That sounds less like review bombing and more like poorly received mechanics and broken promises. Am I missing something here?
Right? “We made a mediocre game that doesn’t deliver on the promises we made. Pls give good review now”
That being said, I have not read the Steam reviews, but it could be that they are getting bombed, but the situation described in the article is just people not liking the game for valid reasons
I went and read a good chunk of negative steam reviews for it. And yeah, the vast majority of the negative ones are about mechanics, or performance, and seem perfectly legitimate. A lot that basically even say, “I don’t recommend now but seems like it will be good once they cook for a bit.”
I did see a couple made super recently that were basically negative reviewing because of this dude’s statements, but not many.
And funny how the only reviews I could imagine being considered review bomb-y seem to only have happened because of his whining about being review bombed.Mostly it looks like the game’s recent “The Breach” update was legitimately poorly received by the playerbase, the studio head decided, “No, it’s the children who are wrong.”
Ugh, this discussion happens every time this topic comes up. There’s nothing about the phrase “review bombing” that implies the reviews are somehow illegitimate. It just means a large number of negative reviews in a short time.
While it mentions malice in the first few words, I would argue many of their examples are not malicious, including the one given about the first known use of the phrase:
One of the first appearances of the term “review bomb” was in a 2008 Ars Technica article by Ben Kuchera describing the effect in regards to Spore, in which users left negative reviews on Amazon citing the game’s perceived lackluster gameplay and digital rights management system.
based on this article I’d say it has more to do with the organized nature of reviews. It even says:
Review bombing is a similar practice to vote brigading.
I would argue the first use was malicious and that it spawned even worse instances after. It is a known favorite tool of gamergaters and right wingers
Giving a game bad reviews because of “lackluster gameplay” and DRM is malicious?
With the intent of tanking review scores so the game does not sell as well is, yes.
What other purpose for reviews is there than signaling to others whether or not they should buy the game?
Do you think the negative reviews for No Rest For The Wicked don’t have the intention of making it not sell as well? And if not, why do you think players leave them?
