Is 1/10 review bombing as bad as 10/10 counter review bombing

1/10 is far worse because it keeps people from playing games. If you think something is 10/10, then you'll likely play it and although you may be disappointed, you may also like it.

But both are great reasons to not pay attention to user reviews and you're better off watching long-form gameplay videos.

Edit: I just realized that I misinterpreted the poll question and voted, "No," thinking that meant that 1/10 was worse. Oh well.

I find it borderline impossible to understand the value of individual user reviews. While slightly improved, I likewise struggle with how valuable an average score is.

Either way, I don't think it's a good place to get useful information, and using reviews as a platform to do anything cheerleader-y is lame as hell and so I will always say all of it is bad. If you feel compelled to review something, do so! If you feel compelled to prove a point or "review bomb" something or justify a purchase, just, find a real hobby.

Positive/negative user review spamming are both equally stupid. I don't think this is up for debate.

The point of an average user review score is to be exactly that: an average. If you think a game's average is too low or too high, it's not your job to give it 1/10 or 10/10 out of some sad, misguided attempt to push the average to where it "should" be (there's no such thing). The numbers between 1 and 10 exist for a reason. If you feel the game was a 7/10, give it a 7/10, regardless of what the current average score is. That's it.

User reviews for a functional product like a toaster or umbrella or something on Amazon, maybe those user review scores are fine (though probably manipulated by the manufacturer a lot). Ultimately, user reviews of anything subjective/artistic (especially if the audience is a bunch of internet nerds) are near worthless. The only real thing I can infer from them is that if the user reviews are very negative, sometimes that means the game is very buggy/unfinished and the dev was unable to fix the issues. However it could also be very negative simply because an internet mob has some disagreement with the game.

Unlike reviewers/critics from media outlets, the user review participants have no sense of professional accountability/integrity/obligation to give their honest opinion and move on with their life, so instead you get silly mob justice from idiot teenagers, all over a meaningless number.

I will never understand the need some people have to "review" things they have not ever played or even do not want to play, often out of some political objection to it.

There are some political objections I agree with (e.g. I don't like it if a game is insulting to trans people) and some I find despicable (e.g. if someone objects to a game having a sympathetic trans character) and while I will boycott some games that cross my personal lines and happily fight things out on forums or in comments sections about these issues a review is just not the appropriate place to make that statement unless you've played a game. Especially if it hasn't come out yet. Like what point are you even proving, bro?

I'm not saying that a game can't be a 1/10 because it is so offensive, or a 10/10 because it has such a great message, if that's how you engage with media and that's your experience that's fine and valid, but to base it on second hand reports or snippets out of context? That's just not a review at all. There are other ways to have these arguments, and you don't have to play the game to talk about it in those forums.

When it comes to just about anything, I never read perfect reviews or the lowest possible reviews (this goes beyond video games and is something I do for Amazon products, movies, etc). Now, there are legitimate reviews in there, but people go to the extremes too easily. I find that people who review anywhere in between tend to put real thought into their reviews with what actually works and what doesn't. The descriptions are vastly more important to me than the scores. Shoot, Choo-Choo Charles is a 57 critic score and 6.4 user score, which is vastly under scored.

If something gets review bombed it's for a reason, it's an effective way for users to inform potential buyers of important negative information about the product, and an avenue for users to protest bad business practices.

Now, that negative reaction could be something offensive the developer did or said and does not represent the quality of the product, but if you look at what people are saying it should be fairly obvious whether it's something that affects you or not, but like i said if public perception is negative it's probably for a reason.

I don't see positive counter reviews ever being a problem, people LOVE to speak out when something makes them angry but getting someone to say something positive is much harder, which makes positive reviews more credible.

The intended audience of review bombing is probably the type of person who would engage in it, so I guess they're just being the change they want to see in the world.

It's fucking moronic

You can't honestly believe this. Maybe in some cases this is true, such as with exploitative business practices in games like Battlefront II, but the majority of review bombing these days is people giving a TV show or game a 1/10 because it "went woke" by daring to have non-white or non-straight characters in it.

I use Dekudeals (easier to browse than nintendo eshop) a lot and two of the sort options are metacritic aggregates.

I noticed that for most major releases, the user score is slightly lower than the critic score, like .3-.5 lower, nearly across the board.

^This suggests the 1/10s seem to have more of an effect (not surprising since most games are pretty good & bring the avg up to like a 7).

Some games like BotW & Dead Cells hold even.

User scores differ wildly in two main ways: a switch port will be like a user 6 when the critic score is an 8.5. This suggests the game is good but ppl were hard on performance.

Games with too few critic reviews for an aggregate sometimes have user aggregates from streamers, revealing hidden gems.

Thiose are the main differences I’ve noticed.

All reviews site that show "peoples" reviews we know are mostly fixed so you cannot trust the rating of a toaster let alone a game or movie. And, reviews by media are dependent on the reputation of the reviewer.

Fanatical praise could never be as bad as hatred, and hatred is what fuels those actions.

Since I grew up consuming games news and information through people that cover them professionally I've never looked at user reviews. I'm surprised at how much user reviews get talked about because I figured they were only paid attention to by people who don't consume any games media (which I understand is a lot, but the topic coming up in places where people presumably consume games media is surprising to me).

User reviews do have a purpose. Many critics play a ton of games for review purposes, usually far more than most of the general public, so they can often have a different perspective. It's not uncommon for reviewers to favor originality and uniqueness to an outsized degree and be overly critical of common game design tropes. A player that plays 10 games a year, and thus hasn't seen those common design concepts in dozens of games a year, may have a totally different perspective on those things. Another potential benefit of user reviews are for niche genres or game series. Some genres or series just never review well among professional critics but nevertheless have strong fanbases, so user reviews are a necessary resource.

Now, metacritic and other sources of user reviews that do barely any moderation (if any at all) and just let anyone post a review are essentially worthless. However, I do find steam user reviews to be a decent resource, even if I'm mostly just looking at the percentage of people that recommend a game rather than reading a ton of individual reviews. It's a good way to get a general idea about how a game is being received among players. The reason steam reviews work where metacritic is a total failure is the result of a few key factors. Only those that own the game can review it, all reviews are simply binary "recommend" or "do not recommend" instead of a 1-10 scale, and crucially is that steam has a system in place to detect off topic reviews (i.e. review bombing) and will hide those reviews from the average.

Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes user reviews may be a worthless cesspit, but the concept of user reviews can be a good resource alongside professional reviews if implemented well.

It's ok when I/we do it is my usual response. It works if you're on the winning team

Seems like the smart way to review bomb would be to make that review read like an actual critique. Y'know, like a 6/10 or something.

ChatGPT bombing is the new hot thing.

It's all hive minded bs