If anything has become clear in recent years about the review systems of some gaming websites, it’s that they can be pretty easy to game. Overall ratings on sites like Metacritic and Steam are based on aggregating all user review scores. So enough people, angry or otherwise, can easily join together to push the overall rating up or down.
Review bombing can easily fool users who haven’t kept up with current trends in the gaming industry, resulting in them bypassing games that are actually good due to inaccurately low review ratings or, vice versa, buying games whose score has been falsely inflated by overenthusiastic fans or duplicitous developers.
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It seems that one developer on Steam has joined in on the attempt to fool unwary users. The creator of Emoji Evolution, an alchemy-themed game that requires players to combine different elements in order to discover new ones, has changed both its developer and publisher names to “Very Positive.” A gamer not paying close attention might glance at these names, not notice that they’re not actually a review rating, and purchase the game based on this misleading information.
It’s unclear why the developer chose to go this questionable route. Emoji Evolution’s current overall rating on Steam is already “Mostly Positive.” Perhaps the choice of developer and publisher name was intended to be humorous and not deceptive. Indeed, some gamers might find the move clever and praise the developer’s creativity. But chances are that some users won’t so willingly give the developer the benefit of the doubt, potentially leading to review bombing and the low score the developer was trying to avoid. No matter the developer’s motives, this seems like a move that Valve maybe should put a stop to.
Gamers have quickly learned that review bombing is an effective way to goad developers into giving them what they want. Some of this behavior might seem to serve a justified purpose. In May 2020, gamers review bombed DOOM Eternal for its inclusion of Denuvo DRM, an anti-tamper technology that prevents software from being pirated or used without an authorized license. However, Denuvo has its detractors, many of them with loud voices. The result of their efforts in the case of DOOM Eternal was that developer iD Software removed Denuvo from the game.
In some cases, review bombing can seem like an excessive response to a mild problem. In 2019, Platinum Games’ Astral Chain got review bombed for being a Nintendo Switch exclusive. Death Stranding got bombed for being a walking simulator. And Fire Emblem: Three Houses got review bombed for reasons that never really became clear.
On the other hand, there is occasionally positive review bombing. In early 2019, the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris caught fire. Developer Ubisoft aided the restoration efforts by donating $564,000, and Assassin’s Creed Unity, which takes place in France, was made free on Steam for a limited time. To show their support for Ubisoft’s actions, users flooded the game’s Steam page with around 400 positive reviews in four days.
MORE: A History of Review Bombing
Source: Kotaku