Steam Found a Solution to the Review Bombing Epidemic

STATES CHRONICLE – Due to recent events, Valve has struggled with a massive storm of review bombing on Steam. However, the developers have come up with a more accurate way to assess a game, namely histograms. Therefore, instead of a sudden drop in ratings, games will benefit from these illustrated histories which will present the game’s evolution, wins, and losses.

What is a review bombing?

Review bombing occurs when a huge number of people suddenly start giving negative reviews to games. Usually, these bad reviews are not a result of poor performance, but rather come from reasons independent from the game per se.

One recent victim of review bombing was Firewatch, soon after PewDiePie’s racial incident. The game developer, Sean Vanaman, was unhappy about the YouTuber using racial slurs during a Firewatch livestream, so he decided to fight back. As a result, he requested that PewDiePie’s video should be taken down on copyright claims.

However, PewDiePie has one of the biggest fanbases, and his devotees decided to protest. Suddenly, Firewatch received 510 negative reviews, which seriously affected its score on Steam. Soon after it started regaining, the YouTuber commented Vanaman’s action in a video, causing the bad reviews to storm again.

Steam found a clever solution to review bombing

However, Steam developers dislike review bombing. They don’t find it fair that games should get negative reviews just because the developer said something, or an online influencer has a certain opinion. This is why they will start implementing game histograms.

Through a histogram, players will be able to see the entire history of the game illustrated in a graphic interface. This way, they can see for themselves which are the ups and downs of the gameplay or its mechanics. Instead of judging from a biased score, they can see the entire evolution of reviews. Also, no user will be prevented from rating a game anymore.
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