DaciaJC
Gold Member
On the heels of Sony reversing their plan to force PC players to sign up for a PSN account if they want to play Helldivers 2, which is fantastic news indeed, Paul Tassi wrote a great article explaining why Steam reviews are such a powerful tool, and frankly one of the very few effective ones players can use to take a stand against corporate bullshit.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulta...-only-ones-players-can-wield/?sh=624f4a1f7af8
Some quotes:
Corporations care first and foremost about their bottom line, end of. They do not give a shit about you, they are certainly not your buddy. The single best way to express your displeasure is to not give them your money, of course, but in many cases the offending decision comes well after a game is released, like with HD2, when refunds are no longer possible for launch-period players. The power of Steam reviews comes from being able to encourage change through dissuading new customers - make enough noise on the store page that a bunch of potential buyers decide the game may not be worth their time or money and the publisher is bound to take notice.
Time and time again, we've seen Steam reviews utilized to drive corrective action, such as
when Capcom added a new layer of DRM to 10-year old games that affected longstanding mods
when the developers of Darkest Dungeon majorly skimped on their official Korean translation
when Ubisoft attempted to censor Rainbow Six Siege for all players to appease the CCP
or when Take-Two tried to kill off GTA singleplayer modding
In each of the above cases, community outcry as reflected through a barrage of negative Steam reviews led to the publishers walking back on their anti-consumer plans or to the developers putting in effort to rectify a lazy update. The above form just a small handful of cases, there are many more examples of review bombing leading to positive change.
Unfortunately, it seems like almost every time players try to speak up and take "drastic" action against whatever nonsense the industry tries shoving down their throat, there is an outspoken group of corporate shills that starts bleating "grow up, review bombing is so immature!" or "stop whining, how can you be so ungrateful?" or "ohhhh, the iNjUsTiCe!!!" But as Tassi explains, the means by which the community can directly hurt companies' pocketbooks and force them to pay attention are quite limited.
So next time someone starts up with the usual foolishness, tell them to go kick rocks. And if you should happen to be one of those people, consider taking a moment to ask yourself why you're all too happy to slurp down whatever %$!&@^#! dribbles from those #?%&@!^#@%?&!' @%$%^! &@!!@%#$, you absolute $%*#@$&^ !%^$#&. Fucking #&!%@$$.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulta...-only-ones-players-can-wield/?sh=624f4a1f7af8
Some quotes:
Corporations care first and foremost about their bottom line, end of. They do not give a shit about you, they are certainly not your buddy. The single best way to express your displeasure is to not give them your money, of course, but in many cases the offending decision comes well after a game is released, like with HD2, when refunds are no longer possible for launch-period players. The power of Steam reviews comes from being able to encourage change through dissuading new customers - make enough noise on the store page that a bunch of potential buyers decide the game may not be worth their time or money and the publisher is bound to take notice.
Time and time again, we've seen Steam reviews utilized to drive corrective action, such as
when Capcom added a new layer of DRM to 10-year old games that affected longstanding mods
when the developers of Darkest Dungeon majorly skimped on their official Korean translation
when Ubisoft attempted to censor Rainbow Six Siege for all players to appease the CCP
or when Take-Two tried to kill off GTA singleplayer modding
In each of the above cases, community outcry as reflected through a barrage of negative Steam reviews led to the publishers walking back on their anti-consumer plans or to the developers putting in effort to rectify a lazy update. The above form just a small handful of cases, there are many more examples of review bombing leading to positive change.
Unfortunately, it seems like almost every time players try to speak up and take "drastic" action against whatever nonsense the industry tries shoving down their throat, there is an outspoken group of corporate shills that starts bleating "grow up, review bombing is so immature!" or "stop whining, how can you be so ungrateful?" or "ohhhh, the iNjUsTiCe!!!" But as Tassi explains, the means by which the community can directly hurt companies' pocketbooks and force them to pay attention are quite limited.
So next time someone starts up with the usual foolishness, tell them to go kick rocks. And if you should happen to be one of those people, consider taking a moment to ask yourself why you're all too happy to slurp down whatever %$!&@^#! dribbles from those #?%&@!^#@%?&!' @%$%^! &@!!@%#$, you absolute $%*#@$&^ !%^$#&. Fucking #&!%@$$.
