A timeline of the #WWE2K24/#FreeStatus situation: (Some major issues have arisen in line with this situation & we feel a full timeline describing the events is important for anyone looking to know about/cover this story. There are no opinions here, just the facts.) • In early April, many prominent figures in the modding community take to Twitter to express concerns over more encryption changes added in Patch 1.05 that made modding more difficult, again. • Debate begins in the wider WWE 2K community, with many people pointing a finger at 2K NextMakers, saying that they have a responsibility to try and help fix these issue by communicating with 2K. • A number of 2K NextMakers respond to these allegations, saying that they are communicating the issues to 2K and that they themselves are also frustrated, both at the lack of response from 2K, as well as the community pointing fingers at them. • On April 12th, Status himself posts a large update talking about a variety of things related to WWE 2K, Modding & NextMakers, including a conversation he had with Cornell Gunther at WrestleMania weekend. Status points out that it isn't fair how he and other modders are punished for creating mods for the game, while 2K NextMakers are rewarded for covering the exact same content the modders create. See the full post from this day here: • On April 16th, @CornellGunter_ blacked out his Twitter and posted some cryptic tweets, seemingly alluding to the fact that he had been let go by 2K. Up until this point in time, Cornell was the only person at 2K engaging in a dialogue with the wider community and things seemed to be moving in a good direction based on this communication. • On April 17th, Status provided another update to the community, informing everyone that all "hidden models" that had been uploaded by him were now "content damaged", meaning they couldn't be downloaded. The only two hidden models that didn't receive this treatment were Vince McMahon & Brock Lesnar models, which were not uploaded by Status. This sparked more debate within the community, as instead of removing the characters that 2K went out of their way to make sure weren't playable upon release of the game, due to the ongoing Vince McMahon scandal, they seemingly once again deliberately targeted Status and his work. • On April 18th, Cornell seemed to confirm that he had been let go by 2K when he posted this Tweet: • Debates continued over the next few days, with people raising the point that 2K have the time and resources to go after Status and the things he does, but don't seem to have the time and resources to fix critical, game breaking bugs within the game. • On April 21st, 2K NextMaker, @Assemble_Show, announces that he is leaving Twitter due to mental health concerns arising from using the platform. This followed Assemble being one of the #1 targets by people criticising 2K NextMakers. • On April 22nd, despite the conversation around bugs & glitches effecting the game being more prevalent than ever, Status announced that all of his uploads had been removed from Community Creations, including non-modded content: • In response to this, @dotGrix posted a Tweet exposing the amount of deepfake pornographic content featuring Women WWE Superstars (Including @ImKingKota, @itsBayleyWWE, @Iyo_SkyWWE, @BiancaBelairWWE & more) that exists within the game publicly on Community Creations. You can see the tweet here (NSFW content warning/viewer discretion is advised): • This tweet continued to ignite the debate that had been going on for the last few days, with people questioning, "Why is Status being punished when this type of content still exists within the game?" • Also on this day, prominent creator, @Defract, announced he had requested to leave the 2K NextMakers program: • A few hours later, Status posted another update, informing the community that he had received a permanent, non-appealable ban from all WWE 2K24 Online services: • This sparked a big outrage within the WWE 2K community, not only from players, but from many 2K NextMakers as well, with 100s & 1000s of people taking to Twitter to voice their concerns, specifically over the fact that Status was continuing to be targeted by 2K, while game breaking bugs and deep fake pornographic content continued to exist within the game. • As a result of this mass outrage, both the issue itself, along the hashtag "#FreeStatus", started trending on Twitter. Many modders and creators have also announced that they will be postponing any work they do using WWE 2K24 out of solidarity with Status. We'll continue to post more updates to this story as it develops.
The latest updates to this the #FreeStatus situation: • The hashtag and story continue to trend online. It has trended now for over 24 hours, which includes close to 15,000 individual posts. • Prominent video game website, VGC, has covered the story bringing even more more viability to it: videogameschronicle.com/news/there-was… • Assemble reached out and wanted us to clarify that the recent 2K NextMakers controversy isn't the reason he left the platform and it was for, as he stated, to take better care of his mental health as it relates to using this platform. • @CornellGunter_ has returned to Twitter following the black out of his account and has announced that he is moving away from his role as a 2K Influencer manager and instead, will now be a part of the WWE Games dev team at Visual Concepts: • Later today, creator @FatalStevenYT will be recording a podcast with creator @dotGrix, where they plan on having a raw, unfiltered conversation around the state of WWE 2K24 and the modding community: More on this story to come as it develops.