What I'm curious about - does review bombing occur so frequently that you need an automated system to handle it? I mean, we see when it occurs and to what games, large or small, do we actually need some type of automation to curb it's effects or can a human being simply watchdog suspicious activity?
Review bombs are an issue that in its entirety is blown out of proportion here on GAF by console gamers whose knowledge about the steam store is all second hand gained through Jim Sterling's low effort rant videos.
If you actually look at the numbers, those supposedly review bombed games show an irrelevant impact at worst save for one exception.
Firewatch, currently review bombed because of the PEWDIEPIEEEEEEE DMCA sits at 83% positive all time reviews. The game has had 28.000 reviews, 2.300 of which were posted during the last 30 days (The DMCA thing started a lot more recent than that even).
Of those 2.300 reviews, 54% are negative, meaning around 1.200 reviews were posted to bomb it, compared to an all time number of 27.000 legitimate reviews.
If you look at the new handy graph you're going to see
- That the review bombing was offset entirely by people anti-review bombing it (whatever you wanna call that)
- That every single, simple steamsale earns the game more positive reviews than this entire controversy is giving it negative reviews
- And that the majority of the already dwindling amount of negative reviews were posted on launch day by genuine people, as that is the date most reviews are posted.
Now, let's look at another, according to the media recently review bombed game called Dota 2. The game that was - according to drive-by shitposters earlier in this thread - the reason Valve implemented the system in the first place.
As with Firewatch, the supposed review bombing took place less than 30 days ago when the HalfLife3.txt was posted on the web.
Dota 2 has had nearly 800.000(!) all time reviews, clocking in at an 88% positive review score. Of those, 21.000 were posted in the last 30 days, 46% of which were negative. Meaning of the total 800.000 reviews, only around 10.000 were review bombs, or in other words, 1.25% of all reviews.
If you look at the graph to the very right
You can see that the amount of review bombs was much smaller than the amounf of positive reviews it has been getting every month systematically for over 3 years.
Another recently review bombed title - or rather titles -
were games from the publisher Paradox. Paradox raised the price of their games in certain regions right before the steamsale, so discounts would appear higher than they actually are.
Let us take Crusader Kings 2 as example, tho trust me, if you look at the other games you'll see that it is in fact very representative of their other titles.
The game features 15.000 reviews, 89% of which are positive. Because the review bomb occured more than 30 days ago we can't see how the game was temporarily affected by those reviews in the "recent reviews" slot anymore. Or can we?
Cos the new Graph allows us to do exactly that! Isn't it glorious?
As you can see, during that review bomb, the game got 400 negative reviews on the biggest day, and another 100 each on the day before and after the peak.
So a total amount of 600 Review bombs, compared to (15.000-600) 14.400 legitimate reviews.
I'm kinda curios to know what caused the big spike of 1.000 positive reviews.during november, but unfortunately the reviews don't give anything away in that regard.
Next example: Sonic Mania.
The game was delayed for two weeks on PC in order to add Denuvo DRM without communicating said inclusion of DRM to the customers. In addition, SEGA gave away free copies of Sonic CD, rendering all people ineligible to refunds that activated the free game and weren't okay with the unforetold inclusion of Denuvo.
It launched and it earned 500 negative reviews to 1.500 positive reviews. In other words, despite all these things and the supposed review bombing, the game has had a score of 75% positive reviews at launch.
A month later it's sitting at 79% positive reviews of 4.000 reviews total
Now to the last big example of review bombing, the one that is at odds with these other games,
GTAV
Short summary: Take2 Cease and Desist Letter'd important modding communites telling them to stop. Modding communities that have been existing for years and that are really popular.
GTAV has had a total amount of 270.000 reviews, 64% of which are positive,
When the review bomb occured it accumulated 46.000 negative reviews and dropped from "Positive" to "mixed". It is, as such, the only example of a game that was actually impacted by such a review bomb. Funnily enough tho, it's also the only game in which the actual quality of the game (The new modding policies) was a cause of the review bomb.
So, all in all, here's my conclusion:
a) Review bombing is an issue blown out of proportion
i) The effect generally is only measurable on the "recent reviews" tab
ii) Said effect vanishes after 30 days at the latest
ii) There's only one example of a game released this year that had its permanent score drop due to review bombs (GTAV)
iii) That specific title had its actual quality at the core of the bomb and no "outside politics"
b) Review bombs are most likely not the reason this system is in place, as aforementioned, the ever changing nature of Early Access titles and games as a service is much more believable
c) People that think no one's ever going to use these graphs are already proven wrong because i just did
d) Those that think Vave did this because of Dota 2 don't know shit what they're talking about big time
e) Everyone feel free to add any example of review bombing that i might missed, tho i think this covered most of them already.
