Happy April Fool's Day? Not so much for Shift Up. NIKKE (Goddess of Victory: Nikke) players managed to crowdfund a Korean protest truck — the legendary "快乐泥头车" (happy mud-head truck) — in under two hours flat, with plans to park it right outside developer Shift Up's headquarters. And this belated April Fool's 'gift' hides much more than a prank.
Let's break down what happened. After growing frustrations with the game's overall experience, NIKKE players rapidly organized a crowdfunding campaign on Modian (摩点), a Chinese crowdfunding platform. The protest group swelled from 280+ members to 360+. They secured a Korean truck protest company (트럭 시위 — a well-known form of organized gamer protest in Korea), drafted a petition, and even got guidance from veterans of the Epic Seven (第七史诗/E7) truck protest — the OG gacha truck movement. The plan: deploy the truck for two days initially, and if that doesn't work, keep going.
As for why players felt a truck was necessary, one highly upvoted comment laid out the gacha math in brutal detail: standard SSR rate is 4%, featured normal character is 2%, and Pilgrim (朝圣者) characters — the game's meta-breaking faction that every player needs — sit at a measly 1%. Going 100-200 pulls without hitting gold isn't uncommon. One player quipped that even the game's free "friendship pool" has better rates. Others pointed out that certain characters require 30 affection points and 2 breakthroughs (meaning pulling 3 copies) just to unlock key content — a system that essentially gates progression behind heavy spending.
But what really escalated this from routine player discontent into full-blown community drama was the NIKKE official board's moderation response. Multiple players reported that the dedicated forum board auto-deletes any post containing the word '车' (truck). The original poster's account got flagged and highlighted — with fellow forum users joking they'd been "harvested as KPI by community managers" (被社管收割成KPI). In China's gaming forums, '社管' (sheguan, short for 社区管理/community management) refers to a controversial practice where moderators suppress negative discussions and delete keywords on behalf of the game company. The irony? This censorship spiral only pushed players to spread the word on NIKKE's general discussion boards and social media, making the truck protest even more visible.
Some users drew parallels to the Epic Seven truck protest precedent. According to one commenter, when E7's global playerbase revolted against a new system with streamers leading the charge, the developer apologized before the truck even rolled out. Skeptics argued NIKKE's situation "hasn't reached E7 levels yet," but a more nuanced take from another user cut deeper: 'A truck is really just a statement. If a company is tough, you could block their door with a train and it wouldn't matter. If they're weak, players don't even need a truck.' The fact that things have escalated to truck-level protests with zero official response? That silence IS the response.
The real spice here is the timing. According to the original poster, Shift Up is currently trying to go public, banking on NIKKE and the upcoming Stellar Blade (《星刃》) to sweeten the deal. The poster's message to Shift Up's leadership was thinly veiled: 'Mr. Kim, you wouldn't want your IPO plans affected, would you?' This is a calculated pressure play — during an IPO review, any negative PR can spook investors, and a truck plastered with player grievances parked outside headquarters is exactly the kind of optics that due diligence teams can't ignore.
As of the latest update, the group sits at 360+ members, funds are secured, and everything is locked and loaded. The only remaining hurdle is finding Korean-based exchange students who can process payments with Korean bank accounts. Whether or not the truck actually changes anything at Shift Up, this whole saga has already become a legendary community moment. As one player put it: when things escalate to a truck protest and the company still won't respond, that silence says everything. And one final PSA — if you visit the NIKKE dedicated board, mind your manners. Don't say the T-word, or you might get harvested as someone's moderation KPI.
评论 (0)
暂无评论，来说两句吧！ 🍉