[PC Gamer] Rocket League is getting review bombed because Epic bought Psyonix; Shows Steam Anti-review Bomb system is working (see staff post)

[Isee]

Put it this way: if, say, CD Projekt Red had purchased Psyonix, this reaction would not have occurred.

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Because you need two things to judge an action. The act itself and the motivation behind it.
Microsoft recently bought many studios and the community was rather positive about it.
Now ask yourself, why do you think epic bought psyonix? Because psyonix pitched a great idea to epic and epic saw so much value in the studio that they decided to support and invest into them? Because they want psyonix to take over one of epic's IPs?
Or because epic just wants to damage steam and have one more, aggressive lever to force costumers to come to them.

 

[LewieP]

It would be extremely easy for Epic so put out a statement to say that Rocket League will not be removed from sale on Steam. That they haven't done so is plenty justification for people to react negatively.

 

[mclem]

If CDPR had purchased Psyonix and remove the game from Steam to make it a GOG exclusive: exactly the same reaction would occure.
Anything that comes with a forced removal of existing games from other platforms would cause the same reaction.

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That's... exactly my point. The second event hasn't occurred yet. It may never occur. But it's a whole lot more reasonable to think Epic might do that than to think CDPR might.

My conclusion wasn't "people are being unfair because it's Epic", it was "people are justified in being concerned because it's Epic". Epic's recent actions have led to that.

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

Would you consider it 'anti-consumer' if Epic removes their own games from Steam and makes them solely available on the EGS?

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Unless Epic actually made action to revoke access from existing users, no. Games they actually made, are games they actually made. Like all other publishers making their own stores, they have the right, legal and moral, to sell their games wherever.

If CDPR had purchased Psyonix and remove the game from Steam to make it a GOG exclusive: exactly the same reaction would occure.

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I must say, I don't think it would. I obviously don't have the power to predict hypotheticals, but just on the matter of difference in public opinion on the EGS versus GOG.com store, a game going away from Steam to become a GOG exclusive, especially if CDPR bought that game's developer, would not generate nearly as much negative backlash. Simply because GOG.com is one of the only two digital storefronts with tangible customer goodwill, and EGS is very much not one of them.

 

[signal]

At least SOMEONE is keeping ASCII middle fingers alive.

 

[Dazraell]

Im going back and forth on this one.

Put it this way: if, say, CD Projekt Red had purchased Psyonix, this reaction would not have occurred.

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It's not about personal grudge for a company itself, though. It's more about what their actions are. If CD Projekt (a parent company of CD Projekt Red) bought Psyonix, they wouldn't pull a game from Steam. They would definitely put it on GOG, but they wouldn't do this anti-consumer bullshit that Epic is actively doing in order to become relevant player on PC market.

Epic doesn't care about consumers. They will do nastiest things to screw the gamers in order to become a new Steam and it's not a proper way of doing things. If you want to change PC gamers purchasing habits, you don't take things from them and limit their choices. You should think about reasons how to bring them in most consumer friendly way.

 

[Deleted member 11038]

Once again I ask whats the "proper" way for people to express their unhappiness with the situation.

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Don't buy future Psyonix games on Epic Games Store?

Using twitter to tell them how disappointed you are they are now exclusively tied with Epic Game Store?

 

[RPGam3r]

Review bombing is abusing a tool and its purpose, it's a shitty tactic. Glad Steam has measures against it. Also it's Epic's game now, they should do whatever they want.

 

[Deleted member 9971]

My goodness, people are immature.

Rocket League is a great game and Epic isn't a bad developer.

I can't think of a better developer to continue to keep Rocket League alive besides maybe the Minecraft team.

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100 hour work weeks aint bad?

 

[dude]

Far be it from me to counter your anecdotes with my anecdotes. It's not every news station though. It's not on IGN, Kotaku, Polygon, Waypoint, nor most of the big gaming news sites. You know what protest did get broad coverage? The Riot employees protesting by walking out.

It wasn't a headline the first time because Borderlands deserved to be review bombed. It was a headline because Valve's system was proven to work.

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All these sites are not as important as you make them out to be. The Riot protest is an excellent way to illustrate it - Even though it was covered in all of these places, most gamers neither know or give a shit about it.
Community sites are much more important IMO. The front page of Reddit, for example, is a much more central place to kickstart protests. That's why people review bomb - It's something for the community to organize around. It gives you a call to action and a mission that you can spread around your circles. It doesn't have to be good or effective, but it's almost impossible to organize people without a call for action.

I'm not a fan of review-bombing, but as long as people feel like that's the only action they can take against corporate/other interests they disagree with - They'll continue to take it.

Don't buy future Psyonix games on Epic Games Store?

Using twitter to tell them how disappointed you are they are now exclusively tied with Epic Game Store?

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Not buying something is passive, it's not a call for action. It's also quite solitary, you can't not-buy something together. Review bombing gives you a sense of mass and community.
Is mobing people on Twitter better than review-bombing? Both seem to be equally problematic to me.

 

[acheron_xl]

I get the fury. I'm not going to bomb it, because that's not how I operate, I just uninstalled it. But I get it.

This isn't the same as review bombing like Captain Marvel either.

 

[jts]

PC games storefront fanboyism. We're hitting new lows here.

 

[Gamesadict]

It's not because they bought the dev but because of the early news of the future removal from Steam.

But this is a PC Gamer article, so the disingenuous click bait title is to be expected.


EDIT:

They even acknowledge why their own article is clickbait within the article, in which they state that the game isn't getting review bombed due to the purchase, but due to the likelihood that the game will be removed from Steam. Epic has a history of this, and PCGamer's continuing their history of siding with Epic by misleading people into thinking it's 100% confirmed. Of course they're not gonna say it's getting removed from Steam. That's why they've been saying they don't have plans yet rather than straight up saying the game won't be removed.

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But of course.

 

[dex3108]

For those who say that people should do something else, they re doing something else



Just to be clear 0 rating means that post is downvoted to hell and back.

 

[Arsene no Kiseki]

PC games storefront fanboyism. We're hitting new lows here.

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If you think this is about fanboyism you have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[GhostTrick]

PC games storefront fanboyism. We're hitting new lows here.

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When you equate people complaining to pay their games 10 to 20 dollars more, not being able to share their games, not having cloud saves, heck in some cases even locked out because of their region, to fanboyism, you dont sound really clever in the whole conversation.

 

[Conkerkid11]

When you equate people complaining to pay their games 10 to 20 dollars more, not being able to share their games, not having cloud saves, heck in some cases even locked out because of their region, to fanboyism, you dont sound really clever in the whole conversation.

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You're a whole lot more patient with these drive-by posters than I am.

 

[Monkey Gland Sauce]

I can't even think of a single recent high-profile game where the publisher/developer had to respond and change due to consumer backlash that was also review bombed. Maybe Arkham Knight, but that's difficult to gauge, because it isn't clear it was review bombed rather than just having a high volume of negative reviews for technical problems. Edit: There is Rainbow Six Siege, which backtracked from censorship after backlash that involved a review bomb.

Meanwhile, the publishers/developers of Battlefront/Battlefront 2, Destiny/Destiny 2, World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, Fallout 76, Battlefield V, and Anthem all had to issue mea culpa's and change in the face of consumer pressure.

The facts don't really seem to favour 'we need review bombs to be heard'.

 

[Arsene no Kiseki]

I can't even think of a single recent high-profile game where the publisher/developer had to respond and change due to consumer backlash that was also review bombed. Maybe Arkham Knight, but that's difficult to gauge, because it isn't clear it was review bombed rather than just having a high volume of negative reviews for technical problems.

Meanwhile, the publishers/developers of Battlefront/Battlefront 2, Destiny/Destiny 2, World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, Fallout 76, Battlefield V, and Anthem all had to issue mea culpa's and change in the face of consumer pressure.

The facts don't really seem to favour 'we need review bombs to be heard'.

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Rainbow Six Siege's whole censorship spat got it review bombed.

 

[Daphne]

For those who say that people should do something else, they re doing something else



Just to be clear 0 rating means that post is downvoted to hell and back.

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By the way, if anyone is wondering why Rocket League fans are worried about all of this, please read the top comment on the reddit by CaerulusDramal, as it is a fair outline to start with.

 

[Deleted member 35598]

What are those dozens? Get angry on a message board and take to Twitter?

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Be creative.
Yeah so destroying the reputation of a game - years after its release - because as grown adult you don't know how to make your voice heard ? That's laughable.

There are no excuse for reviewbombing, it's weak and any gamer who does that should feel ashamed. Period.

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

It would be extremely easy for Epic so put out a statement to say that Rocket League will not be removed from sale on Steam. That they haven't done so is plenty justification for people to react negatively.

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Yeah, the whole "But it's not official yeeeeet" thing is so dumb.
Even if they decide not to pull it, it's clearly only because of the backlash and (presumably) discussions with Psyonix. Otherwise they would have just said so from the start. There is nothing to be gained by playing coy here.

 

[Deleted member 3897]

Review bombing is abusing a tool and its purpose, it's a shitty tactic. Glad Steam has measures against it. Also it's Epic's game now, they should do whatever they want.

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How is review bombing abusing of the tool?

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

The main point of the article is that Valve's anti-review bombing measures are working.

The fact is you wouldn't even know the game is getting review bombed unless you scrolled down RL's store page *gasp!* and see a little chart showing a lot of recent negative review activity. From past Steam threads I realize how scrolling for information is apparently a very difficult task. Another fact is that all of those negative reviews are tucked away and need to be searched for, should you choose to read them.

So really the title of the article is designed to rile people up against Steam users, and going by early responses, it's working. Plenty of people will just view the thread title and comment without bothering to read anything or investigate the bombing themselves.

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

SHAME on gamers doing this. This is why we will never be taken seriously as a medium. They are DOZENS of ways to voice your discontent, but reviewbombing is a WEAK, CHEAP and STUPID.

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You do realize this happens literally everywhere from books to movies to cars or random household items?
I'm not saying Review bombing is great but let's not act like this is a "gamerz only" thing

 

[Monkey Gland Sauce]

Rainbow Six Siege's whole censorship spat got it review bombed.

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Nice catch. Thanks. I had forgotten about that.

 

[Deleted member 28523]

lol the title. are we really just straight out lying now? gawddamn. PCGamer has gotten real junky since they started writing about all this EGS stuff.

 

[Catshade]

I can't even think of a single recent high-profile game where the publisher/developer had to respond and change due to consumer backlash that was also review bombed. Maybe Arkham Knight, but that's difficult to gauge, because it isn't clear it was review bombed rather than just having a high volume of negative reviews for technical problems.

Meanwhile, the publishers/developers of Battlefront/Battlefront 2, Destiny/Destiny 2, World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, Fallout 76, Battlefield V, and Anthem all had to issue mea culpa's and change in the face of consumer pressure.

The facts don't really seem to favour 'we need review bombs to be heard'.

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Recently, FF X/X-2 was reviewbombed because SE released a buggy patch that disabled offline playing. It was reverted shortly afterwards.

Chrono Trigger was also reviewbombed because of the mobile UI/graphics. SE quickly (well, quick compared to their other mobile-to-PC efforts) issued patches that fixed most complaints.

Not really high profile, but that's two recent-ish incidents that I know.

 

[Disco54]

PC games storefront fanboyism. We're hitting new lows here.

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Yep and it won't even affect those who bought the game already. They can still play their game so this is just Steam fanboys complaining once again about a free launcher that they have to download if they want to play Rocket League.

 

[Arsene no Kiseki]

Recently, FF X/X-2 was reviewbombed because SE released a buggy patch that disabled offline playing. It was reverted shortly afterwards.

Chrono Trigger was also reviewbombed because of the mobile UI/graphics. SE quickly (well, quick compared to their other mobile-to-PC efforts) issued patches that fixed most complaints.

Not really high profile, but that's two recent-ish incidents that I know.

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FF Type-0 was also review bombed super hard because it was randomly made unplayable on windows 10. SE fixed it pretty fast after that.

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

lol the title. are we really just straight out lying now? gawddamn. PCGamer has gotten real junky since they started writing about all this EGS stuff.

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They seem to act like the Sean Hannity to Epic's Donald Trump.

The title of the article should reflect Valve's anti-review bombing measures working, but that's not going to get as many clicks.

 

[Arsene no Kiseki]

Yep and it won't even affect those who bought the game already. They can still play their game so this is just Steam fanboys complaining once again about a free launcher.

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Epic doesn't support my currency so games are more expensive on there than on Steam, GOG and literally every other launcher. Doesn't matter if the launcher is free because its not the issue.

 

[GhostTrick]

Be creative.
Yeah so destroying the reputation of a game - years after its release - because as grown adult you don't know how to make your voice heard ? That's laughable.

There are no excuse for reviewbombing, it's weak and any gamer who does that should feel ashamed. Period.

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Wont somebody think of the poor game's reputation ? :"""")
Anybody cant think of the poor game's feelings ?????

 

[Deleted member 49804]

That's... exactly my point. The second event hasn't occurred yet. It may never occur. But it's a whole lot more reasonable to think Epic might do that than to think CDPR might.

My conclusion wasn't "people are being unfair because it's Epic", it was "people are justified in being concerned because it's Epic". Epic's recent actions have led to that.

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That's a good point.

Be creative.
Yeah so destroying the reputation of a game - years after its release - because as grown adult you don't know how to make your voice heard ? That's laughable.

There are no excuse for reviewbombing, it's weak and any gamer who does that should feel ashamed. Period.

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That's a contradiction in itself.
Nothing more effective to get heard in the gaming space than review bombing.

 

[Deleted member 35598]

You do realize this happens literally everywhere from books to movies to cars or random household items?
I'm not saying Review bombing is great but let's not act like this is a "gamerz only" thing

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It's clearly more prevalent in gaming. There is no question about it. Many game that have been associated some sort of exclusivity with the Epic Game Store has been sanctionned in reviewbombing. This is not something that you see so othen in other mediums.

I remember years ago ther was reviewbombing of Gears and Uncharted games ( I think Gears 3 and Uncharted 3 ) because of some war between Sony and Xbox fanboys...

This type of behaviour so prevalent in gaming needs to be condemn.

 

[GhostTrick]

Yep and it won't even affect those who bought the game already. They can still play their game so this is just Steam fanboys complaining once again about a free launcher that they have to download if they want to play Rocket League.

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That's right. They wont be affected. You dont need to wait until you're affected to be against some commercial practices.

I'm totally against online paywalls. I refused to buy a PS4 and a Switch out of principles for it. I'm still against online paywalls despite not being a thing on PC. I'm not affected yet I'm totally against it. It just mean not being a silent customer.

 

[m_dorian]

I can't even think of a single recent high-profile game where the publisher/developer had to respond and change due to consumer backlash that was also review bombed. Maybe Arkham Knight, but that's difficult to gauge, because it isn't clear it was review bombed rather than just having a high volume of negative reviews for technical problems. Edit: There is Rainbow Six Siege, which backtracked from censorship after backlash that involved a review bomb.

Meanwhile, the publishers/developers of Battlefront/Battlefront 2, Destiny/Destiny 2, World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, Fallout 76, Battlefield V, and Anthem all had to issue mea culpa's and change in the face of consumer pressure.

The facts don't really seem to favour 'we need review bombs to be heard'.

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Paradox Pricing incident which led Paradox to backtrack and CEO to apologise.

Also, all the examples you mentioned are technically out of the review bombing ability, since they are not on Steam, although they got their hits on metacritic so they are not indicative.

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

It's clearly more prevalent in gaming. There is no question about it. This is not something that you see so othen in other mediums.

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Is that true? Or is that because you follow games more than amazon reviews of household items and therefore hear a lot more about reviewbombed games?

 

[Disco54]

That's right. They wont be affected. You dont need to wait until you're affected to be against some commercial practices.

I'm totally against online paywalls. I refused to buy a PS4 and a Switch out of principles for it. I'm still against online paywalls despite not being a thing on PC. I'm not affected yet I'm totally against it. It just mean not being a silent customer.

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Well it is a good thing that you can download Epic's free launcher for free....oh wait. it is not going to be on your precious Steam? Oh is that the problem?

 

[Arsene no Kiseki]

It's clearly more prevalent in gaming. There is no question about it. Many game that have been associated some sort of exclusivity with the Epic Game Store has been sanctionned in reviewbombing. This is not something that you see so othen in other mediums.

I remember years ago ther was reviewbombing of Gears and Uncharted games ( I think Gears 3 and Uncharted 3 ) because of some war between Sony and Xbox fanboys...

This type of behaviour so prevalent in gaming needs to be condemn.

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If you think gaming is the only place review bombing is prevalent you haven't seen how frequently movies get review bombed on imdb, metacritic and rotten tomatoes because they star women.

 

[RPGam3r]

How is review bombing abusing of the tool?

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Are you writing a review of the actual product being reviewed when review bombing? Someone later when wanting to know whether the game is good or not will find you review bomb useful answering that question about the game quality.

 

[LewieP]

lol the title. are we really just straight out lying now? gawddamn. PCGamer has gotten real junky since they started writing about all this EGS stuff.

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It's a particularly bad look given their publishing lots of improperly disclosed sponsored content, paid for by Epic.

 

[Madjoki]

I can't even think of a single recent high-profile game where the publisher/developer had to respond and change due to consumer backlash that was also review bombed. Maybe Arkham Knight, but that's difficult to gauge, because it isn't clear it was review bombed rather than just having a high volume of negative reviews for technical problems.

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People and press count large amount of negative views as review bomb regardless of reason if it's due to game not working at all or something publisher/developer did.

lol the title. are we really just straight out lying now? gawddamn. PCGamer has gotten real junky since they started writing about all this EGS stuff.

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Don't bite hand that feeds you. EGS now one of biggest advertisers on PC store fronts, including PC gamer.

FF Type-0 was also review bombed super hard because it was randomly made unplayable on windows 10. SE fixed it pretty fast after that.

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As a counter example another SE game:

Nier Automata that got positive reviews despite it's flaws in PC port, never got fixes it deserved. You have to rely on third party fixes to get it run properly.

Paradox Pricing incident which led Paradox to backtrack and CEO to apologise.

Also, all the examples you mentioned are technically out of the review bombing ability, since they are not on Steam, although they got their hits on metacritic so they are not indicative.

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They also give free game those who were affected by it. clever marketing.

 

[Monkey Gland Sauce]

Recently, FF X/X-2 was reviewbombed because SE released a buggy patch that disabled offline playing. It was reverted shortly afterwards.

Chrono Trigger was also reviewbombed because of the mobile UI/graphics. SE quickly (well, quick compared to their other mobile-to-PC efforts) issued patches that fixed most complaints.

Not really high profile, but that's two recent-ish incidents that I know.

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Thanks.

I think the FF X/X-2 isn't a great example, since SE said it was a bug, but of course they could be lying. I also don't see much of a bomb on the store page, but it could have been what attracted SE's attention.

I should add Chrono Trigger with Arkham Knight, since they seem about the same, and people can make up their own minds about whether they think these are or aren't review bombs.

 

[Scuffed]

This isn't about Epic buying the company it's about not being clear as to whether it will be removed off Steam or not. Honestly I bet Epic takes it off steam eventually. They probably would do it a lot sooner if there wasn't the backlash and their reputation wasn't taking so many Ls.

 

[EloKa]

Yep and it won't even affect those who bought the game already. They can still play their game so this is just Steam fanboys complaining once again about a free launcher that they have to download if they want to play Rocket League.

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No more Workshop and custom mods / maps for the the game.
No more trading / new / legacy ingame items for the game.
Probably no cross-play between EGS and Steam players.

Get out with that "won't affect those who bought the game already" shitposting.

 

[Deleted member 28523]

They seem to act like the Sean Hannity to Epic's Donald Trump.

The title of the article should reflect Valve's anti-review bombing measures working, but that's not going to get as many clicks.

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I'm not even talking about that misrepresentation. I'm talking about how people are reviewbombing because "Epic bought Psyonix". And not "Epic bought Psyonix, Psyonix said they were going to remove the game from Steam, sort of backtracked but not really, and refuse to give a clear statement on the matter." There's a couple more layers to the story. And yes it says all the stuff I'm saying further in the article but people are lazy. Their not going to read, their going to just see the twitter headline and assume the rest. But you need clickbait and getting angry at entitled gamers is an absolute classic. Easily top 5 gamer storylines.

Like if you want me to feel bad for these multi-million dollar companies then you really need to do a bit better.

 

[ParanormalFupa]

Thankfully user reviews are absolutely meaningless and very easy to ignore. This is like a tree falling in the woods with nobody around.

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

Are you writing a review of the actual product being reviewed when review bombing? Someone later when wanting to know whether the game is good or not will find you review bomb useful answering that question about the game quality.

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It's the "abuse/abusing" that is debatable. To abuse is to use something to bad effect or bad purpose, but that's highly debatable. It's just a form of protest, which almost always involves using something beyond it's normally intended scope. Sidewalks aren't actually designed to be used for thousands of people to gather and waves signs, they're designed to let people come and go, but you generally wouldn't consider that an "abuse" because it has been normalized as a tool.

What you should ask yourself is would you take issue with leaving off-topic bad reviews in all cases, or would you only take issue when you disagree with the motivating factor? So for example, would you be upset if people were leaving bad reviews on a product because the creator of a work was found out to be a horrible sexist asshole, or because a studio was subject to completely inhuman crunch? Neither of those are actually related to the quality of a game directly in most cases. If you would be fine with leaving reviews on issues you might feel personally strong about, then you might agree it's a tool that is acceptable to use in a certain way, you just disagree that it should be used now.

For me personally, videogame reviews are very low stakes, and they are even lower stakes when you're talking about reviews for an already wildly successful product that just got bought up by one of the largest companies in the world. I think it's a perfectly valid form of protest, even though I'm not actually review bombing this game. This doesn't mean I like it when my favourite games get a review bomb because of "teh SJWs" (like Wolfenstein 2) but I can separate this shitty thing from it being a tool in the general case. I think that Steam's compromise, to leave the reviews but automatically exclude them from the score while still allowing people to view them if they want to, is very good.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

I don't agree with review-bombing most of the time, but I'm not surprised that this is happening.