Hitman is latest subreddit to be locked over toxic community

metro.co.uk:

Some people got so mad over Hitman 3’s Steam prices that the official subreddit has been locked due to abusive behaviour.

2022 marks Hitman 3’s second year of support and Io Interactive had big plans for it. The year properly began only yesterday with the game’s release on Steam, ending its Epic Games Store exclusivity, and the addition of VR support.

Unfortunately, the community appears to have become overrun with toxicity. So much so that the official subreddit has had to be temporarily locked down because of abusive behaviour towards the moderators.

The main cause appears to be the Steam release, specifically how much it costs. While the game has been out for a year on other platforms, every edition of the game on Steam is still at full retail price.

However, that’s exactly the same as on Epic Games Store and Green Man Gaming, and, as usual with PC versions, it’s still cheaper than the console versions – so it’s difficult to understand why anyone would expect the game to be cheaper on Steam.

The fan anger has resulted in the game becoming inundated with negative user reviews solely complaining about the price rather than the quality of the game. Even some of the recent positive ones criticise the pricing.

Predictably, things went too far and the complaints on the subreddit turned toxic, apparently leading to the moderators being harassed. One of them even had their account hacked and deleted.

Moderator Timothy Mark has promised the subreddit will be back soon and, in a comment saved by Twitter user BronsonLee, says that this was purely due to the harassment and not because people were criticising Io Interactive.

‘Attack me all you want, I can take it,’ he wrote, ‘But it’s not because of the criticism towards IOI or Hitman