YouTuber Luke Wild from the channel SwitchStars — which primarily focuses on highlighting low-quality games that don’t require much effort and should be avoided on the Switch eShop — announced video recording detailing what he believes was an attack on his channel orchestrated by publisher Midnight Works.
The Moldovan company is responsible for much of the software that Wild has covered in recent years. In the video (see below — please note, it contains profanity), shows messages he received via Discord citing a request allegedly sent to Midnight Works staff asking them to file false reports with YouTube.
The wild details DMs claimed came from Midnight Works employee whistleblowers warning him of an impending crackdown aimed at disrupting his channel. The message, after machine translation, appears to be a request sent through Midnight Works’ Slack channel asking employees to randomly select and file harassment reports on “5-10” of Wild’s videos, “1 strike – from your home computer, 1 strike from your phone “.
Looking at the background stats on his channel, Wild surmises that the increased activity shortly after this message was allegedly sent indicates its legitimacy. A further screenshot he received the next day appears to show the same request, this time with a timestamp and the company’s human resources manager also listed as the sender, with the recipients shown as 239 members of the “team midnight” Slack group. Midnight Works website
Unlike the copyright claim that Midnight Works has previously filed (unsuccessfully) against SwitchStarsWild says harassment reports are anonymous and he receives no notification if and when they are filed.
We’ve reached out to Midnight Works for comment and will update this article with any responses.
We spoke to Wild last year for an article highlighting the proliferation of these types of games on the Switch eShop, examining how and why ‘scam’ and ‘keyword bingo’ titles from this company and other seemingly related companies are flooding Nintendo’s store.