Anthem players unhappy with loot drop rates are protesting by not playing the game for a week
Anthem players are currently boycotting the game and asking their fellow freelancers to join them, to protest the loot drop rates.
A Reddit thread proposing that players stop playing Anthem between March 11 and March 15 is currently sitting at over 12,000 upvotes. The blackout is to protest the grind for loot that has left players feeling frustrated after the drop rate was significantly reduced after launch.
"Protest to revert Loot drop changes. Bring back the Bug and let us taste the Lootshower. Stop Playing From 03/11/2019-03/15/2019 or 11/03/2019-15/03/2019 for us Europeans. to make a Point. Show them what we think by sheer player numbers alone!"
Anthem released on February 22, and after the day one patch went live, everyone was having a whale of a time. The playerbase seemed more than happy with the drop rate, but a day later, mission bounties weren't so plentiful anymore.
After accusations that the studio had stealth nerfed drop rates, Bioware responded, explaining that the drop rates had actually been inflated as a "side effect" of the day one patch, and that as soon as this had been realised, a hotfix was deployed to remedy this.
As you can imagine, this didn't go down well, and a number of players on Reddit stated that they were no longer interested in the game due to the now-abysmal drop rate.
Bioware has since promised to address drop rates, but with the release of patch 1.0.3 and still no sign of progress, the community is getting fed up.
Anthem's global community manager Jesse Anderson added some additional patch notes on Reddit, saying that he doesn't "have any answers on loot yet", but reassured players that it's being "discussed," with the studio "looking at player feedback and game telemetry."
The game seems to be having a run of bad luck, with bugs crashing people's consoles, and low tier weapons that are more powerful than their high level counterparts, although this week's patch should have fixed those issues.
Bioware had better act fast if it wants to retain its players. The developer is one cheap nylon bag away from joining Bethesda in the 'worst game launches' club.