Can Steam stop Chinese gamers from review bombing games?
After Rotten Tomatoes blocks Captain Marvel trolls, Steam rolls out new rules
Answer: They all incurred the wrath of Chinese gamers, who bombarded the pages of those games with a barrage of negative reviews.
Now their favorite form of online protest might be closed off -- and guess what? They’re not happy.
The tactic, called review bombing, features little in the way of actual reviews. Instead of people offering their objective and critical opinion, they intentionally post terrible reviews -- sometimes without actually playing the game -- to signal their displeasure, trying to drive the average score down.
Chinese gamers aren’t taking it well. While review bombing certainly isn’t exclusive to them, it’s a common tool used to express themselves -- either to show their frustration (at Metro Exodus for being unavailable on Steam) or anger (at Devotion’s hidden insult to China’s President Xi Jinping).