Dota 2, VALORANT, other gaming subreddits to join Reddit Blackout

Several gaming subreddits are planning to participate in the Reddit Blackout, where the official subreddits for Dota 2, VALORANT, competitive Overwatch, Magic the Gathering, Minecraft, PUBG, Destiny 2, D&D, Pokémon, and several other gaming subreddits are shutting down or going private in protest of the recent changes that Reddit have announced.

The Blackout will take place from 12 to 14 June, with some subreddits indicating that they would not reopen until changes are made by the popular social media platform.

What caused the upcoming Reddit Blackout?

Last week, Reddit stated that, beginning 1 July, its Application Programming Interface (API) — which allows third parties to access Reddit without first going via the site's front-facing interface — will be subject to major pricing rises.

Access to the API has been free since Reddit began, and it has since enabled developers to create a variety of tools, including automated modding tools, unofficial mobile apps, overlay extensions, and accessibility tools.

However, the developers of third-party mobile apps, like Apollo, which announced its exit from Reddit, said that the price for the API access is simply unaffordable and will make it impossible for them to exist, with Apollo sharing the annual costs to hike up to as much as US$26 million dollars, a price most small, third-party app developers cannot afford at all.

Aside from Apollo, other Reddit apps shutting down include rif (previously known as Reddit is Fun), ReddPlanet, and Sync.

“The hurdles placed on third-party apps by Reddit just aren’t a feasible obstacle to overcome,” the developer of ReddPlanet wrote on their subreddit.

“With the removal of explicit content, the unreasonable pricing structure, short time period, lack of responsiveness, and unwillingness to come to a middle ground, Reddit has shown that their intent is to extinguish all 3rd parties.”

Who will be affected by the Reddit changes?

On top of smaller third-party apps, Redditors who have been using these apps to access Reddit will be the most affected by the change.

According to a post by r/pcgaming, at least 22.4% of users who were in their subreddit primarily use a third-party app to browse the subreddit.

Moderators are also the most impacted by this change since plenty of third-party mobile apps have better mod tools than the current official Reddit app. Post approvals, report submissions, moderator emails, etc. will take longer as a result.

Visually impaired redditors are most affected

On top of these, people with visual impairments would find it difficult to use the official mobile app. A thread named “Reddit to the Visually Impaired: "You no longer have a voice on this site,” explains how accessing Reddit would be difficult for visually impaired users that use iOS to access the social media platform.

“There are missing elements, broken navigation, nonsensical labels, and more problems that plague those who just want to interact with the site,” redditor BuckRowdy wrote.

They also said that the visually impaired moderators would have an even harder time on the official Reddit app too.

They also indicated that other third-party apps like Dystopia and Apollo have addressed these issues, and with these apps shutting down due to the pricing, it, in effect, shuts doors for the visually impaired Redditors niche.

Subreddits like r/blind are invaluable for the visually impaired at all stages of blindness because they provide a community to lean on and information, advice, and tools to help them adapt to their new realities.

As a result of Reddit's recent changes, communities like r/blind will be shut down, depriving an already marginalised demographic of the critical resources it requires and deserves.

Subreddits like r/transcribersofreddit and r/descriptionplease, which help visually impaired Redditors read text images and get descriptions of visual content like videos and images, will also be heavily impacted by these changes.

Because Reddit is the only social media platform that does not support alternative text, these volunteers are invaluable to the blind community.

Communities for the visually impaired on Reddit will dwindle, die out, or even disappear if they are forced to use an app that was not built with accessibility in mind. For more information on this topic, watch this video.

Which subreddits are participating in the Reddit Blackout?

Several subreddits have announced that they would be participating in the Reddit Blackout. One of the most vocal ones is the World of Warcraft subreddit, which posted an elaborate explanation of the entire situation to its community. According to their post, at least 500 communities (and counting) have signed up for the movement.

Many of the biggest PC and Console Gaming and Technology communities, such as r/Minecraft (7.2million subscribers), r/PS5, r/DnD, r/Nintendo, r/Apple, r/Android, r/XBOX, r/NVIDIA, r/GPT3 will be participating.

Gaming communities for r/Diablo4, r/DotA2, r/VALORANT, r/GlobalOffensive. r/WOW, r/competitiveoverwatch, and several Pokémon subreddits (excluding Pokémon GO) are also included.

An incomplete list of communities joining the protest is available here.

Anna is a freelance writer and photographer. She is a gamer who loves RPGs and platformers, and is a League of Legends geek. She's also a food enthusiast who loves a good cup of black coffee.

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