I remember logging onto Reddit back in 2017 and seeing the front page absolutely covered in posts about Star Wars Battlefront II. Among all the noise, one specific thread stood out because the numbers attached to it looked like a glitch in the system. I found myself refreshing the page every few minutes just to see if the downvote count was actually real, and every time I did, the total had dropped by another ten or twenty thousand.
It wasn’t a typical internet argument where people disagree in the comments and move on. The numbers were climbing or rather, sinking, at a speed that didn’t seem possible. We watched it pass 100,000 downvotes, then 300,000, and eventually it blew past half a million downvotes. It felt like the entire gaming community had collectively decided to stop arguing with each other and point all their energy toward a single target. There was a strange sense of unity in the chaos, as if everyone realized at the same time that they were witnessing a piece of internet history.
This wasn’t just a group of people being annoyed at a company. It was the moment the typical corporate PR playbook stopped working entirely.
The $80 Darth Vader Problem
The anger didn’t appear out of nowhere because of a single comment. It had been building up for weeks as players realized how Battlefront II was actually designed to work. When the game went into early access, people discovered that even though they had already paid $60 or $80 dollars for the game, the most iconic characters were still locked behind a massive wall. If you wanted to play as Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker, you couldn’t just select them. You had to earn them using in-game credits.
The math was what really set people off. Dedicated players started calculating exactly how long it would take to unlock a single hero, and the numbers were staggering. It turned out that a regular person would need to play for about forty hours only to get enough credits for Vader. This wasn’t a fun challenge or a rewarding journey. It felt like a deliberate grind designed to be so tedious that players would eventually give up and spend more real money on “loot crates” to speed up the process.
The community saw this as a clear case of corporate greed. It felt like EA was trying to see exactly how much they could tax their audience before they broke. Gamers didn’t feel like they were being invited to enjoy a Star Wars adventure. Instead, they felt like they were being treated as walking wallets by a company that had lost sight of why people play games in the first place.
The Comment That Lit the Match
While everyone was busy venting their frustrations on the forums, an official EA community account decided to step in and try to calm things down. Usually, when a company responds to a PR crisis, they use a lot of soft language to promise they are listening. But this specific response became legendary for all the wrong reasons. Instead of acknowledging that the grind was a bit much, the post defended the decision by saying that the high cost was intended to provide players with a “sense of pride and accomplishment” for unlocking different heroes.
I remember reading that sentence and knowing immediately that things were about to get much worse. It was the perfect example of a corporate office being completely out of touch with the people buying their products. The tone was polished and professional, but it completely ignored the emotional state of the audience. It felt like they were trying to lecture us on why being frustrated was actually a good thing.
The reason it backfired so spectacularly was because it framed a clear financial hurdle as a gameplay feature. It didn’t matter how many “data points” the developers were looking at or how much they tweaked the numbers behind the scenes. By using a phrase like “pride and accomplishment” to justify a system that essentially asked for more money, they made it look like they were mocking the players. It was a canned response that tried to turn a genuine complaint into a misunderstanding, and the internet wasn’t in the mood to be patronized.
The Downvote Avalanche
The response wasn not only ignored or forgotten, but instead it became the primary target for everyone’s frustration. Within hours, the post moved past the point of being a simple company statement and turned into a global spectacle. It felt like every corner of the internet had dropped what they were doing to join in. Even people who didn’t play video games or care about Star Wars were showing up because they heard about a company getting systematically dismantled on Reddit.
Moments like this also show how powerful Reddit’s voting system can be. A single comment can shape perception overnight, which is why many people wonder whether upvotes can be influenced or engineered.
As the number approached 600,000, the mainstream media finally took notice. Outlets like the BBC and CNN started reporting on a Reddit comment, which was unheard of at the time. The sheer scale of the negativity was breaking records left and right. It eventually became the most downvoted comment in the history of the site by a massive margin since the previous record-holder was nowhere near this level of collective rejection.
What made it so intense was the speed of the momentum. People were actually creating new Reddit accounts simply to add one more downvote to the pile. It was a rare moment where the “dislike” button felt like a legitimate weapon for the average person. I have never seen collective internet energy move that fast or stay that focused on one single paragraph of text. This went far beyond a bad afternoon for the company because they had completely lost their ability to steer the conversation.
Most people underestimate how much visibility is driven by Reddit’s voting system. Upvotes and downvotes don’t signal opinion alone, they determine reach, ranking, and how long a post remains in front of new users. If you want to understand what Reddit upvotes actually do, it becomes obvious why that single comment spiraled the way it did.
From Darth Vader to Downvote Vader
The choice modern games often present: grind for dozens of hours, or swipe your card and skip the struggle.
Once the downvote count hit the hundreds of thousands, the internet stopped being angry and started being funny. That “pride and accomplishment” line became an instant joke that you could find in almost every comment section on the site. People started using it to mock any minor achievement in their daily lives, like finally finishing a load of laundry or successfully cooking a meal without burning it. People were unlocking a “sense of pride and accomplishment” for making toast.
The mockery did not stay on Reddit either. It started showing up in YouTube videos and other social media platforms where “Downvote Vader” became a shorthand for corporate greed. Eventually, the language the company used to defend its business model made its way into serious discussions. I even remember seeing reports about members of the UK Parliament questioning game executives and using these same phrases as examples of why the industry needed more oversight. This included the term “surprise mechanics” which the company later used to describe loot boxes, only adding more fuel to the fire.
Watching a carefully crafted corporate statement turn into a cultural punchline was a strange experience. The company tried to use professional language to spin a negative situation, but the internet turned those exact words against them. Instead of a badge of honor, the phrase became a permanent stain on the brand that people still bring up years later whenever a new game includes too many microtransactions.
When the Internet Realizes It Has Power
I used to think that shouting at a billion-dollar company on the internet was like screaming into a void.
But platforms like Reddit don’t operate in isolation. High-engagement threads often rank in Google search results and influence public perception far beyond the original subreddit. Viral discussions can dominate search pages for months, which is exactly why Reddit for SEO is no longer a niche strategy but a serious visibility channel for brands and creators.
Usually, they just wait for the news cycle to move on and then keep doing exactly what they planned from the start. But this time was different because the noise was so loud that it actually reached the people who make the laws. Suddenly, politicians in places like Belgium and the UK were looking at “loot boxes” and asking if these games were essentially teaching kids how to gamble.
Then the real heavy hitters got involved. There were reports everywhere that the heads of Disney were not happy about the Star Wars brand being dragged through the mud right before a major movie release. It was not long after those rumors started that EA made a massive move and temporarily disabled all in-game purchases. I remember seeing that news and feeling a genuine shock. It was the first time I had ever seen a company of that size completely backtrack on its entire business strategy because of a bunch of angry people on a forum.
It killed the old myth that you can’t fight big companies or that your voice doesn’t matter online. While it did not fix every single problem in the gaming industry, it proved that there is a limit to how much a company can push its luck. When enough people stop arguing with each other and focus on a single issue, even the biggest corporations in the world eventually have to stop and listen.
Why This Moment Still Matters
I still look back at this event as a turning point in how companies and customers talk to each other online. It proved that a single sentence, if it is tone-deaf enough, can do more damage to a brand’s reputation than a year of poor sales. We see this happen more often now, where a corporate team tries to be clever or professional but ends up making their entire audience feel ignored. It was a massive lesson in community psychology that many companies are still trying to figure out.
The reason this specific moment stays relevant is that it represents a shift in how much power we actually have as users. Before this happened, it often felt like a big enough marketing budget could drown out any amount of criticism. Now, brands are much more cautious about how they frame their decisions because they know how quickly a community can turn a corporate slogan into a weapon. It wasn’t really about the mechanics of a video game. It was about a group of people who were tired of being treated like a data point on a spreadsheet and finally found a way to be heard.
The Battlefront incident also made many creators look more closely at how Reddit momentum works. When a single thread can rewrite a brand’s narrative overnight, engagement becomes leverage. Some communities focus entirely on organic growth,
while others explore options to buy Reddit upvotes in order to compete in crowded spaces. Regardless of the approach, the lesson remains the same: on Reddit, early traction can change everything.
The Real “Sense of Pride and Accomplishment”
I still find myself checking that original thread every now and then just to see if the number has moved or if the account is still active. It is a strange piece of internet history that has not really been repeated since 2017. Usually, the internet forgets a controversy within a week, but “pride and accomplishment” has become a permanent part of the vocabulary for anyone who plays games. It serves as a reminder that no matter how much money a company spends on marketing, they cannot actually buy the respect of their audience.
That moment was about more than just a character in a game or a frustrating progression system. It was about the fact that a community of millions of people decided to stop being passive consumers and actually forced a change. We may not have fixed the entire industry, but for a few days, the balance of power shifted completely. The legacy of that downvoted comment is that companies now have to think twice before they try to dress up a financial hurdle as a reward for the player.
EA wanted players to earn a sense of pride and accomplishment.
Reddit found theirs in the downvote button.
