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.
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?
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.
yes obviously, and none of that changes anything about the fact that very clearly OW2 isn't bad enough to deserve the title of worst rated game on steam
You tried to argue with someone else over this, but the fact that more people played it, being F2P, means that more people can agree that they wouldn't recommend it. Given how Steam ratings work, that makes it the worst rated. There's no arguing how it is. You seem to take an issue with it as if it meant Gabe Newell personally stamped it with a 0/10, which is not how it works.
In Steam, being 4/10 for thousands of people is worse than being 0/10 for a couple people.
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.
The original Overwatch, which had none of this shit and was a one-off payment, was killed off in favour of OW2
leaving a negative review because of that would by definition be review bombing, because at that point you're not reviewing the game, but external context that surrounds it
Not really. Reviewing the game as OW with enshittification is a perfectly reasonable review of OW2 in and of itself.
Especially if the publishers made the one-off purchase version unusable just to push people onto the enshittified one.
"i liked overwatch 1" is not a valid review of the game overwatch 2, and people leaving reviews to that effect en-masse is pretty textbook review bombing
Yes it is. It's perfectly valid.
It says that the changes in Overwatch 2 are unpopular with the reviewer.
If the changes were positive or even unnoteworthy, that review wouldn't be there
if you're reviewing specific things you don't like, that's reviewing a product
leaving a negative review because "OW1 was killed off" isn't doing that
if you want to discuss specific things you don't like, please provide some that would reasonably justify OW2 being literally the worst reviewed game on steam rn
Leaving a review because "OW1 was killed off" and the intended transition route was a drastically inferior product, is in fact reviewing a product.
Context is actually an important part of reviews. Orcarina or Time looks like a shit game today, and needs the context of being a late 90's innovator to fully appreciate it. Likewise, a BoTW clone would look fantastic, a game changer, even...if a certain 2017 game hadn't already set the benchmark.
Calling something an inferior version of its predecessor, which was cynically shut down to push people to this inferior product, is worthy review information. It tells people that a superior product existed, and all this new product is, is the enshittification of it.
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.
bf2042 had a playercount in the high 1000s 2 months after its launch
ow2 released 10 months ago
are you saying bf2042 didn't have marketing?
which is more likely:
Doesn't look like you even read my full comment so I'm gonna wait till you do.
i mean i ignored the second part because it was irrelevant
"You're entirely disconnected to reality if you think Overwatch 2 deserves to be the worst-reviewed game on Steam." doesn't say "deserves to be the worst game", so if we're playing the reading game maybe you should take the first turn
Oh, so you have no response to it so you are gonna pretend it doesn't matter. I see.
I could say I'd do the same but nothing you are saying now even addresses what I already responded to you, so I'll just call it a job done.
yes good job you failed to read my comment again 👏👏