So I have been playing this online game for a while now. The game’s company is in Korea, but they publish their game in the App Store and the game is extremely popular in my country. It is so popular that the developers had to create a separate server just for players in my country alongside with broader servers like Europe and Asia.

A few days ago, the publisher announced that they are transferring their Vietnamese server to a Vietnamese company in a few days. That would mean Vietnamese players will no longer be able to download the Korean app from the App Store. Instead, they have to download a new Vietnamese app that is managed by the company. No reason was given for this decision, but people speculate that the Korean company can no longer handle the Vietnamese server and just need a helping hand. It may have something to do with the law.

The thing is, from what I gather, the company is notorious for being a short-sighted greedy corporate. They would typically buy servers from popular games, then add their own modification to the games so that the prices of items are higher than they are in the original games in order to force players to pay real money to even proceed. They also frequently neglect updating their apps, making updates and events of their apps way behind schedule from the original games. Not to mention poor moderation and rampant cheating that they don’t bother to address. A lot of the previous games they bought went out of business just after less than a year. That is what I gathered in the comments. I have never seen them in action yet so I’m not sure if these are true.

So when the news of the contract was out, there was a massive outrage. Everyone was saying the Korean company made a bad decision and they would all be deleting the game. A lot of people used the flight feature to move to other servers. The comment section was full of sarcasm and hate. No one was happy.

Then just a few hours ago, the Facebook page posted a status. It was clear that someone from the Vietnamese company wrote the post. The post basically apologized for the outrage and promised that they would make the game better and with more free items and better service. Whoever behind it also replied a lot to comments with very friendly tone. They also used really teeny language and memes for their replied. People were so impressed by the mod’s friendliness and promises that they started singing praises for the company. And now the entire comment section is full of comments saying how lovely the new company is and how the future will be bright.

However, something just doesn’t sit right with me. I noticed a few unusual things:
– The mod copied and pasted their comments for their replies. Their comments actually look the same with very few unique ones.
– They posted a survey form that asks players what they want from the game. On the first page they ask for my real name, phone number and email. The old Korean company had a few surveys like that in the past, but they only asked for my game ID and email.
– The mod just seems… too nice to be true. This just seems odd, especially when it was just after an outrage. And all the promises are all just so grand and vague. So far they haven’t given us any proof of what they will do yet, just promises.
– All of a sudden everyone is like “I love this new mod”. Just yesterday they were all angry, pointing out all the dirt from the company’s past, and now they all changed their mind just from a post?

I suspect that this is a ploy by the company to put down all the opposition and make the public believe they care. They are doing all the sweet-talk and promises to calm the outrage down so that they can do their business. I suspect that some of the people singing their praise are the people of their own company. As for the survey, I’m not sure why they need our phone number and real name. They said that they would send their rewards through phone number and email, but why can’t they just send it directly to our account like the old company?

All of this is just really shady, especially the things with the survey. I just have this feeling the company is up to no good. I have no way to verify the rumor about them, and I try to be open-minded, but this current event just rubs me the wrong way. Am I right in my suspicion?