Topic: Review Bombing

Personally, I stopped using reviews in general, aside from looking for specific info. I just never found them useful. It's hard for me to agree with a game review that's "bad" when I actually enjoy a game enough to call it good in my opinion. If a game interests me, I usually play it. If I'm not sure or need info, then I'll research more on it, like watching a video, playing a demo or trial, or even looking at the review text for specific information, including user reviews.

With that said, review bombing does make this very hard. On the flip side, and seeing it happen on Steam, I get why it happens. Let's say a game has a technical problem, or the game developers did something their player base didn't like, then review bombing feels like the only way people could get their attention since people who make games don't want a bad review. At least this is to my understanding anyway.

I don't review bomb, there will always be people who don't like something, and will review it lowly because they didn't like it. I don't consider this review bombing.

@TheJGG I can't help but agree with this. I was looking at an old review to a classic PC game recently, and it honestly ended up being a lot more informative than a review today. Also, I've grown to hate Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes because of the whole scoring system. People always point to the the scores without context. How does a number tell me a game I like is "bad?" If I don't think a game is bad, then I'm not going to rate it low.

@FawfulsFury I always get pulled back in XD. I think it's the third time I ask this here but people don't want to answer for some reason. What do you mean by "political" content and why it's a bad thing?

@jowe_gv Political content is not necessarily bad in moderation but what I’m saying is the company’s use it as an excuse for why they get bad reviews

@jowe_gv way to not actually read my comment, i said “no matter how rational it is”

you know what rational means right ? i’m not talking about blatant trolls . my comment still stands .

@FawfulsFury I've read that, yeah. And it's a better opinion than just saying no outright to "political" content. But people are still not able to tell me what "political" means in this context. I do have my opinion about what people mean by "political" but it would be nice if people said it, you know?

@nomither6 So all that paragraph about people saying that review bombing is just an excuse for people to dismiss critism? Whatever, I guess we are in the same wave if you consider calling when a lot of people do irrational comments as bad review bombing because that is what I was talking about when I saw "review bombing".

@jowe_gv no-one wants to say because it would get this thread shut down.
We all know lw what is meant by "political" leaning as its exactly how Disney have driven the MCU into the ground. That's not what is being discussed here so stop fishing for an argument please.

@Chaotic_Neutral Ok. I'll stop. I was just curious tho, it wasn't because of malicious intent or anything I swear.

I just see the definition of "political" being broader each day online so I see people have different spectrums of what that word means for them. But I guess I'm going to stay curious about it.

@jowe_gv Yeah, politics has been watered down so much that inane pop culture gossip is now thought of as PoLiTiCz only really ensures that actual politics get lost in the sea of ignorance.

However I do find it is a good key word on how seriously to take someone when they talk about things like when someone calls every film/game they like a masterpiece I don't take them seriously anymore. When someone uses ironic incorrectly I don't take them seriously. When someone calls everything they don’t like overrated then I don't take them seriously. When someone goes on about the pOliTiCz of the movie/game then I don't take them seriously.

@jump Honestly, BAD review bombing (people not actually doing a review of the media in particular and spamming it with unreasonable low scores for weird and unjustified reasons) right now can't be avoided if you use any type of "political" content. Due to how insane the "pop culture gossip" got.

When I see a piece of media that got really low users scores (specially compared to critic scores) the first thing I do is search for certain... key phrases (I could mention them here but we are already pushing it before the lock) and if I find... certain sectors of the Internet screaming about "politics" on that piece of media in particular, I stop taking the user ratings seriously.

The worse thing about review bombing, specially this kind, is that it ofuscates the opinion of people that actually gave that media a chance.
I don't know what the general public thinks about the DLC of Horizon Forbidden West because the reviews are bombed because "politics" and the reaction to that is to be overwhemly positive to combat it, which also doesn't give the full picture of the game.

@jowe_gv I just don’t like politics. They’re boring and inane.

Review bombing is an inevitable consequence of the culture of selling games. Publishers often do whatever they can get away with to hype games up.

The particular trouble with games is, they can be frustrating as all hell sometimes, whether that's due to just a few poor design choices, bad tutorials, unclear mechanics/controls/objectives, or good old bad code.

So when you've invested time and money in a game and it's not to your satisfaction, it's annoying. You're unlikely to be able to get a refund, and you're certainly not gonna get the time back you invested. And especially if you feel you've been duped into buying it in the first place, what recourse do you have other than go to the most prominent place possible and leave a bad review?

This is capitalism. Hard sell = Hard feedback.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm guilty of this too. Part of it is a worry of spoilers but I also just want to see the basics so I can get that experience for myself. Xenoblade 3, I saw the 10/10 scores and knew it was gonna be good from there... it's more confirmation than a genuine measurement of quality.

The reason Metacritic is bad is because it's quantifiable. This game has a higher score so it "objectively" has to be a better game. Some games get sidelined by the mainstream media, JRPGs being the most common victim, so JRPG metascores are for me automatically regarded with grains of salt. As for Rotten Tomatoes, it's both great because the criteria for a positive score is defined well, and bad because of how critic-dependent it is. One guy rated Lady Bird badly on purpose so that it didn't get a 100% ranking, showing how a moment of pettiness can ruin the broken system.

I’m fairness the alone different review is the one I’d read. There’s a famous quote (which I can’t remember) by a famous politician from the vote on should America join WW2 after the Pearl Harbour bombing as it was almost a 100% yes vote apart from the one person that voted no where she said something like there should always be a voice of opposition and debate. Yet that is for something as silly as a war let alone the serious matter of movies!

Lady Bird is an odd one as I do like it but I’m surprised it got 100%. There was a string of indie dramedy movies that were getting almost perfect Splatty Red Fruit scores. It comes down to they alway get a thumbs up as they don’t fall into the trap that major flicks do as they have a strong sense of identity so as long as the director and cast are capable they end up good unlike major films that get dozens and dozens of people fingers prints all over them which loses sight of its vision. Plus as they are normally director-writer driven telling a semi-autobiographical story (which is why they are always set at the time of their yoof) so they get filled with feelings too.

It’s the more ambitious movies that people need to “get” that often fail at Rotty Tomatoes, my go to example is normally Primer but I’m not even gonna bother explaining that film given it’s too out there for this site. Instead my two favourite movies I’ve seen this year are Annette and Babylon which both are ambitious and weird. It’s the ambition and weirdness that makes me like them but it also puts other people off them. It was largely the huge debates around them that made me curious to the films rather than just the scores as those debates were over “art” rather than the usual silly buggery.

@TheJGG True, this is vary true, I also feel bad just a little bit because someone took so much time to write out a review and then I just skip ):

Pretty sure what you seem to think of as political is not the same as everyone else here. I don't see how trying to sell movies is political, regardless of whether or not they are successful. As for MCU, I feel like it became somewhat less popular after 900 mediocre movies and many people eventually becoming bored with the over-saturated superhero genre. There are a lot of things you could say about Marvel movies, but political is certainly not one which would ever come to my mind.

Political is actually kind of a hard word to apply to art forms (whether movie or games etc) , especially ones trying to reach an international audience where actual politics vary widely from country to country.

Art can certainly try to put a message into their media, but unless it is straight-up propaganda, I wouldn't normally call that 'political'; when I see a gun in a movie or a gay couple ( or a straight couple) I don't think 'how could they be so political', I just think 'here are some background people /objects in this movie.' That movie might later make you question your beliefs about guns or couples or it might not. Some types of art try to make you think which is fine. Some people don't like movies or games which make you think which is also fine and fortunately there are 9 million movies and games with no thinking required (e.g. mario movie).

Getting actively angry about a movie or game (re: review bombing) is a different issue altogether and is strange to me. How does the existence of a piece of fiction hurt me? I may not like that movie and if I don't I can legitimately write a bad review, but simply trying to destroy the movie for others who might enjoy it seems rude and not particularly healthy.

@FishyS It seems I'm not the only one doubting what people actually mean when they say "political". Like I said, nowadays the definition can go from doing political campaings for real life political parties in a game to Peach not wearing a skirt in a scene.

That whole point about the MCU being "ruined" by "politics" is so confusing to me still. Like... what?

@jowe_gv name 3 mcu movies post endgame that were not mid

@FawfulsFury Spider man, black panther, and the now knew guardians of the galaxy (However I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I love what I saw, still can’t official say) However! That’s only three movies, that’s not that impressive.

@Eagly Thank you, wile there story’s as a whole might not be political in a sense, they all are at the end of the day.

It’s good?! Yay! James not letting me down! I can’t wait to see what he does at DC!

I’ve never seen a politic before in real life but I’m assuming what people mean by Marvel is too political now is that in American politics there’s lots of sloppy stunt work, bad CGI and bad acting. Am I right?