this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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If real people hate your game because of the changes you made from the last one (that you took away from them), that's not a review bomb.
It's just a review.
the game/steam release definitely deserved bad reviews - but it'd be hard to deny that it wasn't also a bombing run.
A review bomb is when people start jumping down the game's throat with negative reviews for shit unrelated/peripheral to the game. If they're triggered by the actual core design choices of the game it isn't a review bomb.
These reviews are because the game is a money grubbing downgrade from the game people bought and had taken away from them, and this is the first opportunity they had to publish a review on a storefront. The motivation being the actual game means it can't be a review bomb.
If they're still playing the game anyway, I might call that a review bomb.
No, it's still a review because you're still actively dealing with whatever it is you're complaining about.
"Hey, I really like/liked the core game play loop of this game but I think that it's gotten significantly worse than it was previously. It'd be nice if they changed it back?
4/10."
Plenty of people leave negative reviews for games they otherwise play. Especially where big changes are put into effect
That's the exact recipe for ensuring that they don't change it back.
That's depends on the business model. For one-off payment games, it still does considerable damage, whereas they don't gain much by you continuing to play.
For subscription games, your point stands much stronger.
It's a free to play multiplayer game. If you continue playing it, you're providing value for some other player who might spend money, so just by being in the matchmaking pool, they've got you where they want you, and they won't care about your review.
Exactly. People need to vote with their wallets and PCs.
So overwatch 2 is objectively terrible, but putting that aside for a moment…
Can you seriously not envision a scenario where you personally do a thing (maybe even enjoy that thing), but still wouldn’t recommend it to others?
Can you seriously envision a scenario where the worst game of all time is among the most-played?
Ah okay I see you’re the kind of kid who answers a question with a question. 🤦♂️
Enjoy picking petty fights over… who likes which video game better. Not really my dig kiddo
Yes, I answered your question with a question because your scenario was as absurd as you perceived mine to be. So I'll answer yours directly: "yes, but not at that scale". Because at that scale, it's a review bomb.
K
So if General motors was using slave labour to build their cars and feeding said labour with baby kittens, would you consider it a review bomb for someone to say 'You shouldn't buy the latest vehicle from General motors because of the way it is made'?
What if general motors came out and said that they think a great start to the day is to wake up and punch a dutchman in the face?
A review is, ultimately, a recommendation of whether or not you think other people should buy this product. If you can't recommend it because of something the company who made it did, to me, it's still a review. Because recommending that product is recommending financial support of that company. Not recommending it, is not supporting them.
For me a real review bomb would occur generally only in a case where a site like 4chan might suddenly spin a wheel of mayhem and pick a random game to just go shit on or something like that.
By definition, yes, that's a review bomb. It has no connection in any way to the quality of the product, which is what a review is.
You're entirely disconnected to reality if you think Overwatch 2 deserves to be the worst-reviewed game on Steam.
On Steam being reviewed poorly is not a matter of rating from 1 to 10, but how many people would recommend it or not. It's completely valid that the vast majority of people would not recommend this game even if it's not a 0/10.
Based on what?
The negatives are extremely bad, and people are legitimately reviewing the game negatively because they legitimately think it's a pile of shit.
It is literally unconditionally impossible for it to be a review bomb if the reviews are motivated by the core design decisions of the game.
Today's concurrent player peak is ~47k.
Why would 47k people choose to play the game when it's the worst game on Steam? Literally worse than a game like Bad Rats: the Rats' Revenge that fundamentally doesn't function correctly. For reference, its peak today was about 20 players.
Before you reply with something like "marketing", you seriously think that if Bad Rats launched today, and with the same marketing budget as OW2, that it would achieve anywhere close to 47k players peak 10 months after its release?
Like I said: you're disconnected from reality if you think OW2 is the worst game on Steam.
Did bad rats deliberately steal a game people liked to replace it with an addiction machine?
what the actual fuck are you talking about
The reason Overwatch 2 is the worst reviewed game Steam has ever had?
A bad game does a lot less harm than a game that seems good on the surface then tries to rob you blind.
by "tries to rob you blind" you mean a game with entirely optional additional purchases?
wow you're right they really get you with that "you can pay if you want" model
it's practically criminal definitely worthy of being the worst ranked game on steam
There is no such thing as a microtransaction that is not pure unredeemable evil.
then please explain why Counter Strike Global Offensive, Team Fortress 2, Dota 2, etc. don't deserve to have the same rating
As far as I'm concerned they do. But my opinion doesn't decide the rating of a game any more than yours that's it's supposedly a better game than bad rats.
It's a product of everyone who votes giving their opinion, and the entire steam userbase has come to the consensus that Overwatch 2 is a particularly egregious example of it.
It cannot possibly be a review bomb when the reviews are legitimate opinions based on what the game is.
the previously referenced games all sit above 80% positive and yet have the exact same problems that you cite as OW2's reason for being bad
"the zeitgeist has told them that the game is bad" is not a legitimate reason for not liking OW2, hence accusations of review bombing
if you think there are legitimate reasons OW2 deserves the rating it has, by all means please provide them, but so far all you've given me are #badthings that also apply to basically all the popular F2P games on Steam.
Because it’s a F2P game that is monetized as such and exists only to make the game I bought obsolete.
I bought a game.
The game I have now is not the game I bought.
Those games are not nearly as aggressive in their attempts to get you to buy shit. CSGO? a tiny ass fucking button to buy Prime. TF2? Don't even remember seeing a shop button.
OW2? Makes the worst, money hungry mobile free-to-play blush with how aggressive it tries to sell you shit.
And they killed OW1, just for this.
tf2 drops crates every 30 minutes that's literally just an advert for the in-game store (which has a dedicated button pretty clearly labelled on the main menu)
pretty sure CSGO does the same
CSGO does not do the same. I play that one regularly.
you're saying CSGO doesn't drop crates?
The original Overwatch, which had none of this shit and was a one-off payment, was killed off in favour of OW2
You are really trying to downplay the power of marketing, but you seem to realize that gets people playing. Not only that but live service design is very effective at keeping people playing even when they are not having any fun whatsoever. Because they gotta grind the battle pass and such. Extrinsic rewards and habit-forming conditioning making up for a lack of intrinsic enjoyment.
Still, I would agree with you that it's not the worst game on Steam, but like I mentioned in the other comment, that's not what steam ratings mean. It means that the vast majority people would not recommend it, and that seems pretty reasonable.