Why review bombing makes sense

[Almega]

Many years playing games and lot of good games have come out to even bad games. Also giving players an outlet to tell devs that their game is bad or that hey half-baked it or did something controversial that needs to be said.
Skullgirls, Fallout 76, BF 2042, etc. What these games had in common was they promised or promoted something to give players a game that the gamers want but instead they ruin it, by either adding or making the game unplayable, adding features that literally 90% can agree sucks, and or that fact its a controversial due to how woke it is or how they try to force some political agenda.
I have never seen Review Bombing target a game or studio unless its deserved since most of the time if not all review bombing that I have seen done is well earned.

[❤ Sly Succubus ❤]

Makes sense to those seeking a free one way ban trip, this thread will go just as expected. If something is bad, just leave your review and move on, I'm not going to "not" buy a game if its just a review bomb situation because half the time the bombers, just like real world ones, miss their damn target or object and do more harm then any good.

[nullable]

Reviewing a game negatively is one thing. Trying to punish the developer because you don't agree with their decisions concerning their IP is something else.

Not everything a developer mentions to the public is a promise. Developers make plans for content and features, and plans can change. Such is life.

[Haruspex]

My problem with review bombs is that most of the time, the reason for the bomb has absolutely nothing to do with the game itself.

[Overseer]

If you don't like a company stop buying their products. Don't stand in line for their next game as you write a negative review. You don't punish them with your opinion. Those CEOs will just have some delicious cheese to your wine while Valve has to make the review process even more complicated.

[MalikQayum]

there was a topic similar not many days ago. The OP can write whatever they want in the reviews, they can still review bomb it, if they so desire. however they don't want to just voice their opinions through reviews (even though it should be about the game itself), why? because their reviews, won't count to the overall score of the rating of the game.

which leads you to wonder what they really want to achieve, one has to come to the conclusion that they want actual malice to occur before they are satisfied.

the way valve dealt with it was to remove their "bombing" from the rating score, but left their reviews intact. you should take that as an win.

[RedLightning]

I think its sad that when a company does a terrible move with an owned game.. and gets bombarded with 'negative' reviews all of a sudden.. (like they most certainly deserve) .. then steam filters the content.

Talk about 'sweeping it under a glass rug'

Whatever they can do to get away with terminating a much deserved review score by calling it a review bomb.

In my humble opinion.

I don't think that I've ever seen a 'review bomb' that was not *well* deserved.

[Xautos]

Originally posted by Almega:

Many years playing games and lot of good games have come out to even bad games. Also giving players an outlet to tell devs that their game is bad or that hey half-baked it or did something controversial that needs to be said.
Skullgirls, Fallout 76, BF 2042, etc. What these games had in common was they promised or promoted something to give players a game that the gamers want but instead they ruin it, by either adding or making the game unplayable, adding features that literally 90% can agree sucks, and or that fact its a controversial due to how woke it is or how they try to force some political agenda.
I have never seen Review Bombing target a game or studio unless its deserved since most of the time if not all review bombing that I have seen done is well earned.

Not sure how you think it makes sense when steam picks up on positive and negative review bombs and omits those reviews from the rest.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by Almega:

I have never seen Review Bombing target a game or studio unless its deserved since most of the time if not all review bombing that I have seen done is well earned.

Odd, for me it's the opposite. Most review bombs are just hissyfits about irrelevant pointless stuff and should be removed.

Sadly actual review bombs about actual issues suffer thanks to that.

It also doesn't help that people don't word their reviews well when doing a "review bomb". Just going through the negative reviews for Skullgirls shows that many are simply attacking or insulting the game devs without being constructive or on point. Yeah, that just makes for a lot off-topic reviews, nothing more, and actually supports Valves off-topic filter.

[Q]

Review bombing has been crippled on IMDB, Rotten tomatoes and youtube by removing the dislike button. Now even the !"#@ movie or trailer gets a nice score as long as the sites get paid, it's all about money and giving this "wonderful world" image, everything is nice, butterflies everywhere the birds are singing and look there's a rainbow, no worries our product is 10/10.

On steam is a bit different, i kinda support removing some unusual scores, i remember this indie game for kids bout animals or something that was review bombed cuz some trash youtuber asked all his followers to get here and review bomb the game, he probably didn't get a free copy or "free stuff" for his channel and the retaliation was considerable, in some cases that could lead to small studios and indie devs to shutdown future projects and lose money.

then you see the skullgirls case here (censorship) or the CoD case (boycott due nickmercs banned etc) and Gollum case (unfinished buggy mess).

anyways, it's easy to spot when someone is trolling like the case i mentioned about the indie game but now if every massive amount of negative reviews is considered review bombing and steam is going to "adjust" the score then it's going to be like youtube... Is this game bad? good? who knows... That video is useful or misinformation, lies, maybe even a dangerous tutorial? who knows? youtube removed the dislike now you can't tell unless you spent quite some time reading comments.

[sfnhltb]

Vigilante justice/mob rule has never worked in history and it still doesn't work because it is all about feeling powerful for the people in the mob, and no one involved truly cares about justice or doing they right thing, just having an excuse plausible enough to form a mob or attack the person they want to attack without feeling guilty.

[muckymucks]

Review bombing is an act of emotionally-stunted people who don't know how to have a conversation. Children have an excuse, adults do not.

[wuddih]

the majority of marked offtopic review bombs on Steam were not about the games playability but something an associate did or did not do (in their private time) or as you named it, some "agenda", which are completely non-relevant for playing most games and it is very easy to turn everything into an "agenda" today.

[Soliolangley]

Originally posted by wuddih:

the majority of marked offtopic review bombs on Steam were not about the games playability but...

No.
The last "off-review" is about the last update of the game Skullgirls, who change the concepts arts, minor details of history, and characters colors model. It's relevant with the game, not an outside event of steam.

Originally posted by muckymucks:

Review bombing is an act of emotionally-stunted people who don't know how to have a conversation. Children have an excuse, adults do not.

LOL
Developers in this situation have no adult conversation. They leave a message and wallow in silence, waiting for steam to shadow ban the reviews. Dev behave immaturely, and don't listen.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by Soliolangley:

who change the concepts arts

Interesting way of describing it.

Originally posted by Almega:

Skullgirls, Fallout 76, BF 2042, etc. What these games had in common was they promised or promoted something to give players a game that the gamers want but instead they ruin it

And how much of that lies within those games and how much within people's expectations on those games.

[Soliolangley]

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Originally posted by Soliolangley:

who change the concepts arts

Interesting way of describing it.

If you want a more complete description, you can look at https://steamcommunity.com/app/245170/discussions/0/3810658214741448307/