In an extended blog post that reads like a first year philosophy student essay, Valve has been debating what counts as a Steam review bomb. With itself.
The company’s confusion was prompted by the recent surge in positive reviews for Assassin’s Creed: Unity, which Ubisoft made available for free on Uplay in the aftermath of the Notre Dame fire (along with donating €500,000 to help with restoration efforts). Naturally, the move was incredibly popular with players, and despite its free release on a different platform prompted a spike in player reviews on Steam.
But does this count as a review bomb, and if so, should Valve prohibit it as it has in the past?
According to Valve’s post, the company had considered the possibility of positive review bombs when designing its system, but this appears to be the first real-life example. Or is it? Valve’s not sure.
“Back in 2017, we defined a review bomb as an event where players post a large number of reviews in a very compressed time frame, aimed at lowering the Review Score of a game,” Valve explained.
“Data-wise, it doesn’t quite fit the pattern of negative review bombs: in the case of AC:Unity there was a significant increase in actual players alongside the increase in reviews,” Valve mused, before immediately adding “[but] we have seen some negative review bombs with that characteristic”.