0/10 Would Not Recommend
March 25, 2019 5:27 AM Subscribe
The secrets of 'review-bombing': why do people write zero-star reviews? [The Guardian] “...a bane of developers, directors and record companies everywhere: the user reviews section. It’s a public forum where anyone who registers an account can jump into the discussion, leave their own score and heap praise on a release – or, perhaps more often, pour scorn on one. At the extreme, this latter practice is known as “review-bombing”: efforts, often co-ordinated, to tank the aggregate scores of a Call of Duty game, say, or an all-female Ghostbusters film by leaving furious, zero-star reviews. The latest target of this tactic was Captain Marvel, forcing Rotten Tomatoes to remove thousands of user reviews before the film had been released. It’s like a sedentary protest march, and the result can be a PR nightmare.”
• Valve Says It Will Remove 'Off-Topic Review Bombs' From Steam Scores [Kotaku]
• Valve Says It Will Remove 'Off-Topic Review Bombs' From Steam Scores [Kotaku]
“Over the past few years, review bombs—people organizing en masse to post negative reviews to a game’s store page to tank its review score—have become one of Steam’s most visible issues. Last year alone, review bombing happened in Steam reviews over everything from women generals to sales that happened too early. Developers have cited this sort of toxicity as a reason they’re excited about the Epic Games Store, which plans to address the issue with an opt-in review system. Today, Valve announced it will take steps to defuse Steam’s review bomb problem. In a news post, Valve described a series of planned changes to Steam’s review system aimed at minimizing the impact of review bombs. “That change can be described easily,” the statement reads.. “We’re going to identify off-topic review bombs, and remove them from the Review Score.””• The anatomy of a review bombing campaign [Polygon]
“It’s hard to say without having access to sales information, but the negative reviews rarely have anything to do with the game itself. Sometimes they happen due to the actions of the developer, and other times they’re posted to draw attention to a particular problem in a game’s update or some other unresolved issue. In other words, review bombs take place not to talk about the quality of the game in any kind of general sense, and they’re rarely posted to give any information about whether or not they should buy the game itself. The most popular use of review bombs is to send a message about one particular issue or perceived wrongdoing on the part of the developer or publisher. They do bring attention, both good and bad, to the issue that’s angering those who are posting the negative reviews. These bombs are talked about, which means the actions that the bombs are meant to protest get more publicity. They are successful if judged only by the attention they gather, which means they are likely to continue unless Steam takes other measures to limit their efficacy.”• Rotten Tomatoes tackles review-bombing by eliminating pre-release comments [The Verge]
“The film-rating aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes has announced it will no longer allow users to comment on or register early anticipation for movies, following a series of coordinated attempts to sabotage the ratings on a few select upcoming films. The most recent attack was on Captain Marvel, which received a wave of negative early ratings from people complaining about the “social-justice warrior politics” of star Brie Larson. The backlash largely stems from an interview where Larson said she was tired of being interviewed by “overwhelmingly white male” journalists and that she wanted to see more opportunities for diverse voices in the field.”• Trolls Are Boring Now [Wired]“Unfortunately, we have seen an uptick in non-constructive input, sometimes bordering on trolling, which we believe is a disservice to our general readership,” the post reads. “We have decided that turning off this feature for now is the best course of action. Don’t worry though, fans will still get to have their say: Once a movie is released, audiences can leave a user rating and comments as they always have.”
“In their zeal, trolls have undercut themselves. They've broken Goodhart's law: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. In training people to expect that crowdsourced review platforms will be hijacked in advance of a “progressive” movie, trolls trained us to tune them out. What was upsetting during Ghostbusters’ rollout was already ho-hum by Wonder Woman's: People started (correctly) presaging the trolls' complaints. By the time The Last Jedi’s cast was making the late-night rounds, anti-progressive movie-troll coverage had already settled into an easy rhythm: A portion of “the internet” (almost always described as “small but noisy” or a “small but vocal minority”) hates the movie you expected them to hate for all the reasons you expected them to hate it.”
I mean. The problem, as usual, is young men ruining things for everyone. It's weird to see that everywhere, and yet see it explicitly stated nowhere.
posted by schadenfrau at 6:24 AM on March 25, 2019 [120 favorites]
posted by schadenfrau at 6:24 AM on March 25, 2019 [120 favorites]
Oh I don't know, I watched Fury Road because all these dudes were protesting and it was a great movie, they serve a useful function of pointing out action movies I might actually want to see.
posted by jeather at 6:31 AM on March 25, 2019 [39 favorites]
posted by jeather at 6:31 AM on March 25, 2019 [39 favorites]
Captain Marvel just hit $900M at the box office so the whiny trolls are pretty ineffective.
posted by octothorpe at 6:39 AM on March 25, 2019 [21 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 6:39 AM on March 25, 2019 [21 favorites]
so the whiny trolls are pretty ineffective.
But still vocal. I find they eat up so much of the bandwidth and attention. I'd suggest ignoring them out-right but that doesn't seem to work, they still make themselves heard and their toxicity is something that shouldn't just be disregarded, it is potentially dangerous to do so.
posted by Fizz at 6:41 AM on March 25, 2019 [22 favorites]
But still vocal. I find they eat up so much of the bandwidth and attention. I'd suggest ignoring them out-right but that doesn't seem to work, they still make themselves heard and their toxicity is something that shouldn't just be disregarded, it is potentially dangerous to do so.
posted by Fizz at 6:41 AM on March 25, 2019 [22 favorites]
It was always dumb to allow user reviews of a movie before it came out, but it's not going to stop people from posting stupid reviews after the movie comes out, either. Amazon tries to use verified purchases to help keep their reviews from being a total wasteland (but they kind of are anyway). I wonder what the process for being a verified moviegoer version of Rotten Tomatoes would have to look like?
I mean, if the 4chan fanboys had to buy tickets to see Captain Marvel before they could pan Captain Marvel, at least Captain Marvel would make some (more) money.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:46 AM on March 25, 2019 [15 favorites]
I mean, if the 4chan fanboys had to buy tickets to see Captain Marvel before they could pan Captain Marvel, at least Captain Marvel would make some (more) money.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:46 AM on March 25, 2019 [15 favorites]
But still vocal. I find they eat up so much of the bandwidth and attention. I'd suggest ignoring them out-right but that doesn't seem to work, they still make themselves heard and their toxicity is something that shouldn't just be disregarded, it is potentially dangerous to do so.
Even leaving aside right-wing trolls' function as movement-builders for fascism - even if we were living in some kind of social democratic utopia - they still hold back conversations. Nobody develops intellectually or artistically if they're having the same stupid conversations with the same dishonest people all the time. Every conversation about why it's, like, okay to have a woman be the star of a superhero movie isn't a conversation about, eg, the military politics of Captain Marvel, the shifting aesthetics of superhero movies, etc etc. Internet people, dear reader, can figure out places to have those more complicated conversations, but it sucks that casual internet users mainly get the dumbest takes.
posted by Frowner at 6:53 AM on March 25, 2019 [36 favorites]
Captain Marvel just hit $900M at the box office so the whiny trolls are pretty ineffective.
No. They're ineffective if you have a marketing budget with 8 zeroes after it for a property that is already widely known and has been teased by like...idek 7 previous blockbusters? or something?
But that is, hopefully obviously, not the norm. I expect there's no real way to measure how many properties -- film, television, books, comic books, whatever -- these people have managed to keep from getting published, or created, in the first place, simply because the creators know they do not have Captain Marvel's marketing or, frankly, security budget. But I expect it's "a fucking lot."
ETA: I took a zero off the marketing budget, but really, at that level, does it matter
posted by schadenfrau at 6:54 AM on March 25, 2019 [21 favorites]
No. They're ineffective if you have a marketing budget with 8 zeroes after it for a property that is already widely known and has been teased by like...idek 7 previous blockbusters? or something?
But that is, hopefully obviously, not the norm. I expect there's no real way to measure how many properties -- film, television, books, comic books, whatever -- these people have managed to keep from getting published, or created, in the first place, simply because the creators know they do not have Captain Marvel's marketing or, frankly, security budget. But I expect it's "a fucking lot."
ETA: I took a zero off the marketing budget, but really, at that level, does it matter
posted by schadenfrau at 6:54 AM on March 25, 2019 [21 favorites]
Likely where the trolls have the most leverage isn't with Disney/Marvel, who can sell the heck out of paint drying to a mass market. I'd say the most vulnerable targets are the mid-sized and independent game studios who are already trying to hit highly specialized market segments, sometimes financing through crowdfunding.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 7:09 AM on March 25, 2019 [18 favorites]
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 7:09 AM on March 25, 2019 [18 favorites]
I mean. The problem, as usual, is young men ruining things for everyone. It's weird to see that everywhere, and yet see it explicitly stated nowhere.
As someone who likes to use Yelp to scout pictures of food at restaurants I am thinking of going to, it's not just men who are low-star style rage reviewers.
The anti-SJW brigading though...that stuff is all man-boys.
posted by srboisvert at 7:13 AM on March 25, 2019 [17 favorites]
As someone who likes to use Yelp to scout pictures of food at restaurants I am thinking of going to, it's not just men who are low-star style rage reviewers.
The anti-SJW brigading though...that stuff is all man-boys.
posted by srboisvert at 7:13 AM on March 25, 2019 [17 favorites]
For example, a better picture would be to talk to people at Beamdog and Harebrained Schemes, both of whom were review-bombed for trans-inclusive content in relatively niche game products.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 7:19 AM on March 25, 2019 [18 favorites]
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 7:19 AM on March 25, 2019 [18 favorites]
What surprises me is that Valve has the tools to see how long people have played. Why not restrict reviewing to people who have played the game for at least two hours? I suppose if the game is non-functional or so bad you can't even enjoy two hours, it would lead to those not being called out in reviews, but it seems like a reasonable hurdle to limit the number of malicious reviewers because that's too big of a commitment for drive-by review bombers
posted by LSK at 7:27 AM on March 25, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by LSK at 7:27 AM on March 25, 2019 [6 favorites]
The 2 hour limit is interesting because that's the same as your easy-return period. There have been many games I've legitimately returned in that window, some for reviewable reasons, some just because I didn't like it or it didn't "click"-- not worth reviewing about. In writing that, while I trust my own judgement there on whether to review or not, I realize I couldn't trust the random user's in the same way, we've all seen one-star reviews of games or restaurants where somebody seems to have given the score for irrelevant reasons, or ones so personal and tied to themselves and the context of their day it cannot possibly be worth considering from the outside and if anything says more about the obtuse reviewer than the thing being reviewed. I don't even particularly trust professional reviews released at launch, the conditions of them playing the game for review purposes fundamentally color their writing and evaluation, and a good media analysis requires a gestation period and probably visiting the game more than once -- all things no game reviewer has ever or can ever do in the tiny runup window between a big game release review copies go out and when reviews need to be written, edited, and posted.
A limit like that would be neat, even if still cheatable for the determined bomber. A downside is if a game is abjectly broken, or is some kind of bullshit scheme, or some other terrible BS you can tell within 2 hours of playing it would be prevented from alerting others.
edit: Also worth mentioning the time played on Steam can be manipulated. I have 80 hours played on some games I've never even installed, I used to run a program that idled in random games to get me steam cards that I would mass sell to buy games with.
posted by GoblinHoney at 7:38 AM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
A limit like that would be neat, even if still cheatable for the determined bomber. A downside is if a game is abjectly broken, or is some kind of bullshit scheme, or some other terrible BS you can tell within 2 hours of playing it would be prevented from alerting others.
edit: Also worth mentioning the time played on Steam can be manipulated. I have 80 hours played on some games I've never even installed, I used to run a program that idled in random games to get me steam cards that I would mass sell to buy games with.
posted by GoblinHoney at 7:38 AM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
Why not restrict reviewing to people who have played the game for at least two hours?
The naive case is those instances where the marketing or company are so bad that people should be told ("John Romero would like to make you his bitch", AMA on 8chan, etc.).
There is some value in that. That said, that is admittedly an edge case and I otherwise agree with you.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:39 AM on March 25, 2019
The naive case is those instances where the marketing or company are so bad that people should be told ("John Romero would like to make you his bitch", AMA on 8chan, etc.).
There is some value in that. That said, that is admittedly an edge case and I otherwise agree with you.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:39 AM on March 25, 2019
Why not ban accounts from people who "review" games or movies before they are even released? It's clear they are just making shit up and their writing is worthless. Shadowban anything else they write, forever. Doesn't help with places like Rotten Tomatoes where anonymous accounts are useful. But on Steam accounts are pretty sticky, tied to your game library. Puts some teeth in a policy.
The variant of this kneejerk shitbaggery that bugs me regularly is Kotaku. Years ago Kotaku wrote some mildly progressive articles about women and games. Ever since, some deplorable people have branded Kotaku monstrous pit of SJW lies and nonsense, so much that there's even a Nazi-adjacent subreddit called "Kotaku in Action". (In reality Kotaku is a reasonably good online game publication with its mix of mediocre articles, good reviews, and occasional excellent investigative journalism.) Literally every time someone posts an article from Kotaku one of these shitbags turns up to say "lol Kotaku sucks". Remarkably this often gets attention and spawns a derail of people sharing years of misogynist lies. There's absolutely no good faith effort to engage with Kotaku or its content, just like there's no effort to engage with these movies and games that get review bombed. It's just flinging poop and it works very well on the Internet.
posted by Nelson at 7:44 AM on March 25, 2019 [20 favorites]
The variant of this kneejerk shitbaggery that bugs me regularly is Kotaku. Years ago Kotaku wrote some mildly progressive articles about women and games. Ever since, some deplorable people have branded Kotaku monstrous pit of SJW lies and nonsense, so much that there's even a Nazi-adjacent subreddit called "Kotaku in Action". (In reality Kotaku is a reasonably good online game publication with its mix of mediocre articles, good reviews, and occasional excellent investigative journalism.) Literally every time someone posts an article from Kotaku one of these shitbags turns up to say "lol Kotaku sucks". Remarkably this often gets attention and spawns a derail of people sharing years of misogynist lies. There's absolutely no good faith effort to engage with Kotaku or its content, just like there's no effort to engage with these movies and games that get review bombed. It's just flinging poop and it works very well on the Internet.
posted by Nelson at 7:44 AM on March 25, 2019 [20 favorites]
Reading the posted articles, it’s worth noting that Valve is removing reviews for “off topic” that are actually on topic but the devs would rather not be criticized about (DRM, EULAs). This is really different than anti-SJW brigading, imho - as are criticisms of “specific rather than general” problems. When buying games, I /want/ to know if a game is overloaded with micro transactions to the point it’s a shell of its former self, or if they’ve completely changed the characteristics of a relationship. When DA4 comes out, I want to know what the Solavellan shippers think of it, for example. I am concerned that the response to anti-SJW brigading is “we will make all reviews more generic and only about the game as an amorphous mass” rather than just removing political reviews. I
posted by corb at 7:53 AM on March 25, 2019 [13 favorites]
posted by corb at 7:53 AM on March 25, 2019 [13 favorites]
The naive case is those instances where the marketing or company are so bad that people should be told ("John Romero would like to make you his bitch", AMA on 8chan, etc.).
I am not sure there's a way to block shitty reviews of games or movies that are really thinly veiled grudges by shitty people against SJWs while allowing shitty reviews of games or movies that are really thinly veiled grudges by SJW against shitty people.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:53 AM on March 25, 2019 [5 favorites]
I am not sure there's a way to block shitty reviews of games or movies that are really thinly veiled grudges by shitty people against SJWs while allowing shitty reviews of games or movies that are really thinly veiled grudges by SJW against shitty people.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:53 AM on March 25, 2019 [5 favorites]
It's probably worth mentioning that the first article doesn't touch on gender issues for why someone might leave a bad review but instead focuses on Michael's claims of more substantial complaints.(e.g. That critics are often working on pre-release code that doesn't reflect the final product.) We can assume that Michael is being disingenuous and that the writer is not asking the right questions, but it's not quite the same as these other stories.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:54 AM on March 25, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 7:54 AM on March 25, 2019 [4 favorites]
Literally every time someone posts an article from Kotaku one of these shitbags turns up to say "lol Kotaku sucks". Remarkably this often gets attention and spawns a derail of people sharing years of misogynist lies. There's absolutely no good faith effort to engage with Kotaku or its content, just like there's no effort to engage with these movies and games that get review bombed. It's just flinging poop and it works very well on the Internet.
I once posted an article from Kotaku in a game series-specific subreddit that was literally just talking about how good the most recent entry had become since it launched. It garnered over 230 comments, of which probably 90% were talking about Kotaku. Most of the Redditors making those comments had put in serious time at KIA, more than a few had made wildly bigoted jokes, and at least one of them had linked to my thread. When I complained to the mods that there was clear brigading going on, they told me that it really wasn't, and besides, Kotaku deserved it. The top comment was someone complaining not even about the article, but a random commentor's aside about Reddit being toxic, with a bunch of comments defending Pepe ("it hasn't been appropriated by Nazis!"), making jokes about SJWs being triggered, accusing Kotaku and anyone who disagreed with them were rapists/pedophiles/etc, and so on. To this day, almost all of the worst comments, many of which reinforced the random Kotaku commentor's accusations, are still up.
Remember, this was all on an article that, apart from some minor yet 100% justifiable critiques that I'm sure many of those Redditors agreed with, was pretty much a glowing endorsement of the game. That's what we're up against.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:13 AM on March 25, 2019 [27 favorites]
I once posted an article from Kotaku in a game series-specific subreddit that was literally just talking about how good the most recent entry had become since it launched. It garnered over 230 comments, of which probably 90% were talking about Kotaku. Most of the Redditors making those comments had put in serious time at KIA, more than a few had made wildly bigoted jokes, and at least one of them had linked to my thread. When I complained to the mods that there was clear brigading going on, they told me that it really wasn't, and besides, Kotaku deserved it. The top comment was someone complaining not even about the article, but a random commentor's aside about Reddit being toxic, with a bunch of comments defending Pepe ("it hasn't been appropriated by Nazis!"), making jokes about SJWs being triggered, accusing Kotaku and anyone who disagreed with them were rapists/pedophiles/etc, and so on. To this day, almost all of the worst comments, many of which reinforced the random Kotaku commentor's accusations, are still up.
Remember, this was all on an article that, apart from some minor yet 100% justifiable critiques that I'm sure many of those Redditors agreed with, was pretty much a glowing endorsement of the game. That's what we're up against.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:13 AM on March 25, 2019 [27 favorites]
Why does anonymity and the ease of Web communication allow trolls and assholes to ruin everything? Huh, good question.
posted by theora55 at 8:17 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 8:17 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
Why not restrict reviewing to people who have played the game for at least two hours?
Well, one obvious reason is that not every game is designed to last two hours, and we shouldn't encourage the homogeneity of a world where that's true. Many VR experiences, visual novels, or art games would fit in here... some more traditional examples that come to mind are Pink Hour and Pink Heaven (by the creator of Cave Story); Out There Somewhere; Bleed 1 and 2; plus everything from the Metal Slug series and numerous other ports of arcade games and such. And those are all good, recommendable games... forcing people to idle in them until they hit the two hour mark is not the answer.
posted by one for the books at 8:30 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
Well, one obvious reason is that not every game is designed to last two hours, and we shouldn't encourage the homogeneity of a world where that's true. Many VR experiences, visual novels, or art games would fit in here... some more traditional examples that come to mind are Pink Hour and Pink Heaven (by the creator of Cave Story); Out There Somewhere; Bleed 1 and 2; plus everything from the Metal Slug series and numerous other ports of arcade games and such. And those are all good, recommendable games... forcing people to idle in them until they hit the two hour mark is not the answer.
posted by one for the books at 8:30 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
Google asks me about places I've visited. I had a bad experience at a business so when asked, I wrote up the details and gave the minimum 1 star. I heard from the corporate folks and the local manager. But, the local shop just said they wanted to make it better, then took no action. Some bad reviews are warranted. I hope the company that subsequently gave me good service and got 5 stars prospers.
posted by theora55 at 8:59 AM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 8:59 AM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
Why not restrict reviewing to people who have played the game for at least two hours?
I don't leave reviews very often, but one time I did, and was questioned about why Steam only showed me as having played, like, eight minutes. I'd bought the game directly from the developer months before it was available on Steam. Awkward.
posted by asperity at 9:03 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
I don't leave reviews very often, but one time I did, and was questioned about why Steam only showed me as having played, like, eight minutes. I'd bought the game directly from the developer months before it was available on Steam. Awkward.
posted by asperity at 9:03 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
Quote from the main article:
“Years ago when a developer and a publisher put out a video game, they had a lot of soul. There seemed to be a lot of new ideas,” he says. “The video game industry [was] about entertainment. But it seems like nowadays, games are more of a business idea than anything else … [Developers] don’t even finish the game before releasing it, and then they make promises that they’re going to finish it, make it better and do whatever they can to [appease] their customers.”
As someone who worked in the industry over a decade ago which probably aligns with this person's nostalgia, I call absolute utter nonsense on this. This is clearly not about taking a stand, it's ideological puritanism clamoring for a golden age that never existed. Nostalgia is a powerful thing but to go through life wanting things to be like how you remember them from childhood sounds pretty miserable.
Michael’s Metacritic user review history is largely negative.
Shocker. Much like your average men's rights activist is more interested in protesting feminism rather than supporting positive men's causes, review bombers don't spend a fraction of their energy supporting the games or developers that are living up to whatever their benchmark is.
posted by slimepuppy at 9:20 AM on March 25, 2019 [18 favorites]
“Years ago when a developer and a publisher put out a video game, they had a lot of soul. There seemed to be a lot of new ideas,” he says. “The video game industry [was] about entertainment. But it seems like nowadays, games are more of a business idea than anything else … [Developers] don’t even finish the game before releasing it, and then they make promises that they’re going to finish it, make it better and do whatever they can to [appease] their customers.”
As someone who worked in the industry over a decade ago which probably aligns with this person's nostalgia, I call absolute utter nonsense on this. This is clearly not about taking a stand, it's ideological puritanism clamoring for a golden age that never existed. Nostalgia is a powerful thing but to go through life wanting things to be like how you remember them from childhood sounds pretty miserable.
Michael’s Metacritic user review history is largely negative.
Shocker. Much like your average men's rights activist is more interested in protesting feminism rather than supporting positive men's causes, review bombers don't spend a fraction of their energy supporting the games or developers that are living up to whatever their benchmark is.
posted by slimepuppy at 9:20 AM on March 25, 2019 [18 favorites]
The times I ended up skimming reviews for games that were anti-SJW brigaded, many of them were quite honest that they choose the minimal points possible because of the politics of the developers. The actions cited were usually completely optional dialogue trees and customization choices, not game-breaking flaws. And then there was brigading because a developer said something on twitter, which is what the Polygon article focused on.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 9:32 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 9:32 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
The anti-SJW brigading though...that stuff is all man-boys.
It’s entry level activity for hate groups. You can reasonably expect anyone engaged in it to be working with other harassers right the way up the scale to death threats.
posted by Artw at 9:48 AM on March 25, 2019 [10 favorites]
It’s entry level activity for hate groups. You can reasonably expect anyone engaged in it to be working with other harassers right the way up the scale to death threats.
posted by Artw at 9:48 AM on March 25, 2019 [10 favorites]
How about making it cost $5-10 to set up a review account. A minimal but reasonable fee seems to work pretty well to keep the trolls away from a few sites. Like this one.
posted by caution live frogs at 9:51 AM on March 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by caution live frogs at 9:51 AM on March 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
As someone who worked in the industry over a decade ago which probably aligns with this person's nostalgia, I call absolute utter nonsense on this
Really? Because this feels completely in line with my experience playing video games; I’d love to hear about the differences you see and why there’s such a gulf.
What I remember: deeply choice-based games that let actions you had taken in the very beginning impact things at the end. Games that felt they were full of interesting backstories and histories - with deep replayability. Games that let you start with different characters who each had their own paths - not just one customizable character with a generic path.
A good example of how I see this progression operating is actually in Dragon Age, which I still love, but am saddened by. Dragon Age: Origins let you play six different opening paths, each of which was a unique adventure and each of which impacted all of your gameplay later. DA2 allowed you minimal choice - only essentially your character class and gender - which impacts some story stuff but not much at all, mostly determining the fate of your siblings. And DA3 offered you infinite choice, but all the stories it really impacted were (1) who you could romance (very, very minimal impact on story) or (2) missions that mostly took place via text in a side board.
What I want to see is not just better graphics, but improvements to story and choices. I want to see more of a deep backstory for characters that influences the entire story, dialogue, and choices, so that it’s worth replaying the entire game again and again to see how it’s impacted. Instead it seems like most choices in the stories being told now are “if this, then this” on the way to much more limited endings.
For example, the Fallout progression. The Fallout series used to follow not just you and your companions, but also the places you went and the choices you made in the world. Fallout 2 had 4 different options for each of the places you went, depending on what you did there. Fallout 3 mildly influenced the slides. Fallout 4 didn’t give any fucks - you could murder your way through the entire game or be kind, and the only thing that influenced anything was which faction you chose.
I don’t think that’s just “oh, nostalgia”, I think it feels like a definitive turn away from careful, coherent play, and a move towards breaking up the game into a bunch of random interventions that you can make any choice on - which honestly destroys it as a thing to enjoy for me.
posted by corb at 10:12 AM on March 25, 2019 [13 favorites]
Really? Because this feels completely in line with my experience playing video games; I’d love to hear about the differences you see and why there’s such a gulf.
What I remember: deeply choice-based games that let actions you had taken in the very beginning impact things at the end. Games that felt they were full of interesting backstories and histories - with deep replayability. Games that let you start with different characters who each had their own paths - not just one customizable character with a generic path.
A good example of how I see this progression operating is actually in Dragon Age, which I still love, but am saddened by. Dragon Age: Origins let you play six different opening paths, each of which was a unique adventure and each of which impacted all of your gameplay later. DA2 allowed you minimal choice - only essentially your character class and gender - which impacts some story stuff but not much at all, mostly determining the fate of your siblings. And DA3 offered you infinite choice, but all the stories it really impacted were (1) who you could romance (very, very minimal impact on story) or (2) missions that mostly took place via text in a side board.
What I want to see is not just better graphics, but improvements to story and choices. I want to see more of a deep backstory for characters that influences the entire story, dialogue, and choices, so that it’s worth replaying the entire game again and again to see how it’s impacted. Instead it seems like most choices in the stories being told now are “if this, then this” on the way to much more limited endings.
For example, the Fallout progression. The Fallout series used to follow not just you and your companions, but also the places you went and the choices you made in the world. Fallout 2 had 4 different options for each of the places you went, depending on what you did there. Fallout 3 mildly influenced the slides. Fallout 4 didn’t give any fucks - you could murder your way through the entire game or be kind, and the only thing that influenced anything was which faction you chose.
I don’t think that’s just “oh, nostalgia”, I think it feels like a definitive turn away from careful, coherent play, and a move towards breaking up the game into a bunch of random interventions that you can make any choice on - which honestly destroys it as a thing to enjoy for me.
posted by corb at 10:12 AM on March 25, 2019 [13 favorites]
METAFILTER: young men ruining things for everyone
posted by philip-random at 11:07 AM on March 25, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 11:07 AM on March 25, 2019 [6 favorites]
I don’t think that’s just “oh, nostalgia”, I think it feels like a definitive turn away from careful, coherent play, and a move towards breaking up the game into a bunch of random interventions that you can make any choice on - which honestly destroys it as a thing to enjoy for me.
I wonder how much of this is a result of games becoming more like services and how this model is so very aggressive towards the consumer. This doesn't justify toxic behaviour but I can see how it emboldens and leads to entitlement which is where gamergate bro behaviour steps in.
posted by Fizz at 11:46 AM on March 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
I wonder how much of this is a result of games becoming more like services and how this model is so very aggressive towards the consumer. This doesn't justify toxic behaviour but I can see how it emboldens and leads to entitlement which is where gamergate bro behaviour steps in.
posted by Fizz at 11:46 AM on March 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
What I remember: deeply choice-based games that let actions you had taken in the very beginning impact things at the end. Games that felt they were full of interesting backstories and histories - with deep replayability. Games that let you start with different characters who each had their own paths - not just one customizable character with a generic path.
Those experiences exist. I'd argue more of them exist now than ever before. They're just not being published by AAA developers to mass audiences. It's not my genre per se but Wasteland 2, Shadowrun and Path of Exiles all come to mind as games that do what Fallout and those other CRPGs in the 90s did.
My point was mostly that video games as an industry has been about money for quite a while. That is not diametrically opposed to a product having soul. To say that games used to be exclusively about soul is inaccurate, especially if you're trying to make the case that mid-2000s triple AAA publishers were in that camp. Madden and FIFA have been going on for a while and EA was a money-making enterprise when they published Dragon Age.
A franchise sliding into mediocrity as its popularity and budget rises is not a new thing or exclusive to video games. How many sequels and remakes are currently out there in cinemas?
It requires a bit more work from the discerning consumer to find their preferred experiences outside the mainstream but they do exist. And my perspective is sill that people's time is better spent on supporting the companies and people that are doing the work they enjoy rather than review-bombing the ones that don't. Companies will chase after a success but failures tend to make them even more risk-averse.
posted by slimepuppy at 11:47 AM on March 25, 2019 [6 favorites]
Those experiences exist. I'd argue more of them exist now than ever before. They're just not being published by AAA developers to mass audiences. It's not my genre per se but Wasteland 2, Shadowrun and Path of Exiles all come to mind as games that do what Fallout and those other CRPGs in the 90s did.
My point was mostly that video games as an industry has been about money for quite a while. That is not diametrically opposed to a product having soul. To say that games used to be exclusively about soul is inaccurate, especially if you're trying to make the case that mid-2000s triple AAA publishers were in that camp. Madden and FIFA have been going on for a while and EA was a money-making enterprise when they published Dragon Age.
A franchise sliding into mediocrity as its popularity and budget rises is not a new thing or exclusive to video games. How many sequels and remakes are currently out there in cinemas?
It requires a bit more work from the discerning consumer to find their preferred experiences outside the mainstream but they do exist. And my perspective is sill that people's time is better spent on supporting the companies and people that are doing the work they enjoy rather than review-bombing the ones that don't. Companies will chase after a success but failures tend to make them even more risk-averse.
posted by slimepuppy at 11:47 AM on March 25, 2019 [6 favorites]
Oh I don't know, I watched Fury Road because all these dudes were protesting and it was a great movie, they serve a useful function of pointing out action movies I might actually want to see.
Fury Road was the first movie in YEARS I saw in a theatre and I saw it for the same reason and loved it and bought my own copy of it. Basically if the trolls hate something I'm probably more likely to watch it. See also: Ghostbusters, Wonder Woman, Black Panther, Captain Marvel...
posted by urbanlenny at 11:52 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
Fury Road was the first movie in YEARS I saw in a theatre and I saw it for the same reason and loved it and bought my own copy of it. Basically if the trolls hate something I'm probably more likely to watch it. See also: Ghostbusters, Wonder Woman, Black Panther, Captain Marvel...
posted by urbanlenny at 11:52 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
I find they eat up so much of the bandwidth and attention
Qfmft. Sore case in point, comments at the AV Club, which apparently used to be a great community, bit after the move to kinja are just awash with sealioning (at best!) at the tiniest hint of any fragment of progressive ideas in any article at all - no matter how tangential to the main thrust of the article itself. You can ignore it but it's still there, taking up space, and in the way of anyone with anything interesting to say.
posted by ominous_paws at 12:38 PM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
Qfmft. Sore case in point, comments at the AV Club, which apparently used to be a great community, bit after the move to kinja are just awash with sealioning (at best!) at the tiniest hint of any fragment of progressive ideas in any article at all - no matter how tangential to the main thrust of the article itself. You can ignore it but it's still there, taking up space, and in the way of anyone with anything interesting to say.
posted by ominous_paws at 12:38 PM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
I was pretty happy with how Letterboxd decided to handle this.
Some of their methods of handling this has actually improved the site overall because it has resulted in de-prioritizing "hot takes" and reviews which were really just anticipatory comments on a thing that wasn't out yet.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 1:08 PM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
Some of their methods of handling this has actually improved the site overall because it has resulted in de-prioritizing "hot takes" and reviews which were really just anticipatory comments on a thing that wasn't out yet.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 1:08 PM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
To be honest, I thought the whole brigading was a way to monetize extortion out of entertainment groups. "Nice game/movie/work you got here...pity if a bunch of bad reviews happened." Sort of thing. The pattern would be breed, foster and then steer the tiger. A combination of useful idiots, bots and discrete investment would sway fearful PR/marketing folks to court "influencers". This of course, fosters a counter industry. This pattern works across endeavors that need crowds ranging from restaurants, hotels, politicians to even weekend events.
Because of the unreliable nature of reviews then curators become even more powerful since one only has so much bandwidth to work with in sifting genuine reviews. I throw out TripAdvisor as an example of powerful collection of reviews/duration. An example of review amplification are Top list based on Amazon reviews percolating in online articles. Of course to become a powerful curator one needs a platform e.g, YouTube, app, website to distribute information, coordinate the followers and reinforce the echo chamber. The echo chamber of places such as subreddits become just another tool in the PR machine.
There are ways simple and not so simple to deal with comments/reviews. A simple change in posted comments for recipes for example, would be a tab titled, "cooked this recipe" or "recipe changes" would make reading recipe comments much easier. But it takes serious time and money for a team of moderators to do comment by comment review. But, to keep the value of the platform firms would/should consider it the cost of business.
I do not consider review bombing or brigading as a land of contrasts but just another lever to a potential criminal enterprise.
posted by jadepearl at 1:21 PM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
Because of the unreliable nature of reviews then curators become even more powerful since one only has so much bandwidth to work with in sifting genuine reviews. I throw out TripAdvisor as an example of powerful collection of reviews/duration. An example of review amplification are Top
There are ways simple and not so simple to deal with comments/reviews. A simple change in posted comments for recipes for example, would be a tab titled, "cooked this recipe" or "recipe changes" would make reading recipe comments much easier. But it takes serious time and money for a team of moderators to do comment by comment review. But, to keep the value of the platform firms would/should consider it the cost of business.
I do not consider review bombing or brigading as a land of contrasts but just another lever to a potential criminal enterprise.
posted by jadepearl at 1:21 PM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
If I scroll through a set of reviews for a game and see "SJW" in one of the first paragraphs, it's usually predictive that the rest of the review is going to be some sort of political screed that has nothing to do with either the game's systems or the game's narratives, probably by someone who hasn't done much to examine either beyond what was posted to spaces that encourage brigading.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 2:30 PM on March 25, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 2:30 PM on March 25, 2019 [5 favorites]
This has ruined a lot of IMDB. Their 0-10 point rating system was good enough over the years that I felt comfortable watching nearly anything over a 7.0, and even had thoughts on particular genres (if it was a type of movie I enjoyed, I'd go down to 6.0, etc.)
Now, it's unusable. I don't look deeply into what movies are about because I want to be fully surprised and immersed, so when something new comes out and I look it up I have no way of knowing if something is actually bad or if it's been brigaded.
This comes at basically the worst time, given how many new movies and shows are produced these days by the streaming services.
An example of this - Hulu has a new horror movie out called "Treehouse", saw an ad for it, seemed creepy/intriguing to me, looked it up on IMDB and it's 0 after 0 of people letting you know they "just joined to tell everyone how bad this movie is", and then I look into it a little more and apparently the movie intersects with the "Me Too" movement, and so of course none of these idiots have actually watched it.
Obviously, there are worse things than taking a risk on a 90-minute movie and being disappointed, but it's irritating given how reliant I had become on crowdsourced reviewing.
posted by imabanana at 3:07 PM on March 25, 2019 [5 favorites]
Now, it's unusable. I don't look deeply into what movies are about because I want to be fully surprised and immersed, so when something new comes out and I look it up I have no way of knowing if something is actually bad or if it's been brigaded.
This comes at basically the worst time, given how many new movies and shows are produced these days by the streaming services.
An example of this - Hulu has a new horror movie out called "Treehouse", saw an ad for it, seemed creepy/intriguing to me, looked it up on IMDB and it's 0 after 0 of people letting you know they "just joined to tell everyone how bad this movie is", and then I look into it a little more and apparently the movie intersects with the "Me Too" movement, and so of course none of these idiots have actually watched it.
Obviously, there are worse things than taking a risk on a 90-minute movie and being disappointed, but it's irritating given how reliant I had become on crowdsourced reviewing.
posted by imabanana at 3:07 PM on March 25, 2019 [5 favorites]
I am not sure there's a way to block shitty reviews of games or movies that are really thinly veiled grudges by shitty people against SJWs while allowing shitty reviews of games or movies that are really thinly veiled grudges by SJW against shitty people.
I mean, there is, it just requires the platform to pick a side, which of course they are unwilling to do.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 4:09 PM on March 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
I mean, there is, it just requires the platform to pick a side, which of course they are unwilling to do.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 4:09 PM on March 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
Gotta love Amazon book reviews like this: "It took two weeks to deliver and the cover was damaged. 1 star."
posted by nnethercote at 8:59 PM on March 25, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by nnethercote at 8:59 PM on March 25, 2019 [4 favorites]
Amazon book reviews are no longer just about the book, but the seller. I think that makes sense given how Amazon has evolved away from a (fairly reliable) place to buy books, and into a marketplace for every type of product that full of third-party sellers, many of whom are shady.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:24 AM on March 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:24 AM on March 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
nnethercote: "Gotta love Amazon book reviews like this: "It took two weeks to deliver and the cover was damaged. 1 star.""
Like the Yelp reviews of "I drove around for 45 minutes and couldn't find a parking space near the restaurant. 0 stars."
posted by octothorpe at 7:49 AM on March 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
Like the Yelp reviews of "I drove around for 45 minutes and couldn't find a parking space near the restaurant. 0 stars."
posted by octothorpe at 7:49 AM on March 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
I've written exactly one Amazon review. It was for a book written by a Facebook friend. And it was good in a wigged out alt-history, Nazis even worse than we realized sort of way -- definitely worthy of good review. But not five-star good. There are maybe thirty books I've ever read that I'd consider five-star good, and none of them in over a decade -- I guess I'm just not wired that way anymore.
Anyway, every single review that book now has is either five stars or one star. Even mine, because I haven't given Amazon enough money, so I'm not allowed to post reviews, so somebody else posted it for me, and even though I said, "Give it four stars," he gave it five, because he's a Power User, and he said that's how Amazon works.
It all seems rather noisy to me.
posted by philip-random at 8:44 AM on March 26, 2019
Anyway, every single review that book now has is either five stars or one star. Even mine, because I haven't given Amazon enough money, so I'm not allowed to post reviews, so somebody else posted it for me, and even though I said, "Give it four stars," he gave it five, because he's a Power User, and he said that's how Amazon works.
It all seems rather noisy to me.
posted by philip-random at 8:44 AM on March 26, 2019
For example, the Fallout progression. The Fallout series used to follow not just you and your companions, but also the places you went and the choices you made in the world
For what it's worth, Pillars of Eternity 2 shares certain sensibilities with Fallout 2 and may be of interest.
posted by ersatz at 12:47 PM on March 26, 2019 [2 favorites]
For what it's worth, Pillars of Eternity 2 shares certain sensibilities with Fallout 2 and may be of interest.
posted by ersatz at 12:47 PM on March 26, 2019 [2 favorites]
Steam’s “review bomb” fix is so far failing its first big test
posted by mbrubeck at 5:37 PM on April 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by mbrubeck at 5:37 PM on April 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
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posted by DigDoug at 6:17 AM on March 25, 2019 [87 favorites]