I'm not sure I agree with even using the phrase "review bombing" in the context of Steam. To me, review bombing is when a bunch of people with no first-hand experience with a product leave negative reviews to jump on some kind of bandwagon, but on Steam you need to own a game to leave a review. I think if you bought a game, you have every right to voice your opinion on it for whatever reasons you see fit.

Besides, what's important, and what's good or bad is totally subjective, so I don't really see that there's any fair way to distinguish between "malice" and "genuine discontent." As others have already pointed out, if you want to know why a game has the overall review score that it does, and judge those reasons for yourself, that's what review bodies are for.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: scaineThe worst part is - the whole point of going for Kickstarter, at least in its infancy, was so that the public becomes the publisher. So this is a double let down - to kickstart with campaign promises, then seek a publisher anyway is itself pretty abhorrent, but then to chose a publisher that forces you to break those campaign promises... well, Gloomywood have lost a potential customer here even if their future titles support us.

I disagree that using a publisher is necessarily always abhorrent. A successful crowdfunding campaign reduces a publisher's risk, which increases your leverage in getting what you want. You better be damn sure you'll maintain the freedom to fulfill your promises, though. Failing to do so is no different from promising Linux support, then using middleware that lacks Linux support.

View this comment - View article - View full comments