Valve has announced new measures to tackle review bombing on Steam, and will soon begin ensuring that “off-topic” review activity isn’t reflected within a game’s overall store rating.
Review bombing, in Steam’s case, refers to instances when large numbers of users descend on a game’s store page over a short period of time and leave negative reviews in order to create an artificially low rating for that title, usually as a means of ‘punishing’ developers and publishers. Crucially, review bombing frequently has little to do with the actual quality of game.
Users recently took to Metro 2033 Redux’s Steam page in droves, for instance, leaving negative reviews in protest of publisher Deep Silver’s dalliances with Epic Games to make Metro Exodus a timed-exclusive on the latter’s store. Critically acclaimed Taiwanese horror title Devotion, meanwhile, felt the full force of review bombing when Chinese gamers took offence at the inclusion of a meme referencing president Xi Jinping and Winnie the Pooh.
In a new blog post, Valve says that it’s been continuously monitoring feedback regarding Steam’s review system, and that “it’s clear to us that players value reviews highly, and want us to ensure they’re accurate and trustworthy. Developers understand that they’re valuable to players, but want to feel like they’re being treated fairly.”