Valve takes new steps to combat bombing review

[Skipper ✪]

n brief: Valve first tried to implement measures to combat bombardment in 2017 but a new announcement from the company admits that there is room for improvement. Valves have said they are now rolling out a new feature to remove 'off-topic' reviews from their overall rating calculations.

Steam's review and rating system is a key part of many gamers' decision-making when they are on the hunt for a new title to play. But while most gamers would expect the review scores to be indicative of the quality of the game, thanks to the review bombing that is not always the case.

The bombing review has become a method for consumers to voice their displeasure about decisions or actions taken by developers that do not necessarily relate to how well a game plays. For example, when Metro Exodus publishers recently announced the latest installment would be timed-exclusive on the Epic Store, thousands of reviewers piled on the older Metro games on Steam to vent their frustration.

While it's understandable for people to use whatever methods available to them to make their voices heard, review bombing is a phenomenon that is bad for developers and bad for gamers who only really care about the quality of the product they are buying.

And so the stage is set for Valve's latest move to combat bombing review. In an announcement on Friday, Valve gave details for their new tool: "We will identify off-topic review bombs and remove them from the Review Score."

Despite the simplicity of the proposition, Valve's blog post goes into some depth about what they consider off-topic, and the potential flaws of the new system. One such flaw is that any genuine reviews posted during what Valve deems a 'review bomb' will be filtered out alongside the off-topic posts.

It's clear that Valve understands that people do not want to be silenced or have negative posts censored, so reviews themselves are not being removed. Instead, those reviews will not count towards the overall rating.

For gamers who care about the more theoretical and political aspects of game publishing, Valve includes the option to turn off this feature in Steam Store settings. This will mean the system will not affect the ratings you'll see - bombs and all.