I swear “review bombing” has to be an astroturfed term to delegitimize criticism when companies do shitty things.
It shifts the blame from the companies doing a shit thing (lacing their game with DRM/anti-cheat malware, making them run like shit unless you enable AI slop upscaling, shoveling AI “”“art”“” assets, MTX, etc.) to the customers that are rightly mad about the shit thing.
The problem is that giving a bad review for performance is kind of (not exactly) like giving bad reviews to something that arrives broken. You never even used the thing how can you give it a 1 if you objectively cannot judge the items on its merits? Likewise you’re not judging the game itself but rather the fact that it does not run well on your hardware. Obviously the developers have responsibility for this, but if you’re a console player or have good hardware the criticism might not sound like a legitimate assessment of the game on its merits.
I agree, I’m just saying that the “vibes” of it are like that of giving a 1 star to an item that arrived broken, which is why people will call it review bombing etc.
If an ordered item arrives broken once, it’s a shitty delivery company. 1-star probably isn’t warranted unless the company is shitty about replacing it.
If an ordered item arrives broken regularly, it’s a problem that the company should’ve fixed.
If a game doesn’t work on one person’s machine, maybe they’ve got a bunch of malware installed or something.
If it doesn’t work on many people’s machines that meet the recommended specs, the company is at fault and deserves bad reviews.
You never even used the thing how can you give it a 1 if you objectively cannot judge the items on its merits?
First of all, if you look at the negative reviews, many of them have tens and even hundreds hours of playtime. Secondly, your question doesn’t make sense even on its own. Other customers deserve to know that the product they’re considering to purchase likely won’t work. Quality is a key characteristic of a product.
It was a rhetorical question and was referring to the case of a broken physical item. Not to the game. The bad reviews make sense, I was just trying to describe the vibes and why people might call it review bombing
Oof. On the one hand, I’ve found games that I wouldn’t have bought that I really enjoyed. Like Avowed. I loved every second of it. Hi-fi Rush was like this for me too. I’ve barely heard any talk of both of these games.
Plus tons of Indy titles I’d never heard of. Can’t tell you how much time I spent in Power Wash Simulator
On the other hand…I hate buying games. It’s a big commitment when you don’t know if you’re going to like it. Most the time I end up not even playing half the game. So I end up going full PatientGamer, and wait for a good sale. (Still want to try Luigi’s Mansion some day…)
And, I go months without playing my Xbox as it is. Right now I’m finding myself getting back into WoW (I haven’t really played since wotlk …it’s a whole different game now). Why should I keep game pass?
GamePass is an awesome plan for people like me – casual gamers who don’t get a lot of replay value out of most games. Honestly I’d love to see similar or competing services.
What a shitshow it was from Sony. But I’m glad the games are back, especially The Last of Us 2. The second season of the show was underwhelming, but the game sits an 90% of positive reviews.
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