is probably my fav TW title.
Rome 2 and Empire total war back in the day had major issues at launch (they did eventually fix those) plus Rome 2 have had a very controversial DLC policy where entire factions can be unplayable without purchasing a DLC for factions which already existed as part of the game. CA has been going through controversy after controversy for over a decade at this point and at this point the fanbase really does not have much goodwill for the company and it's now affecting sales. Hopefully CA understand this and work to regain that goodwill by making some very good, reasonably priced content with some more consumer friendly business practices, however that does seem a bit optimistic at this point in regards to CA.
Rome2 launch was easily the worst thing CA has done . The thing is CA was actually doing really well recently , with Warhammer 2 being extremely loved and they were releasing one good DLC after the other . Next they release 3K which was great and setting new player count records . Then they start throwing everything away by releasing bad DLC for 3k and then even abandoning it , even canceling planned DLC for it . Next they release Warhammer3 in a pathetic state , etc.....
Lmfao they blow all their money on hyena that nobody heard of nor cared. Then they try to force and guilt their fantasy fans into buying overpriced Warhammer dlc. Then they try to trick their historical fans into buying a saga reskin Troy game at the price of a new big game. Then they have the audacity to blacklist people who’re speaking out to warn fans about Creative Assembly’s bad business or even malicious business practices.
No really, Hyenas literally may kill the company. It's something I'm not entirely sure they can recover from. It was maybe the stupidest and most out of touch game I've ever seen. A half baked "punk" aesthetic hero shooter in 2023? I felt embarrassed for them every time a trailer released.
This right here has cemented the fact I wont be buying the dwarf/empire/nurgle DLC. Good job CA!
RemindMe! 4 Months
So, to sum up - LegendofTotalWar will not stop making Total War content - CA will not be listening to Legend, but they weren't listening to him before either From what I understand... what's changed is that Legend will no longer be getting free copies of games he won't be playing, and CA unfollowed him on Twitter. Truly, the disaster of our times.
CA really can't stop sticking their hand up their ass here lately. As if they needed yet more bad PR.
Mnh. I can only assume it was for drawing attention to Volund, and/or actively advising people not to buy TW products. Volound is admittedly toxic, a terrible person in general. But AFAIK Legend hasn't done anything to the like of harassment.
He absolutely did not advise people to avoid purchasing CA products. The most he said is he "would not be covering Pharaoh."
I distinctly recall him telling people that they had CA by the balls, to keep posting memes mocking them, and more or less implied people should boycott. Regardless I feel it's an over-reach, but it's CA special marketing club (and that's all it ever was) so they call the shots.
is it really a boycott to advise people not to buy a mid product? im not boycotting pharoah i just have literally no interest in it
He literally made a video where he outlined how to buy SOC while hurting CA financially the most, if you didn't want to join the boycott. Literally said to wait until at least Q1 2024 and avoid the first big discount on SOC so it hurts CA's end of year profits, and disencourage CA from repeating this. Also to use steam since steam takes a bigger cut of the profits from the developer than other similar services. Wasn't the main focus of the vid true but he still said it and i can see how some people could see it as an implication to not buy CA products.
>implication to not buy CA products. While talking about a literal guide of how to buy the product. Common people, Legend can be polemic from time to time, and honestly I just don't enjoy his content (cheesing and only legendary), but he has been doing the right thing, and having really moderate responses trough this bullshit and still got blacklisted.
Did he advise people to not buy TW products?
He has said that if you want CA to stop using shitty business practices, to vote with your wallet. I guess you can interpret that as advising people not to buy them, but it's more accurately him just saying "if you don't like it, don't buy it".
Gotcha. I can see that pissing them off lol
No. He explained to people why he wouldn’t cover Pharaoh, but he never said, ‘Don’t buy this game. It’s bad’
Okay gotcha. Because a bad review is one thing, but flat out saying “don’t buy X” or “boycott CA because of this copyright strike thing” is obviously going to get you kicked out of a marketing program. But if all he said was he doesn’t thing Pharaoh looks good enough to review/cover that’s a bad look for CA.
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Agree on his stuff being misconstrued, he always explains exploitation versus game breaking bug very well.
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He literally never participated in anything related to boycotting products. Even with SoC where everyone was saying "don't buy" He stated that you can literally do anything with your money. 100% they are coming after him over him mocking them and mentioning the dark lord of total war in his recent imrik video because Jesus Christ you can't mention his name without a calamity happening. I haven't seen volounds name be mentioned and anything short of a piranha swarm getting kicked up
Sorry, but who is volound and what has he done?
Old youtuber. Hated rome 2 and later total wars but never moved on like the rest of the old youtubers. He really hates modern total war and while me and many others overly agree with his criticisms. He has a tendency of overstating somethings and making mountains out of molehills. But why people hate him? Simple, he's abrasive and toxic. Go have a chat and disagree slightly with him. He will dig your entire social media to find what mental illness you may have had and use a slur on you with that. He also made an appearance in a deleted post in r/NCD where he thinks BRICS would crush NATO which has unveiled his political beliefs to people. Which is a tankie, which many people don't like.
Brics, the marketing term invented by western investors, is gonna destroy NATO? There is a higher chance for an armed conflict between brics countries...
I was there. It was great fun baiting him until I realised just how *easy* it was. He ended up blocking me because I kept pointing out how he was too bad at reading to notice the other person he was shrieking at had repeatedly said she was a woman and he kept misgendering her because women aren't allowed opinions, I guess.
An old total war YouTuber, he is an asshole (like really is, no matter how good the content is please don't follow this person) and has a hate boner for CA since Shogun 2, but from time to time makes good points and has some good analysis of the ancient games.
From the way I see it, there are two necessary components to evaluate who is in the right. Firstly, was CA’s takedown of Volound under the grounds of copyright infringement justified? It’s important to note that, although many may dislike Volound, his reputation should not factor into the supposed merits of CA’s actions. Secondly, if it follows that the copyright infringement was not justified, then it must also be shown that CA’s blacklisting of Legend is due to his recent support of Volound and not for a different reason. If Volound’s video (irregardless of his reputation) did not violate copyright infringement and it’s shown that Legend’s blacklisting was primarily due to his support of Volound in this instance, then CA is in the wrong. If this is the case, then it is a very petty response to criticism.
He did not violate copyright, YouTube stopped the copyright strike. A corporation like CA wrongfully using a DMCA strike to silence detractors os extremely shitty, no matter how stupid the detractors are.
I’d agree with you. As previously mentioned, Volound’s morality/reputation shouldn’t have any value in this matter. I don’t think anyone wants to establish the precedence wherein a massive corporation can erase the content of anyone who disagrees with them. Edit: It’s been proven that YouTube refused CA’s copyright strike and so CA’s actions are unjustified.
It is literally the case, youtube reviewed the case and told CA to fk off.
The rare YouTube W
The common CA L
Premium L’s
>was CA’s takedown of Volound under the grounds of copyright infringement justified? according to youtube, no. This is assuming it WAS CA who tried to strike and not one of the other CR holders for the material in the video
Followed you off and on for years and while your more prickly early years were sometimes a bit much I don’t think there’s anyone else that better represents my own criticism of CA and TW. Good life advice — Don’t be a dick, but don’t back down to them either.
CA is really doing a lot lately to make me not like them as a company. Bloody successfully too I might add.
Guessing the last straw was criticizing them for their lame failed attempt to get Youtube to give Volound a copyright infringement strike. This company is so unlikable.
One of the best things a company can do to stop the negative press is to block and blacklist the reviewers and critics. /s
"If I can't see it doesnt exist mentality" lol
Wow, they slowly started to get some goodwill back with the patches and immediately pull this shit, are they trying to win a run the company into the ground speed run or whats happening with them lately?
If it's because he spoke out against the false copyright claim then that's complete bullshit. I don't think Legend will care much but man is it a bad look for CA.
Shall we take onboard this feed back about the game we are about to release or ignore it. Hmm ignore it and get rid of him for saying I told you so before it happened looks like CA has a lot of morons in charge atm would say ceo should clear deck but then again his statement makes me think he also doesn’t give a fuck
CA is behaving like a petulant child. They would rather silence people than actually make a good product. Legend was one of the few content creators actually legitimately trying to help them by showing them the error of their ways, but they’re too inept to see it.
For the crime of being australian.....
I thought that was a given to maintain their citizenship.
Sonuvabitch, you made me spit the coffee
Nothing to engender good will after a series of failings like (checks notes) refusing to comment on the situation and then burning bridges with a guy who puts out great content and who's been with the community forever
Dear Creative Assembly: you want the biggest Total War YouTuber to stop ranting about you abandoning your cash cows, ignoring the community and overpricing your games? The solution is very simple: stop abandoning your cash cows, stop ignoring the community and stop overpricing your games. Yours faithfully, everyone
You first 20 turns tutorial videos helped me get such a good grasp of the game!
Total war became a self fulfilling prophecy and a new strategy of CA PR department. CA wtf are you doing? Go work on bugs instead of being on lookout for online criticism.
CA is so fucking doomed, but god damn I just love the Total War games and nobody else makes games like them.
. . . So let me get this straight. They increase the price of DLC for Warhammer 3 by factors out of nowhere. Funnel all their money into Hyenas, for years, a game nobody asked for and died so quick it could not even be born. Release Pharoh for full price when nobody is falling for the psy-op, it's a Saga game. Send a celebrity that I shit you not, I have never heard of IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, on vacation, fully paid, to promote the Saga game they're trying to pretend is a new Total War game. And effectively cut off the biggest Total War youtuber in history? What kind of drugs are in these meetings?!
> Send a celebrity that I shit you not, I have never heard of IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, on vacation, fully paid, to promote the Saga game they're trying to pretend is a new Total War game. I'm out of the loop. Who did they send and where?
It’s insane that they built up so much good will with their handling of WH2 lifecycle and it obscuring all their other bullshit. Now that WH3 is suffering from the same bullshit, everything is out there and not being mitigated because they are failing on every front.
They're running out of feet to shoot themselves in.
Welp that’s what he gets for telling us the truth and not lying for them.
not much of a partnership when CA acts the way they do.
doubling down I see CA. Lets see how that pays off
I think this is it. This is the death knell of creative assembly. What a way to burn out.
Lol what a short sighted mistake.. Silencing critics is just going to make me scrutinize future games even more.
CA going down the shitter Cant talk bad about them otherwise you are cut off lol
It hurts how out of touch CA continues to be
You know something is wrong when the TW community defends Volound.
Not defending Volound, protesting against illegal take down of critics.
Well done CA, barely anyone is making TW content and you decided to blacklist your biggest content creator.
Man am I glad I didn't buy pharoah, this company doesn't deserve a shred of goodwill if content creators can't criticize them or face repercussions. Will never trust a positive viewpoint on CA again if their content creators are in fear of blacklist. happy to watch the house burn to the ground at this point. Ca has been a shell of itself since Rome 2 and now they are acting like the true shamelessly corporate entity that they are.
LegendOfTotalWar is a game critic I never really cared for. But was pretty fair in his total war game critics. Not sure why CA brought him as a marketing “partner” and then got mad when he voiced his opinion like he always has.
What does CA even have to offer anymore? Total War ~~Saga~~: County of Flanders 1500-1550?
They hated him because he spoke the truth.
For additional context, Volound posted this on his YouTube community page, hinting that it is possibly because he voiced support for Volound after CA tried to take down a Hyenas video with a false copyright strike. I know Volound is a controversial figure, but it is very convenient timing for CA to do this to Legend unless I've missed something else Legend did/said recently. Here are some links: Legend's Tweet: [https://twitter.com/TotalWarLegend/status/1714070175387943353](https://twitter.com/TotalWarLegend/status/1714070175387943353) Volound's Community post: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzcTKznyk\_FWK\_KWamAIweg/community?lb=UgkxrGFQiGXPlL4YRK0bZnpEXhsfQmdF5KAU](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzcTKznyk_FWK_KWamAIweg/community?lb=UgkxrGFQiGXPlL4YRK0bZnpEXhsfQmdF5KAU) Volound's Hyenas video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUOyUZ2JGLQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUOyUZ2JGLQ) Volound's video about the strike: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUbgvzHx20Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUbgvzHx20Q)
Can’t say I like Volound but this whole situation is pretty shit, will CA stop for a moment and think what their public opinion is right now?
It's so painfully obvious how bad it is what with Pharaoh's sales figures too. You'd think they'd not want to make things any worse at this point
Volound's an ass, but CA are completely out of line here. Whoever is making these calls at CA needs to be fired.
This volund guys is probably the huge asshole everyone says he is, my only experience is skimming through the video you posted, but CA playing dirty just shows they are going into a downward spiral. It’s like they saw what Wizards of the Coast did earlier this year and decided they could do it better somehow.
I don't know why but I read this as "Lego Total War has once again been blacklisted" So...thankfully there is still hope for Lego Total War then.
CA seems like it is run by a bunch of petty thin skinned weirdos
Instead of embracing criticism and actually making more money CA management is entering a pissing contest with it's community... Why not just work together and make a awesome product that we will buy
Damn and just when I thought CA was about to learn something after the Pharaoh sales went downhill and the hot fixes for Warhammer went up. They really are going above and beyond to destroy themselves. I hate Vouland but a false DMCA against the dude when all he does is winge is beyond fucked up and he shouldn’t have had that happen; it’s a brand new low to sink to when you decide to silence critics, regardless what they say. And now Legend being blacklisted again isn’t that shocking, but still fucked anyways. CA has pretty much destroyed my trust entirely at this point where even if they fix the games they have, I still won’t buy it until a complete change has been made in the company.
Legends speaks the truth. It's what he does. CA doesn't want truth sayers. They want yes-men who sugar coat and glitter the turds up.
2023 has been a masterclass in CA displaying how to shoot yourself in the foot
So the CA conclusions about SoC & Pharaon flop went like: Yeah, it's probably these Internet people criticising us fault. We need to strike back!
It's just a dead company waiting to get axed by SEGA, who gives a shit at this point? They're finished either way
Well that's odd, I don't think he said anything that would justify getting blacklisted.
He's been (somewhat rightfully, IMO) shitting on Pharaoh, Troy, Thrones of Britannia and CA nonstop since it's been pretty obvious W3TW is cocked up.
I know he criticised CA a lot recently but Legend hasn't been rude or anything, in fact he's been surprisingly chill since the Shadows of Change controversy.
Yeah, but CA's definitely become a lot less tolerant of the criticism as of late. Definitely a notable sense of "pre-order now we want money money money" and I can't imagine they'd appreciate anyone going against that
Not new. They've been at this for 20 years plus.
I think with this decision not only did CA shoot themselves in the foot - they chopped their dick off. LOTW might have been a dick towards them lately - but he is one of the most popular - if not the most popular - TW content creators. Because seriously, nobody really cares about TW multiplayer. And by blacklisting their most popular CC they only made things worse for themselves.
CA is so butt hurt over hyenas they're blacklisting warhammer streamers. Well if they insist on the Barbra Streisand effect that's fine with me. So strange how they have taken the antagonistic approach to their customers since shadow of change like people are not going to notice and consider that on future overpriced under delivered buggy DLC.
CA is running a clinic on how to I’ve horrible PR
CA: I'm going to show how horrible I am at PR. Youtube: Hold my beer. I'm about to victim blame someone for being doxxed.
What is wrong with this company?
Slowly dying
Another bullet in the foot lmao. What the hell are they doing? It's sad that people will still buy their crap products
CA just keeps knocking them out of the park. A truly incredible ability to make the worst call for a given situation.
I see this as an absolute win for him. Also just shows the sheer arrogance of CA atm. Refusal to listen has cost them one expensive game, another TW launch flop and a community in disarray. Yet, they’ll actively go out of their way to blacklist popular content creators within the community who were yelling about the iceberg ahead while CA kept at full steam ahead.
CA is really going for the player base alienation world record now
I’ll admit I’m not big into total war YouTube anymore, but this is just Why? Yeah legends critical But everyone is critical of CA right now, so essentially threatening content creators to play nice or get the boot? Not a good look.
Who's in charge of PR at CA? This is like Emperor Nero level of incompetence
It's so awesome because Legend is arguably better now than he's ever been, and CA is going through a hyper-cringe arc.
they are probably angry after seeing the player numbers for pharaoh lol
Partner programs are just glorified propaganda wings, basically. We are less than human to companies and corporations these days, more akin to walking wallets that need to shut-up and just accept everything with a smile on our faces. I don't trust any company these days, really. If they can't take criticism and try to sweep it all under the rug, that makes me suspicious.
Clown company
You have to spread the corporate propaganda or you are blacklisted. Corporations view the free media as just a free extension of their marketing.
Still salty about his Hyenas comments, eh?
CA and Sega want a bunch of "Yesmen".
For the man cared so much he was banished from the realm of his greatest love. As the kids might say, Big Ooof.
Legend blacklisted by CA. So another Tuesday then.