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Valve battles review-bombers by introducing review histograms

D

Death Penalty

Member
To echo what others are saying, this tool seems like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. I'm extremely skeptical that the average consumer is looking to disseminate the information in a graph to inform their decision, and the consumer who is looking to go that in-depth was likely already reading the reviews, right? It seems as though with this tool in place, bombing will still be able to do exactly what it's always been able to do.
 
S

Sad Affleck

Member
Death Penalty said:
To echo what others are saying, this tool seems like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. I'm extremely skeptical that the average consumer is looking to disseminate the information in a graph to inform their decision, and the consumer who is looking to go that in-depth was likely already reading the reviews, right? It seems as though with this tool in place, bombing will still be able to do exactly what it's always been able to do.
Click to expand...

That's not always a bad thing. I fully support review bombing when it is used as a way of expressing objection bad choices by the developer or publisher. The GTA V mod ban is a good example of that.

Even the average consumer can use the information given to him on a game's Steam page and decide whether it warrants further investigation. If a game has a 'very positive'rating on the overall scores and a 'mixed' rating on the recent scores then it's obvious that there is some sort of issue here. Then the customer can click through and find out with the help of the graphs why this game got negative ratings recently.
 
L

Lotto

Member
Better than what Netflix did to their review system but at least they made a cute cease and desist letter to that one Stranger Things bar.
 
D

Death Penalty

Member
Sad Affleck said:
That's not always a bad thing. I fully support review bombing when it is used as a way of expressing objection bad choices by the developer or publisher. The GTA V mod ban is a good example of that.

Even the average consumer can use the information given to him on a game's Steam page and decide whether it warrants further investigation. If a game has a 'very positive'rating on the overall scores and a 'mixed' rating on the recent scores then it's obvious that there is some sort of issue here. Then the customer can click through and find out with the help of the graphs why this game got negative ratings recently.
Click to expand...

That still begs the question of what exactly this new feature is offering at all. Consumers that want to dig deeper already had the tools to do so in reading reviews. Consumers that don't will ignore the feature. It's obviously intended to combat review bombing, but it doesn't do so effectively in my opinion.
 
N

Neith

Banned
I like how a lot of the new Firewatch reviews are actually trying to negatively critique the game, even though they probably liked the game before the "incident". Like, I did not even see that as much with GTA5. People were actually so pissed about FW they tried to create a review that seemed decent lol.
 
S

Sad Affleck

Member
Death Penalty said:
That still begs the question of what exactly this new feature is offering at all. Consumers that want to dig deeper already had the tools to do so in reading reviews. Consumers that don't will ignore the feature. It's obviously intended to combat review bombing, but it doesn't do so effectively in my opinion.
Click to expand...

I think it will offer clarity over the long term about the reason a game's overall rating is as it is. If a review bomb is recent you can get the relevant information through the negative recent and positive overall rating. Once enough time passes and these review bombs are moved from the recent rating to the overall, you'll be able to pinpoint why and when a game that has a recent Very Positive rating ended up with a mixed or negative overall rating.

Some people want Valve to put a stop to or censor review bombs but Valve doesn't seem to feel the same. It's clear they want to better inform their customers why a review bomb has occured.
 
G

gelf

Member
If I were Valve I'd be tempted to change the weighting of an obvious statistical review bomb so it has less impact on the overall score. That hurts legitimate cases too though so I'd probably settle with trying to subtly give low weighting to reviews from certain suspicious Steam accounts e.g accounts that only exist with one paid and refunded game get less weight.
 
L

Lain

Member
Class_A_Ninja said:
Ive got an idea, review reviewers to weight the impact of their reviews.

Now the bombers become the bombed.
Click to expand...

Who reviews the reviewers of the reviews?

Death Penalty said:
That still begs the question of what exactly this new feature is offering at all. Consumers that want to dig deeper already had the tools to do so in reading reviews. Consumers that don't will ignore the feature. It's obviously intended to combat review bombing, but it doesn't do so effectively in my opinion.
Click to expand...

It's supposed to give the people willing to look why something is negative a way to quickly find out what the issue is and if it's something that matters to them.
It combats the effect of review bombing (discouraging possible consumers from purchasing) by making it easier for consumers to see why something is negative in a specific point in time.
 
EventHorizon

EventHorizon

Member
Death Penalty said:
That still begs the question of what exactly this new feature is offering at all. Consumers that want to dig deeper already had the tools to do so in reading reviews. Consumers that don't will ignore the feature. It's obviously intended to combat review bombing, but it doesn't do so effectively in my opinion.
Click to expand...
It isn't an either-or situation. There are plenty of people in the middle that would investigate more, but don't want to put a lot of effort into it. A histogram showing review hot spots lets a potential buying quickly focus in on, or avoid, those areas. Just viewing the graph gives more info than was available without it, and could be enough to make a more informed decision. More info is never a bad thing...well unless it hides the important stuff, but that isn't the case here.
 
D

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
Class_A_Ninja said:
Ive got an idea, review reviewers to weight the impact of their reviews.

Now the bombers become the bombed.
Click to expand...
That's already a system. The bombers then just all mass upvote each other, and mass downvote positive reviews.

Unless you are saying to actually let people review the individual reviewers, and not the reviews the reviews do.
 
S

snail_maze

Member
Do formerly positive games that have been review bombed still show as 'mixed' for example on the store? That would still be somewhat crap since I often don't even bother looking at those. But it seems like a good tool if you actually are on the games store page
 
A

anniestarheart

Neo Member
Wulfram said:
Ask 500 random people who own the game and have played it "Do you recommend this game?". Use that to give it the headline percentage score.

So long as user reviews are self selecting, they'll be inherently flawed and vulnerable to brigading and campaigns. But Steam has the ability to take a leaf out of proper polling's book and get a much better figure.
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this is the first good idea in the thread. however, i see a few potential loopholes for exploitation ie: asset flips where only a very small number of 'buyers' collect the steam credit from reviews and repeat. another potential problem is how often and when to poll people as many games change over time with patches and whatnot.

definitely could be solvable though. you can even keep user reviews -just quarantine them off so you only see them IF you are looking for them, and don't factor them into the games overall score.
 
L

Lime

Member
meanwhile, Valve continues to allow bigoted shit like this

steamnazi4ougc.jpg
 
R

ramparter

Banned
Wulfram said:
Ask 500 random people who own the game and have played it "Do you recommend this game?". Use that to give it the headline percentage score.

So long as user reviews are self selecting, they'll be inherently flawed and vulnerable to brigading and campaigns. But Steam has the ability to take a leaf out of proper polling's book and get a much better figure.
Click to expand...
Good idea. In general statistics are the solution. Make an algorithm that minimizes the bombing impact. Like 50 reviews in the last day shouldn't have the same impact as 50 reviews spread out throughout the rest of the year. Also review weight should take into account the time spent in the game.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
Brakke said:
Valve is cowards. This would be a useful tool to give to a goddamn full time moderation team. You can't just ship this to world and consider the job done.
Click to expand...

In house teams that do any sort of moderation? This is Steam, yo.

Turns out when you have a supposedly flat management structure, nobody really wants to stick their neck out.
 
R

Randomizer123454444

Member
This review histogram is a good solution. I don't want Valve to curate Steam reviews. I don't want somebody else to tell me what I should like and what I shouldn't.

Can you tell the difference between a "review bomb" and "a lot of people don't like this game but I like it so everybody else is wrong and just review bombing the game"? With this tool, maybe you can with some research. But it's up to you to decide, not Valve.
 
L

Lime

Member
Basically ->
JP LeBreton‏ @vectorpoem
Twitter Solves Harassment With Per-Profile Death Threat Histograms
Click to expand...

Valve's idea is far from a solution and it still does not provide any resistance against the fascist mob that has grown in gaming culture.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
Lime said:
Basically ->

Valve's idea is far from a solution and it still does not provide any resistance against the fascist mob that has grown in gaming culture.
Click to expand...

tbh most of these mobs now get an actual trophy they can show off of how many of them review bombed the game.

Valve is the company that responded to a developer that was targeted with a link to the Streisand Effect even though the developer literally had done nothing other than be discovered as a target for Gaters.


The irony is that per the Steam developer agreement, you can't solicit reviews in any way, not even a "please go review the game, good or bad, in the store" prompt in the game. But it's totally fine for other people, and let's be honest here because it has happened, other developers to initiate brigades against you.

I'm tempted to use the reviews API to do a better job of brigade detection than Valve with their own data...
 
O

orava

Member
This is excellent solution. I had no interest digging throught the old review system before. Now it's almost fun.
 
MikeBison

MikeBison

Member
Don't think I've ever once used the reviews on a storefront to gather an opinion about a game I'm interested in. Not steam. Not psn. Not amazon.

Interest in game. Google that game. Look up on gaf. Look up on YouTube. Draw conclusions.

Like, if I was interested in firewaych (already played it) I doubt I'd even see the steam reviews before purchasing it.
 
O

orava

Member
MikeBison said:
Don't think I've ever once used the reviews on a storefront to gather an opinion about a game I'm interested in. Not steam. Not psn. Not amazon.

Interest in game. Google that game. Look up on gaf. Look up on YouTube. Draw conclusions.

Like, if I was interested in firewaych (already played it) I doubt I'd even see the steam reviews before purchasing it.
Click to expand...

There's way too many games to do that for each one individually. Maybe for some higher profile games.
 
W

Widge

Member
Sad Affleck said:
That's not always a bad thing. I fully support review bombing when it is used as a way of expressing objection bad choices by the developer or publisher. The GTA V mod ban is a good example of that.
Click to expand...

I'm not really behind this school of thought. I find that "gamers" seem to have an incredibly warped perception of... well, what goes on in most aspects of games. More often that not, opinions stick to the polar opposites of outrageously shit to deity designation.

For me, why should the removal of mod capability from a game have even the most modest impact on a review score that is visible on the main page. It's not a feature of the game is it? It's not detracting from the off the shelf product. And yet, if I go onto the page, there is a huge swarm of people having a hissy fit. I could be detracted from buying a game that has decided to not give access to something that isn't a feature of the game. Oh how dare they.

I don't trust users to have a balanced perception of a product, what happens with a product, and if that means their input into a visible review metric needs to be managed, then so be it.
 
TheRedSnifit

TheRedSnifit

Member
Widge said:
I'm not really behind this school of thought. I find that "gamers" seem to have an incredibly warped perception of... well, what goes on in most aspects of games. More often that not, opinions stick to the polar opposites of outrageously shit to deity designation.

For me, why should the removal of mod capability from a game have even the most modest impact on a review score that is visible on the main page. It's not a feature of the game is it? It's not detracting from the off the shelf product. And yet, if I go onto the page, there is a huge swarm of people having a hissy fit. I could be detracted from buying a game that has decided to not give access to something that isn't a feature of the game. Oh how dare they.

I don't trust users to have a balanced perception of a product, what happens with a product, and if that means their input into a visible review metric needs to be managed, then so be it.
Click to expand...

Because a lot of PC players consider mods to be a crucial feature?

There are dozens of games I wouldn't have purchased if they banned mods.
 
A

Ascheroth

Member
Widge said:
I'm not really behind this school of thought. I find that "gamers" seem to have an incredibly warped perception of... well, what goes on in most aspects of games. More often that not, opinions stick to the polar opposites of outrageously shit to deity designation.

For me, why should the removal of mod capability from a game have even the most modest impact on a review score that is visible on the main page. It's not a feature of the game is it? It's not detracting from the off the shelf product. And yet, if I go onto the page, there is a huge swarm of people having a hissy fit. I could be detracted from buying a game that has decided to not give access to something that isn't a feature of the game. Oh how dare they.

I don't trust users to have a balanced perception of a product, what happens with a product, and if that means their input into a visible review metric needs to be managed, then so be it.
Click to expand...
People care about the feature, so they leave negative reviews when the feature gets prohibited. Quelle surprise.
The review histogram shows you when the negative reviews started and makes it easy to see why they happened. You then quickly notice they are about a feature you don't care about, shrug and buy the game regardless.
 
C

Chairmanchuck

Member
Ascheroth said:
People care about the feature, so they leave negative reviews when the feature gets prohibited. Quelle surprise.
The review histogram shows you when the negative reviews started and makes it easy to see why they happened. You then quickly notice they are about a feature you don't care about, shrug and buy the game regardless.
Click to expand...

The thing is who would really check out that? For bigger games, sure.

But what if its a smaller game. People see "mostly negative reviews" lately, deduct maybe it has to do with patches (see The Culling) and just close the page again without "analyzing" why.
 
M

Micael

Member
KScorp said:
This seems like a great feature.

Users now see that there was a review bomb. Users can then read reviews specifically from that period to see what was going on. Users can then decide how much weight to give to the bombers.

Review bomb occurs due to something completely unrelated to the game? Users can ignore/exclude it.
Review bomb occurs due to something "terrible" happening to the game? (Features removed, awful support, devs abandoned it in unfinished state, etc) Well great, now users can see that the review bombing is actually very relevant to the product!

So basically, I don't think this feature "empowers" bombers. It empowers users, who can now choose to empower bombers.
Click to expand...

Pretty much, but somehow we are pretending people are never ok with the reasons that lead to review bombing, like say ark charging for DLC while in early access, or GTA V banning a mod tool for your game, or batman releasing a borderline unplayable port, even less widely agreed upon things like company of heroes 2 portrayal of the soviet union is bound to be an issue for some people but not for others.

TheRedSnifit said:
Steam threads are fascinating insights into the mentality of people who really, really need everything done for them.

Valve, tell me what reviews I should read. Valve, tell me what games I should play.
Click to expand...

More importantly, you got some truly genius insights into possible solutions, that are just fascinating to watch, I mean when you get suggestions like:

Blocking reviews behind a dev decided achievement, which I'm sure there wouldn't be devs that would make it nearly impossible to gain it to block out reviews on their asset flips, or ofc when their port is absolute trash, and more importantly there is clearly no piece of software that unlocks achievements for you, so in effect you have locked legit reviewers and allowed review bombers to continue.
I can't wait for the suggestion that we should build an MMO style infrastructure for every game to combat achievement scamming XD.

I mean I have even seen someone suggest a minimum word count, a god damn minimum word count, as if somehow that would fix or stop anything at all.

Honestly walking into neogaf valve related threads is like walking into reddit the donald, you just step into a world where logic stops making any sense and most people seem to have agreed that it is all good, not to mention ofc the endless amount of drive by shit posts that never ever get punished.
 
H

Hektor

Member
Widge said:
I'm not really behind this school of thought. I find that "gamers" seem to have an incredibly warped perception of... well, what goes on in most aspects of games. More often that not, opinions stick to the polar opposites of outrageously shit to deity designation.

For me, why should the removal of mod capability from a game have even the most modest impact on a review score that is visible on the main page. It's not a feature of the game is it? It's not detracting from the off the shelf product. And yet, if I go onto the page, there is a huge swarm of people having a hissy fit. I could be detracted from buying a game that has decided to not give access to something that isn't a feature of the game. Oh how dare they.

I don't trust users to have a balanced perception of a product, what happens with a product, and if that means their input into a visible review metric needs to be managed, then so be it.
Click to expand...

If a game used to allow mods and now does not anymore it has become an objectively inferior product and therefore deserves worse reviews than it used to. That isn't even debatable.

It is very much a feature, a feature that has been endorsed by rockstar in the past, a feature that many people buy the games for and its sudden absence objectively detracts from the quality of the product compared to before.
 
D

Durante

Member
Widge said:
I'm not really behind this school of thought. I find that "gamers" seem to have an incredibly warped perception of... well, what goes on in most aspects of games. More often that not, opinions stick to the polar opposites of outrageously shit to deity designation.

For me, why should the removal of mod capability from a game have even the most modest impact on a review score that is visible on the main page. It's not a feature of the game is it? It's not detracting from the off the shelf product. And yet, if I go onto the page, there is a huge swarm of people having a hissy fit. I could be detracted from buying a game that has decided to not give access to something that isn't a feature of the game. Oh how dare they.
Click to expand...
Other people care more about mods than you do. How dare they!

Widge said:
I don't trust users to have a balanced perception of a product
Click to expand...
Then don't use user reviews.
I find them invaluable, and with this addition even more so.
 
W

Widge

Member
Durante said:
Other people care more about mods than you do. How dare they!
Click to expand...

It's not part of the game. I would understand more if it was the sudden removal of an official modding capacity like Steamworks. But if it is not an actual part of the game, you shouldn't really critique on it.
 
D

Durante

Member
Widge said:
It's not part of the game. I would understand more if it was the sudden removal of an official modding capacity like Steamworks. But if it is not an actual part of the game, you shouldn't really critique on it.
Click to expand...
Why not? Because you don't approve?
Seriously, if people can give positive feedback and even buy games because of modding possibilities (and yes, that happens all the time) then they can most certainly give negative feedback when those possibilities are curtailed.

You don't have a leg to stand on in this.

However, amusingly enough even with your rather unique take on this, the new histogram feature helps you out a lot: you can see that some swell of negative reviews was due to modding being prevented, and you can go "haha entitled fools" and buy the game.
 
Alexander DeLarge

Alexander DeLarge

Member
Widge said:
I'm not really behind this school of thought. I find that "gamers" seem to have an incredibly warped perception of... well, what goes on in most aspects of games. More often that not, opinions stick to the polar opposites of outrageously shit to deity designation.

For me, why should the removal of mod capability from a game have even the most modest impact on a review score that is visible on the main page. It's not a feature of the game is it? It's not detracting from the off the shelf product. And yet, if I go onto the page, there is a huge swarm of people having a hissy fit. I could be detracted from buying a game that has decided to not give access to something that isn't a feature of the game. Oh how dare they.

I don't trust users to have a balanced perception of a product, what happens with a product, and if that means their input into a visible review metric needs to be managed, then so be it.
Click to expand...

The Grand Theft Auto modding community has been around since the series came to PC, they brought multiplayer to the series more more than half a decade before Rockstar offered it officially. These mods have given hundreds of millions of views of exposure to their products and some of the mods that were specifically targeted (FiveM) even authenticated the user with social club to ensure they had legitimate copies.... And Rockstar/Take Two sent private investigators to their home, intimidated them and cited "the facilitation of piracy" when it was all shut down. That was when I reviewed the game negatively. Then they did it again, this time targeting OpenIV (the modding toolkit) under the guise of it "facilitating cheats in GTA:Online" even though it's demonstrably false that OpenIV mods can interface with the online service.

That hissy fit as you put it changed policy publicly and they backed off. It was an issue surrounding the game and I'm glad people used the reviewing mechanism to their advantage. How is that not relevant to the product people are purchasing (in many cases, because of mods because FiveM single handedly put GTAV back on the front page of Twitch for the three previous months leading up to those letters being sent out). I'm not saying that brigading and "review bombing" can't go awry but it's the only thing that seems to work and in the vast majority of cases, the negative reviews have been entirely justified.
 
M

Micael

Member
Durante said:
Why not? Because you don't approve?
Seriously, if people can give positive feedback and even buy games because of modding possibilities (and yes, that happens all the time) then they can most certainly give negative feedback when those possibilities are curtailed.

You don't have a leg to stand on in this.
Click to expand...

Well you are a known mod sympathizer, we can all see your tag you are not hiding from anyone, you are part of the problem, if it wasn't for you fixing things like dark souls 1, we wouldn't get so many positive reviews of dark souls, you are clearly part of the problem here, the only possible solution is truly to ban every review that is influenced by outside sources, only the pure distilled dev experience shall prevail in our post review bombing glorious future, purity is all.
 
SmokedMeat

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
AusRoachman said:
Cant they just not allow reviews until you have played a game for more then 2 hours ? thus negating the refund policy.

So all the people who purchase it just to comment and then refund , cannot refund and all that money goes to the dev
Click to expand...

So all of those Batman AK users should've been silenced, is what you're saying?

Because if you're referring to Firewatch, your idea wouldn't have prevented anything.
 
F

FLAguy954

Junior Member
hesido said:
It may protect from review bombers but also any game can receive a game breaking patch or something like that that could take away the initial quality of the game too (e.g. introduction of pay to win elements), so one could understand it by analyzing the timeline. Also a game with a bad history can get better over time.

This way if a game starts receiving worse scores, you could analyze whether the negativity is uncalled for or not.
Click to expand...

Gestault said:
This is also super useful in cases where a patch either improves or introduces major issues into a game after release.
Click to expand...

Exactly. This is the best solution.

Durante said:
What I read here:
Nice to see Valve considering this issue deeply and on all levels, and providing a solution that empowers people to inform themselves better, rather than some half-baked "quick fix".

And then I read the GAF thread:

Come on, what the fuck?
Did you read that blog post? What exactly would be a not "half assed" solution in your opinion, which also doesn't have any of the other drawbacks of all the solutions explored and ultimately rejected by Valve?

Yes, Valve caters their solutions to making sure that people who want to inform themselves (or want to buy a particular game, or in general, want to make their own decisions) have powerful tools to do so.

That's what makes their platform different. I would argue it is what makes their platform great.
If you want a platform where decisions are made for you instead, there are plenty out there.
Click to expand...

the-office-thank-you-michael-scott-1Z02vuppxP1Pa


This thread is frustrating because you have people here arguing AGAINST having a relatively uncensored avenue to voice our displeasure against publishers and devs.

Yes, this is 'just' video games but people have the right to protest, just as everyone has the right to form an opinion on if the protest was justified or not.
 
H

Hektor

Member
Widge said:
It's not part of the game. I would understand more if it was the sudden removal of an official modding capacity like Steamworks. But if it is not an actual part of the game, you shouldn't really critique on it.
Click to expand...

The delivery is part of the package.

I'm lazy so please imagine clap emojis between all words
 
F

FLAguy954

Junior Member
Arulan said:
It's not surprising to see GAF's (statistically) poor reaction to any news concerning Valve. Valve is one of the most positive influences on the industry, and their insistence on keeping the PC an open-platform, and removing themselves from the position of overlords is unheard of for a company in their position. Yet it seems there is always much concern for why Valve isn't following the backwards closed-platform and my-say-is-absolute practices of other platform holders (consoles).

As for this update, I think revealing more information such as this is a good thing for the end-user. I thought the recent and overall change was smart as well. I'm sure there will continue to be ongoing changes to the system however.
Click to expand...

Great post.
 
MikeBison

MikeBison

Member
orava said:
There's way too many games to do that for each one individually. Maybe for some higher profile games.
Click to expand...

Please show me the game I can't find impressions of outside of the storefront reviews? Fact is, most reviews on storefronts are overwhelmingly positive or negative. Rarely in the middle.
 
L

luulubuu

Junior Member
Arulan said:
It's not surprising to see GAF's (statistically) poor reaction to any news concerning Valve. Valve is one of the most positive influences on the industry, and their insistence on keeping the PC an open-platform, and removing themselves from the position of overlords is unheard of for a company in their position. Yet it seems there is always much concern for why Valve isn't following the backwards closed-platform and my-say-is-absolute practices of other platform holders (consoles).
Click to expand...

So people can't criticise a thing because someone likes consoles better.

huh?
 
H

hotcyder

Member
Damned if they do, damned if they don't. At least this implementation isn't as anti-consumer as a lot of the suggestions that have been thrown around which is fine by me.
 
TheRedSnifit

TheRedSnifit

Member
Arulan said:
It's not surprising to see GAF's (statistically) poor reaction to any news concerning Valve. Valve is one of the most positive influences on the industry, and their insistence on keeping the PC an open-platform, and removing themselves from the position of overlords is unheard of for a company in their position. Yet it seems there is always much concern for why Valve isn't following the backwards closed-platform and my-say-is-absolute practices of other platform holders (consoles).

As for this update, I think revealing more information such as this is a good thing for the end-user. I thought the recent and overall change was smart as well. I'm sure there will continue to be ongoing changes to the system however.
Click to expand...

Years of console-maker advertising money has led to gullible and submissive consumer behaviour, to the point that people are conditioned to feel that walled gardens and general anti-consumer practices are an ideal to be strived for, not something you just "deal with" if you want to play exclusives.

Just go look at people in that other thread about multiplayer paywalls.
 
X

xealo

Member
Micael said:
Well you are a known mod sympathizer, we can all see your tag you are not hiding from anyone, you are part of the problem, if it wasn't for you fixing things like dark souls 1, we wouldn't get so many positive reviews of dark souls, you are clearly part of the problem here, the only possible solution is truly to ban every review that is influenced by outside sources, only the pure distilled dev experience shall prevail in our post review bombing glorious future, purity is all.
Click to expand...
Accusing people of being a problem cause they release fan mods that fix broken games is some really warped logic there.
 
A

andthebeatgoeson

Junior Member
Sad Affleck said:
I think it will offer clarity over the long term about the reason a game's overall rating is as it is. If a review bomb is recent you can get the relevant information through the negative recent and positive overall rating. Once enough time passes and these review bombs are moved from the recent rating to the overall, you'll be able to pinpoint why and when a game that has a recent Very Positive rating ended up with a mixed or negative overall rating.

Some people want Valve to put a stop to or censor review bombs but Valve doesn't seem to feel the same. It's clear they want to better inform their customers why a review bomb has occured.
Click to expand...
I don't know if you can effectively prevent review bombs. It requires someone objectively removing those type of reviews and i don't know you can find an objective source.

Edit: this will be a great tool when i reconsider buying the latest Batman Arkham. The first word on the pc version was to stay away and now I'll be able to follow the reviews over time in a graphical way. I like it.
 
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