Suggestion how to stop review bombing

[Grim Future]

How hard it would be to limit reviews to accounts that have actually played the game at least more than 2h(if I remember correctly steams current return policy is 2h) that way review bombing could only happen from paying customers

[the_asphyx]

Review Bombing is a right, as long as the person has bought the game. Their review, whether good or bad, is still valid.

What you are saying is silence the masses, You don't like this. So they should be silenced.


Keep the graph on the main page, always visible. To show stats of reviews, if it bothers you.


Rotten Tomatoes done the same with Captain Marvel, they tried to silence the masses. As they didn't like what they said, chopping out unfavourable reviews and didn't want to see's.


Every person has the right to vote, be it good or bad...

[Tito Shivan]

xyzforgottenme님이 먼저 게시:

They are missing the "Why" it got review bombed.

And that's what reviews are there for.

[Start_Running]

the_asphyx님이 먼저 게시:

Review Bombing is a right, as long as the person has bought the game. Their review, whether good or bad, is still valid.

So as long as someone hired you they're free to say you were s loppy worker, and killed their kitten when you did no such thing?

See what you're essentially saying is that you have a right to lie and while technically that is true...it brings up some rather disturbing implications.

What you are saying is silence the masses, You don't like this. So they should be silenced.

No they are silencing the minority.

Every person has the right to vote, be it good or bad...

Remember that the next time some starts spreading rumoprs about how you touched a boy in the bathroom.

[Ness_and_Sonic]

Start_Running님이 먼저 게시:

No they are silencing the minority.

If it was really a minority, it wouldn't be detected as a review bomb.

[Gus the Crocodile]

the_asphyx님이 먼저 게시:

Every person has the right to vote, be it good or bad...

Literally nobody has a right to a Steam review. There's a whole world out there for people to communicate in, noone is being silenced.

[Start_Running]

Ness_and_Sonic|Bye Reviews.님이 먼저 게시:

Start_Running님이 먼저 게시:

No they are silencing the minority.

If it was really a minority, it wouldn't be detected as a review bomb.

Do the math on thos reviews dear. Even a cursory addition will show the totals of positive reviews outside the review bomb will will overshadow the negative reviews in the review bomb. This is why review bombs are very short lived affairs. And compared against the actual number of owners the review bomb is a very small percentage.

So yes, a very loud minority is still a minority.

[Slimurgical (Stormy)]

Vault Hunter 101님이 먼저 게시:

Most of the review bombs are done by paying customers

>You have a person
>They buy a game
>They play and enjoy it
>They leave a review (or not)
>Something "bad" happens
>Person is angry and expresses his opinion by leaving bad review on the game


the only problem i have with valve review bombing algorhytm thing is that it sounds like it's targeted only for negative reviews, so if somebody review bombs using positive reviews nothing will happen

You'll never find anyone complaining about review bombing in a positive way. Not a single developer will complain to steam about this.

How do we stop review bombing? Developers need to stop ignoring their fanbases. There's nothing else which will work just as well. Devs need to communicate with customers, people who disagree with me on this have, you have no metaphor which will accurately work with how games work in relation to the customers and developers relationship between one another, and to the game itself.

It's what community managers and community staff are for. Nothing else.

[Ness_and_Sonic]

Start_Running님이 먼저 게시:

Do the math on thos reviews dear. Even a cursory addition will show the totals of positive reviews outside the review bomb will will overshadow the negative reviews in the review bomb. This is why review bombs are very short lived affairs. And compared against the actual number of owners the review bomb is a very small percentage.

So yes, a very loud minority is still a minority.

Ever think for a second that people actually avoid games because of them? I doubt it's a just minority who actually don't approve of what these companies are doing. Otherwise people like Randy Pitchford wouldn't have been upset about their games being review bombed.

[Start_Running]

TAWStormyFacade님이 먼저 게시:

You'll never find anyone complaining about review bombing in a positive way. Not a single developer will complain to steam about this.

But steam does still track un usual activity. Again they banned several developers for just such a thing. The investigations into those tend to be a bit longer Review boosters tend to be more careful in their reviews than review bombers. They don't stray off-topic for example.

How do we stop review bombing? Developers need to stop ignoring their fanbases. There's nothing else which will work just as well.

Which part of their fanbases? You seem to think fans are some unified hive mind speaking with one voice. Newsflash: They aren't. Unless you are dealing with a very, very small fanbase. like less than 100 people small.

Devs need to communicate with customers, people who disagree with me on this have, you have no metaphor which will accurately work with how games work in relation to the customers and developers relationship between one another, and to the game itself.

COmmunication is a double edged sword. WHat you mean is that developers need to only communicate the things their fans want to hear. Because fans don't really care about the developer.

Ness_and_Sonic|Bye Reviews.님이 먼저 게시:

Start_Running님이 먼저 게시:

Do the math on thos reviews dear. Even a cursory addition will show the totals of positive reviews outside the review bomb will will overshadow the negative reviews in the review bomb. This is why review bombs are very short lived affairs. And compared against the actual number of owners the review bomb is a very small percentage.

So yes, a very loud minority is still a minority.

Ever think for a second that people actually avoid games because of them? I doubt it's a just minority who actually don't approve of what these companies are doing. Otherwise people like Randy Pitchford wouldn't have been upset about their games being review bombed.

They do avoid games because of review bombs, yes. Thats why its a problem. The use of lies, and misinformnation to sway public perception is no less of a problem when gamer do as when developers do it.

A loud minority can creat the illusion of a majority. But it is still a minority. COnsidering the whole thing with borderlands is that people are made the developer exercised a right to choose where to sell their product.

[Tito Shivan]

Ness_and_Sonic|Bye Reviews.님이 먼저 게시:

If it was really a minority, it wouldn't be detected as a review bomb.

A minority can be really loud and obnoxious.

Just go for example to BL2 reviews and count the volume of reviews... It's a really tiny one (It's less than 4.000 negative reviews in half a month)

The internet is a reaally good distortion machine.

TAWStormyFacade님이 먼저 게시:

How do we stop review bombing? Developers need to stop ignoring their fanbases

Yeah... Because 'fanbases' are universally known for being level-headed and mature and never throwing a tantrum for themost menial reason. And they totally won't take the whole arm the monent they're given the hand at all either.

Do you knoe what happened last time Valve listened to their 'fanbase'?
Greenlight.
Look at how 'listening to the fanbase' worked out for that one.

[Ness_and_Sonic]

Start_Running님이 먼저 게시:

They do avoid games because of review bombs, yes. Thats why its a problem. The use of lies, and misinformnation to sway public perception is no less of a problem when gamer do as when developers do it.

A loud minority can creat the illusion of a majority. But it is still a minority. COnsidering the whole thing with borderlands is that people are made the developer exercised a right to choose where to sell their product.

Again, if others feel the same way because of what they're being warned about, it's probably not a minority that feel the things they're being warned about is an issue, preexisting reviews might just make it look it is.

[Lendoo]

i think it should be limited to the minimum amount of time it would take to complete the game, if it isn't a complete-able game then it should be 2 hours like you said

[Ness_and_Sonic]

Smurf121211221 MEME DEALER님이 먼저 게시:

i think it should be limited to the minimum amount of time it would take to complete the game, if it isn't a complete-able game then it should be 2 hours like you said

As previously stated, that wouldn't do much. A game that isn't completable could be broken. As such, that would skew reviews towards positive reviews in theory.

[Start_Running]

Ness_and_Sonic|Bye Reviews.님이 먼저 게시:

Again, if others feel the same way because of what they're being warned about, it's probably not a minority that feel the things they're being warned about is an issue, preexisting reviews might just make it look it is.

In all cases it has been proven to be a minority though. Look at any example of it and you'll discover that these things never really last more than a week. If it was a majority... it would last much longer and even at its peak the bomb never matched tthe concurrent player count. Meaning there were always more people happily playing the game quietly than raging on the forums and bombing. Hell i'd wager the number of review bombs is at best half the number of pre-orders BL3 has already received.

As much as you want to find ways to spin a miunority into not being a minority. The more you argue the more you iullustrate why developers and publishers are slowly learning not to give a flying fig about gamers. When you yell and scream about everything, no one can tell whether what you're yelling about is serious, or trivial and thusly it loses impact, . Publishers tune it out and most gamers and prospective buyers just filter it out (now that STeam has provided the tools to do so).

I think the sooner gamers get over the level of absurd entitlement they have the better. I mean it's a tier of its own now. Too many Gamers have a sense of entitlement surpassing that of wealthy 50+ white males in a first world country. That's not good.

To put it in perspective. You want to punish publishers for choosing to release their product on the storefront of their choosing and by doing so hopefully force publishers to release it on the store of your choosing. Literally doing the same thing you're mad about them doing, except worse. The publishers actually have the moral high-ground here.

They are doing it out of self-interest and not in an attempt to hurt some group. The bombers are doing it out of spite with the explicit intention of hurting another group. Which is made all the more laughable.

I think one good step forward for Valve is once they'dve tweaked the detection, is to just not even acknowledge the review bombing. Just exclude it from the chart and bury the reviews with an automatic -FF helpful score.

[Ness_and_Sonic]

Start_Running님이 먼저 게시:

In all cases it has been proven to be a minority though. Look at any example of it and you'll discover that these things never really last more than a week. If it was a majority... it would last much longer and even at its peak the bomb never matched tthe concurrent player count. Meaning there were always more people happily playing the game quietly than raging on the forums and bombing. Hell i'd wager the number of review bombs is at best half the number of pre-orders BL3 has already received.

As much as you want to find ways to spin a miunority into not being a minority. The more you argue the more you iullustrate why developers and publishers are slowly learning not to give a flying fig about gamers. When you yell and scream about everything, no one can tell whether what you're yelling about is serious, or trivial and thusly it loses impact, . Publishers tune it out and most gamers and prospective buyers just filter it out (now that STeam has provided the tools to do so).

I think the sooner gamers get over the level of absurd entitlement they have the better. I mean it's a tier of its own now. Too many Gamers have a sense of entitlement surpassing that of wealthy 50+ white males in a first world country. That's not good.

To put it in perspective. You want to punish publishers for choosing to release their product on the storefront of their choosing and by doing so hopefully force publishers to release it on the store of your choosing. Literally doing the same thing you're mad about them doing, except worse. The publishers actually have the moral high-ground here.

They are doing it out of self-interest and not in an attempt to hurt some group. The bombers are doing it out of spite with the explicit intention of hurting another group. Which is made all the more laughable.

I think one good step forward for Valve is once they'dve tweaked the detection, is to just not even acknowledge the review bombing. Just exclude it from the chart and bury the reviews with an automatic -FF helpful score.

Again, if this stuff only mattered to a few people, maybe the reason for these review bombs should be proudly displayed up at the top of the game's store page. If it doesn't matter to people, there's no harm is displaying such a warning as it wouldn't matter to most people right?

By ignoring customer feedback, their just damaging their own business. What you call a "minority" is more like people sending out "warning signals" to other gamers if they have a problem with this stuff.

"Gamer Entitlement" is just a fancy of saying "This policy can't be justified without making the companies in question look bad, so we'll just resort to insulting people who have an issue with our business practices." You really should stop using that one.

If they want to release on Epic, that's fine. It's leaving others waiting that is the problem. If they're going to sell on there, they should release on Steam, Discord, and other store fronts on the same day. Anyway, it's not just because of store exclusivity. Remember that offline fix? Well:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/584400/discussions/0/1474221865179730527/
Time stamped with the date the offline fix was supposed to be implemented.
https://imgur.com/a/EUELqNw
Time stamped with the date of when it asked him to be online along with proof of previous play time.

Feedback on what the company should be improving shouldn't be censored. They should be using that to up their standards instead of keeping them low.