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Business Mayor
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Mayor
Why Even User Video Game Scores Can't Be Trusted Any More – How-To Geek
Review bombing skews ratings with irrelevant negativity, harming a game's reputation and affecting future projects. It's hard to trust negative reviews due to review bombing, which only makes it harder to judge a game. Reviews should focus on gameplay, but outside influences often lead to unfairly low scores and mistrust. Review bombing occurs when a group of people works together to flood online review sites with many negative reviews. This is commonly a retaliatory tactic that's used even if the game itself is good. This practice damages the trust in user review systems by skewing a game's overall rating and shaping how people see it, usually for reasons that have nothing to do with a game's overall quality. Review Bombing Has Become Too Common Marcus Mears III / Review Geek The process of review bombing sees a bunch of people, often driven by outside issues, all post bad reviews at the same time. Many use bots or automated tools to make their attack even bigger. This wave of low scores drowns out real criticism and pulls down the game's average rating, which can hurt sales and even affect whether future projects get made. Many games have been hit by review bombing. Big-name games can face backlash over comments made by those involved in production and receive negative reviews that have nothing to do with how the game played or how well it worked. Other games with controversial characters or storylines have also been targeted, like Dragon Age: The Veilguard , showing how easily review systems can be abused because of social or political disagreements. Related Imagine a world where PC game reviews are just reviews. These attacks aren't always about politics. Sometimes, players organize negative review campaigns because they're unhappy with changes to gameplay, feel like the game pushes too many microtransactions, or believe the developers aren't listening to their complaints. For example, Infinity Nikki was recently review-bombed due to a launcher error. A launch error is a bug that would likely have been fixed by reporting it regularly. Players don't need to go to the review section to get attention when developers build games with bug report systems and have X accounts to receive feedback. Many go overboard just because they want others to see that they are angry. These are calls for attention, not a real reflection on the gameplay or quality of the game itself. Review bombing is an overused tactic to show disdain. If anything, the review bombers look like they're just whining when using this technique to complain over a minor issue or the servers going down for a day. Bad Reviews Lose Their Believability Over Time Jorge Aguilar/Activision The growing problem of review bombing has greatly hurt the trustworthiness of negative user reviews for video games. This issue happens when organized groups overwhelm review platforms with large numbers of extremely negative ratings, often for reasons that have nothing to do with the game's actual quality. As a result, it can cause many to distrust negative reviews more than ever. At first, negative reviews might appear to be honest, showing real disappointment from players. However, these get mixed in with many review bombers who want to vent their frustration over something unrelated to the gameplay itself. This makes it very hard to distinguish between real criticism and planned attacks meant to harm a game's reputation. It's gone so far that you can expect negative reviews even if you know the game is good. Related These games occupy a special place in my mind. When Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was released, there was a sudden flood of negative reviews. The game had plenty of issues and a very short campaign. This was expected and warranted because the quality of the game didn't surpass Modern Warfare 2 ; it was more like an expansion pack at full price. When Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 came out, it was a real improvement and did a lot well. However, it faced a similar wave of negativity, where bad reviews at first far outnumbered positive ones, likely because of organized efforts. Even though many of the issues were quickly fixed, players seemed to be focused on bashing a new game in the series for their own personal reasons, not so much on the game's quality. While many people updated their reviews to be more positive, the initial wave of negativity had a lasting effect. This makes you question whether early reviews can be trusted, and reviews matter most when a game first comes out, and there's not much information on them available. Reviews Should Reflect the Game, Not Public Opinion Bioware While it's nice to think reviewers try to stay fair, outside influences often twist how a game's true quality is judged. A review itself is subjective because it's an opinion, so that's okay. What's less than okay is how often reviews lead away from the game itself. Reviews should look at the gameplay, story, visuals, and overall design. However, review bombers often get swayed by the drama around how the game was made or the company's reputation behind it. Sadly, this means the ideal review is often ignored, leading to scores that don't truly show how good or bad a game really is. One big issue is how hard it is to differentiate between professional criticism and public opinion. If people dislike a game's publisher because of issues that aren't directly related to the game itself, like shady business deals or accusations against the developers, such negativity can hurt the reception of a new game. This creates a situation where a well-crafted game gets low scores because people already dislike the company behind it. There are valid reasons not to purchase a game that's embroiled in these sorts of problems, but whether a review score should be reflective of outside drama is another question entirely. Related These action games are hiding some great puzzles. Players' distrust, often fueled by news stories about these controversies, directly shapes how critics see the game. For example, even if a game gets mostly good reviews and has solid gameplay, a title from a company dealing with accusations of ethical issues could still be judged harshly by some players before they even try it, dragging down the final average score. I firmly believe that a publisher should be held to account for unethical and predatory practices. But it's arguably better not to buy the game than to mess with the review system. A lack of sales will kill a great game. Guardians of the Galaxy is a great example of a great game with good reviews that just didn't sell well because of the public's view it had before release. The publisher wasn't trusted, so the game wasn't bought, and the game died—no fake bad reviews needed. Reviews From Individuals Are as Unbelievable as Big Sites Steam The trustworthiness of video game reviews, whether from big review websites or regular players, has become more doubtful over time. Big review sites often give out fairly high scores, often between 7 and 9. This trend makes people worry that issues have been glossed over. I've reviewed and edited reviews of games at professional sites for years. It's not easy to make a real game review, but burning a bridge with a publisher is not smart. I'd say that when it comes to the big review websites, read the review and not the score. Even considering bias or fear of hurting reputation, it's arguable that user review scores can be more untrustworthy than those on big sites. While they seem like they should reflect real player experiences, they can easily be manipulated or influenced by bias. A Minecraft Movie and Five Nights At Freddy's movies are great examples of this. Plenty of regular watchers hated them, but some of that is because they expect Oppenheimer quality from kids' movies. If you go in without the expectation of an adult target audience, you enjoy those movies much more. The growing problem of review bombing has made it much harder to tell the difference between honest criticism and planned, harmful attacks. It makes user reviews less believable and has already hurt the user review system far more than it ever hurt any publishers.
Newsweek
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Woman Finds 'Random Cat' in Her Home—Then They Have Perfect Girls' Night In
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A young woman from London ended up having an impromptu girls' night with a sneaky intruder who made her way into her home as she opened the door to collect a food delivery, and internet users can't cope with it. In a viral TikTok video shared in March under the username @indipine, 26-year-old Indy explains that a random cat wandered into her home as she opened the door to the delivery driver, and immediately made herself at home. "I don't have a cat... who is this? I ordered food and she just came in with the food. I don't remember ordering her," she writes in the clip. Indy told Newsweek that as she stepped outside to collect her order, the tabby cat followed her back through her garden gate, sniffing around the area before deciding to venture inside. "She explored all round the kitchen and living room and then she made herself comfortable on the sofa. I was so excited to have a cat friend for the evening, so I just kind of let her make herself at home," she said. "After a bit, I sensed she was probably comfortable with me coming to sit with her so we watched Step Up 2 together—I enjoyed it but she slept through most of it." Screenshots of the viral clip show Indy and the kitty hanging out in her living room. Screenshots of the viral clip show Indy and the kitty hanging out in her living room. @indipine After the movie, Indy tried to teach the kitty how to play Infinity Nikki, though she was mostly focused on having a snooze, but then, when she woke up, she decided to cuddle on her lap. "I was in shock because I've never had any cat be so affectionate towards me, especially one that had just randomly showed up in my house an hour earlier," she said. As she slept, the poster searched the internet for missing cat ads in case she was lost, since she was a very clean cat with a collar, but she couldn't find anything concerning her, so she concluded that "she was probably just on a side quest." Then around 11 p.m. she left, with the help of Indy to climb the tall wall she came from. For Indy this experience wasn't only a heartwarming encounter, it gave her the confidence to step outside by herself in the darkness again after a man had broken into her home the previous week, leaving her in fear. "On the night the cat showed up, it was actually my first evening I was alone after the break in and I was a bit on edge. But when the cat showed up, I ended up leaving the back door open most of the evening, so she could leave whenever she wanted, even though the whole week prior I'd been scared of it even being unlocked," she said. "I was so distracted by the cat that I didn't even think about being scared or being worried the door wasn't locked. And when I had to go help her get over the wall outside, I didn't feel any unease going into the garden when it was dark because the whole situation was just so funny, it really helped me get over the fear! "So I was thankful that the cat distribution system distributed me a cat on a short term loan because I think I really needed it! I've moved now so I didn't get to see her again but those few hours with a random cat helped me a surprising amount!" While for Indy the feline healed her on an emotional level, cats are also known to heal people on a physical level too. According to Virginia Beach Veterinary Hospital, the human body may benefit from the frequency of a cat's purr. The hospital says that these vibrations can lower blood pressure, lessen stress, and even promote healing. The video quickly went viral on social media and it has so far received over 668,900 views and 163,300 likes on the platform. One user, Hades, commented: "She has a collar, you are now part of the approved '2nd home' group. Soon she will have her own toys and snacks." Teddy said: "I heard about this. It's the super rare second home distribution system. You're so lucky." Donttruststeve added: "You are now co-parenting a cat. I used to have neighbors cats that would randomly show up in my house." Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@ with some details about your best friend and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.
