Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Star Wars, Cyberpunk 2077, and other major subreddits are going dark in protest against Reddit’s API price changes affecting third-party apps.
While visiting these subreddits previously would allow users to peruse all the usual conversations surrounding new reveals, highly contested topics, and so on, the Xbox, Nintendo, and PS5 pages are now blank.
Some of these subreddits are going private, meaning only invited members can access them (but no new members will be accepted), while others are closed off altogether. Some, like the Star Wars and Cyberpunk subreddits, are currently still available but won’t be soon, either temporarily or indefinitely.
The wave of subreddits going dark comes as a result of a new pricing strategy that raised the cost of Reddit’s API, the interface used by third-party developers to access and use Reddit data.
Though announced a few months ago, the severity of the changes only came to light earlier in June when the developer of Apollo, an app used by millions to browse and read Reddit posts, said it would now cost upwards of $20 million a year to run.
Apollo announced it would shut down as of June 30, 2023, prompting the Reddit community to take action. “This subreddit is temporarily private as part of a joint protest to Reddit’s recent API changes, which breaks third-party apps and moderation tools, effectively forcing users to use the official Reddit app,” reads a message on the PS5 subreddit.
“In solidarity with the rest of Reddit, we will be participating in the API protests indefinitely, at your request,” said the Cyberpunk 2077 subreddit. “We were going to open up in private but many people expressed their concerns of that undermining the protest.”
It’s unclear if or when these protests will end, but Reddit CEO Steve Huffman showed no sign of changing the policy when asked about it on June 9.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
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