this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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I truly detest the "review bombing" culture, but in the same breath - Blizzard has really screwed up on OW2.
OW was honestly one of my two most played games of all time - and I loved it. The loot boxes were annoying, but hey...if I wanted to, or chose to - I could buy more and got a decent chance of getting what I wanted. The issue was that I had nearly everything by the end, and rarely bought loot boxes. The content wasn't there to keep people buying cosmetics.
The new shop/token/battle pass stuff is really really toxic to gaming. I will admit that I have bought a few battle passes. When the content is there, I will pay. I would totally buy skins if they were in the vein of $5-7usd, and were for a hero I liked... but there is no way in the world that they are getting me to pay 20-25 on a skin. Its honestly so disgusting.
I really was unaffected by the single player stuff, because I only enjoy multiplayer games - but the way it was done showed disregard for the loyal players so it makes me lose trust in the company. I am honestly just sad about what happened to the OW universe. The only way for people to voice that feeling/emotion is to vent and move on. I guess the reviews serve as a good warning to potential new players.
I love review bombing culture. Because companies always (always) push to have more money. Ten years ago we wouldn't think that loot boxes would be so common. Now lootboxes are more common and games more shittier.
And sometimes people snap and just bury the game that crosses some lines. Imo those lines were crossed long ago. Now we notice it when the game is both bad and have loot boxes.
But it's funny to look at overwatch because they also gambled to push as much shit into the game and lost (at least I hope so, the game still have 50000+ players)
But what does "review bombing" accomplish?
You mention loot boxes. SWBF2(2) was so notorious that governments got involved.
And... we still have loot boxes and people are actively defending gacha games.
And that ignores that most review bombs aren't even about the game* and are mostly about "woke politics" and similar stupidity.
*: I would also very much argue that SWBF2 had very little to do with the loot boxes and was mostly chuds angry about TLJ.
Steams reviews have a much higher weight in regard to a games success than any other form of review. The new Battlefront games came to Steam way later, when EA Play got introduced and a big chunk of EAs exclusive library moved to Steam. By that point the Battlefront games got all patched up and were somewhat beloved. But a native Steam release like BF2042 was met with harsh criticism, which ultimately let to the game's failure. There is a reason why AAA studios like Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft or Microsoft prefer not to release their games on Steam and each have their own launchers. The lack of transparency is also why the Epic Games Store is an attractive alternative for publishers. I'd like to think that Steam has the most solid review system one could ask for, something that other launchers are severely lacking. An "overwhelmingly positive" status for a game is an automatic success and everything below "mixed" is nearly a death sentence. Even games that are successfull, like the recent CoD titles start out "negative" or "mixed" on Steam release. But that doesn't matter anymore, because the publisher already got his money from their own launcher and console releases.
I think that is a somewhat reductive take on the situation.
Yes, steam reviews have largely grown to be part of the PR cycle. The same way metacritic/opencritic did. And this is, in large part, what led to the rise of Influencers. Because Ubi have reached the point where "it is shit at launch but it will be good on a year" is considered a positive and... a lot of that is from all the streamers and youtubers who get paid to parrot those talking points.
Wanting to control their own store is more about maximizing revenue. Steam takes a relatively small cut (EGS takes an even smaller one). But it is still money that EA and Ubi and the like aren't getting. That is why they prioritize their own stores.
But I think you have hit on something I've noticed over the course of the EGS mess. Steam Early Access doesn't work anymore. People get angry that it exists, throw a hissy, and ignore games. Whereas, launching a game on a different store gives developers cash injection while limiting the consumers to the die hard fans. Because I don't know ANYONE who browses the EGS store. But I know a lot of us bought Satisfactory or Salt and Sacrifice there because we could not wait. And that gets the actual Early Access community feedback without people complaining that this early access game is not as polished as Elden Ring.
And yeah, having the equivalent of some metacritic scores on the checkout page has a big impact. But, like I said, stuff like "review bombing" actively lessens that impact. Rather than "Oh, this is mostly negative, the devs must have screwed up" it becomes "Oh, this is mostly negative... Is that because there is a woman in the game or a single DLC was overpriced or is that because of actual gameplay reasons?". At which point... those reviews are worthless again and I am back to listening to my favorite influencer.
So... steam reviews come with words... you don't have to guess why something is rated poorly. You just scroll right down to the words and hundreds of people will tell you if they were "butthurt" or if the game just sucks.
Its funny you mention that.
Reading the top few reviews below the proverbial fold is incredibly useful. In large part because Valve already put the work in to filter out the review bombings.
I have never even heard of anyone reviewing BF2 for the movies. Everything I saw and heard were for loot boxes, the levelling system, the guns, skins, or pride and accomplishment.
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about
EA BFII released before TLJ (Nov 17, 2017 vs Dec 15, 2017). And the controversy for BFII happened before it's release, more than a month before anybody had the chance to see TLJ. On top of that, because of the extreme amounts of negative press, all paid loot boxes were removed from BFII within like a week of its release, and all future content would be entirely free. So while sometimes review bombing may be people clamoring about 'wokeness' or just ineffective, BFII is not the example to use as it's probably the singular hardest pivot in game direction in modern AAA due to player outcry.