Apex Legends Subreddit Stages Revolt Against Mods; Forces Out EA-Paid Influencer

Plenty of gaming related subreddits are eager to label themselves as developer-supported, but what happens when an affiliation with a development studio or publisher crosses the line? While it’s nice to know that those behind the game have an interest in the opinions of the community, proceedings can quickly fall into a moral gray area should devs have too much control over a subreddit. Such was the case with the Apex Legends sub, and a major portion of the forum’s members are now revolting against potentially biased mods and paid influencers.

While anti-mod sentiment seems to have been approaching critical mass for some time now, things really kicked off when Reddit user justlikethegypsysaid posted a series of complaints regarding censorship of criticism and promotion of positive feedback on the sub. Though the original post had received just shy of forty-thousand upvotes and received seven silver awards, five gold awards, and two platinums, it has now been deleted.

Most of the controversy seems to revolve around an ex-Apex Legends and Titanfall Reddit moderator by the name of TalTallon. The Irish gaming influencer has been a major player in the Titanfall community since the original game released back in 2014, but while he was reasonably critical of the IP’s first two releases, community members were quick to cry foul when his ties to EA and Respawn seemingly grew a bit too strong.

TalTallon oversaw the incredible growth of the Apex Legends subreddit as it exploded to well over five hundred thousand members in under a month. However, accusations of censorship and partisan behavior soon drove him to resign from his position. He went on to post a lengthy explanation of his side of the story, but the damage seems to have already been done.

The Apex Legends sub is clearly intended to be a celebration of the popular battle royale title, but an over-policing of posts and hierarchical banning of certain topics has drawn the ire of plenty of Redditors. Plus, while the sub’s mods have categorically stated that they don’t intend to act on the behalf of Respawn, that’s been proven to be false.

In his tell-all, TalTallon argued that some of these instances of moderator malpractice came as the result of the sub’s overwhelming, unprecedented growth in such a short period of time. With one small group responsible for a literal torrent of posts, mistakes are bound to be made, but most seem to agree that a majority of the sub’s mods aren’t acting in the community’s favor.

With all of that said, it’s important to remember that, at the end of the day, Apex Legends is nothing more than a video game. It may be a tired refrain among the gaming community at large, but we needn’t lose the forest for the trees here. The Apex Legends subreddit certainly deserves a non-biased group of mods, but the second coming of the Civil War this is not.