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Trap Plan, a large video game marketing company, admitted that it used multiple fake Reddit accounts to help promote a game called WarRobots: Frontiers, pretending to be “authentic” fans and players who just happened to discover the mech game and wanted to share it with others. Trap Plan has since deleted the post, but not before folks on Reddit spotted it.
On November 9, Trap Plan CEO and “marketing expert” Pavel Beresnev posted a short article to the agency’s official website. The post, titled “How we promote WarRobots: Frontiers on Reddit,” goes into detail about how the agency used multiple Reddit accounts to create over 40 posts across multiple subreddits, including r/pcmasterrace and r/PlayStation5, to create “a wave of organic visibility before the next Twitch activation.”
“The content varied from short clips and GIFs to ‘I found this game…’ discovery-style posts, screenshot threads, and light discussion prompts about tactical mech combat and movement mechanics,” explained the CEO. “We avoided direct promotion and focused on native conversation formats. Players discussed the game naturally — asking questions, comparing it to Titanfall and MechWarrior, and sharing opinions about tactical mechanics.”
According to Beresnev, in order to make the posts feel “authentic,” the team played the game, recorded footage, and posted about what they had played. “This created a steady stream of credible, varied content that matched Reddit’s organic tone,” said Beresnev. After sharing some stats about the campaign’s effectiveness, the CEO concluded the post by saying, “Most players didn’t even realize they were part of a marketing effort.”
At some point in the last 24 hours, the post was seemingly deleted from Trap Plan’s website. If you try to read the Reddit marketing article now, it just takes you to a 404 page. However, it was saved by someone via the Internet Archive, allowing us to see the post as it appeared on Sunday.
Kotaku has contacted both Trap Plan and WarRobots developer My.Games about the post and the Reddit marketing strategy.
As many pointed out on Reddit, this is far from the first time we’ve heard about a marketing agency or publisher using fake accounts to create an astroturf campaign for a video game. But it is odd to see a marketing agency’s CEO so publicly and directly confirm what was done and how it was done. It makes you wonder how many social media posts on sites like Reddit and Twitter are actually written by real fans and how many were trying to trick you into becoming part of a larger marketing campaign.
