On Steam, negative reviews have been pouring in for the Borderlands games. These reviews are now treated separately. Steam aims to avoid “Off Topic” reviews.
A few days ago, negative reviews flooded Steam for the Borderlands series. The trigger was the announcement that Borderlands 3 would initially only be available on the Epic Games Store for PC. The negative reviews affected the overall rating of the Borderlands series. This has now been successfully addressed, as Steam is filtering out such “false” reviews.
Why was this step so important? The visible rating on Steam is an important criterion for potential customers. On each shop page of a game, Steam users can see how many players have rated a game as “positive” or “negative.” To teach developers or publishers a lesson regarding controversial marketing decisions, fans manipulate the ratings negatively.
How does the system work? Steam now automatically recognizes “unusual” review activity. So if hundreds of negative reviews for a game that has previously been rated very well appear in a particularly short time frame, Valve is notified. The developers can then remove these “Off Topic” reviews from the overall rating.
The reviews are not deleted: However, the negative reviews that are unrelated to the game are not completely deleted. They can still be viewed but are now in the “Off Topic” category. Thus, they no longer influence the rating of a game. Anyone who wants to can still check these reviews to form an opinion.
Borderlands 3 was not the trigger: However, it must be noted that Steam announced some time ago that it would take action against “review-bombing.” The fact that the changes to the system coincide with the drama surrounding Borderlands 3 seems to be coincidental. Other games will also benefit from this system from now on, filtering out unjustified reviews that have nothing to do with the game itself.
What do you think of this approach on Steam? Is it good that such “Off Topic” reviews are filtered out? Or is this a manipulation that shouldn’t exist?
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