IbizaPocholo
NeoGAFs Kent Brockman
Valve Ends Look Into Assassin's Creed: Unity Positive Steam Review Bombing: "We're Just Going to Leave It Alone"
A month after the positive reviews came pouring in, Valve has decided that the proper course of action regarding Assassin's Creed: Unity's Steam "review
twinfinite.net
In March, Valve addressed off-topic, negative review bombs in a blog post similar to its most recent one. In it, Valve outlines how Steam Review Scores will be affected after acknowledging this phenomenon. Ultimately, a system was developed that allows Valve to filter out these sudden masses of negative reviews on the grounds that they’re unhealthy and inorganic when it comes to gauging the overall experience. This is something that users can opt out of, too.
The way Valve is handling positive review bombs, at least in the case of Assassin’s Creed: Unity, is very different:
Coming to this conclusion required Valve to question the validity of this particular review bombing, stating, “In this case, the Notre Dame tragedy has made it so that AC: Unity happens to now include the world’s best virtual recreation of the undamaged monument. That’s a context change that could be increasing the value players are getting from the game, so perhaps the game really is better than it was before?”“[…] We’re not really sure what to do here. It doesn’t actually seem to be a review bomb in the way we’ve previously defined them, but maybe that’s just our definition being wrong. But even if we define it as one, we’re not sure whether it should be off-topic or not. The overall Review Score would decrease by 1.3% if we marked it, which wouldn’t have any significant effect on its visibility in the store (see the FAQ below for more on that). So either way, the game itself wouldn’t be affected by our decision.”
The blog post is a lengthy one, containing an FAQ section at the end, so be sure read into the full context of the decision.