Videogame marketing company Trap Plan is taking heat for a marketing campaign that saw roughly 100 “organic-style posts and comments” made on numerous subreddits, which were formatted in such a way that “most players didn’t even realize they were part of a marketing effort.” And it probably would’ve stayed that way, except Trap Plan CEO Pavel Beresnev spilled the beans, not just one but twice, on his company’s website.

“We published over 40 posts across major gaming subreddits such as r/pcmasterrace, r/PlayStation5, r/Mecha, and r/gaming,” Beresnev wrote in a now-deleted February 2025 update (via the Internet Archive). "Each post was tailored to the tone and culture of its community. 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.

“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. To make posts feel authentic, our team played the game in parallel to record fresh footage and write posts that reflected real gameplay experience. This created a steady stream of credible, varied content that matched Reddit’s organic tone.”

An updated version of the post at the same URL from May—also deleted, but once again the Internet Archive saves the day, don’t forget to tip—said the company “strategically seeded around 100 organic-style posts and comments across relevant subreddits—from gaming and shooter communities to robotics-focused forums.” The article bragged that “these contributions highlighted gameplay mechanics, sparked discussion, and organically introduced the title to engaged, high-intent audiences.”

And as he did in the February post, Beresnev said “the content was crafted so seamlessly that both users and subreddit moderators engaged with it as authentic community discussion rather than promotion. This organic integration proved highly effective—serving as a catalyst that encouraged curiosity, sparked conversation, and ultimately motivated Redditors to discover and try the game on their own terms.”

Both of these posts had been up for months before being noticed by the r/Games subreddit (via Kotaku), after which they were quickly deleted. It’s not hard to understand why: An outright confession of what sure sounds like blatant astroturfing—a deceptive marketing campaign that’s meant to look like natural, spontaneous conversation—is probably not the sharpest move for any company that wants to attract or keep new clients. Not that all potential clients would necessarily object to an astroturfing campaign, especially if it’s effective, but blabbing about it for all the world to see might carry negative consequences.

Fortunately for mech shooter War Robots: Frontiers, the subject of the campaign, there hasn’t been too much blowback: I expected at least a token review bombing but so far only one user review on Steam, posted after 0.1 hours of gameplay (War Robots: Frontiers is free to play), mentions the Trap Plan marketing campaign.

Still, Beresnev did what he could to put space between War Robots developer My.Games and Trap Plan, telling Kotaku the intent “was to experiment with a more organic way of promoting games on Reddit—without using bots or fake accounts—and to build a new case study we could use in the future,” and that mentioning the game and studio by name was a mistake.

“This was entirely our initiative and not commissioned or endorsed by My.Games in any way,” Beresnev said. “We understand this was a mistake and have since removed the case study. We sincerely apologize to My.Games and the War Robots: Frontiers team for the misunderstanding and any confusion it may have caused.”

The line between genuine enthusiasm and paid promotion can sometimes be difficult to pick out, especially in this influencer-driven era. In 2019, for instance, the US Federal Trade Commission had to roll out a new series of simple rules for influencers to combat sketchy behavior that’d been going on for literally years. (It had to update those rules a few years later with a more specific focus on “stealth advertising” aimed at children.) Advertisers are certainly just as aware as everyone else that people now habitually add “Reddit” to their Google queries in the hopes of finding a real human recommendation amidst the AI slop. Most of them are just a bit more subtle about it.

The clear blend of cynicism and resignation in replies to the Reddit thread about the deleted Trap Plan post clearly illustrate how widely pervasive these practices are perceived to be. For myself, I try not to be quite that cynical about it—we’re all out here working hard and doing our best—but stuff like this is definitely a good reminder: Don’t believe everything you read on the internet, at least until you’ve checked sources.

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