Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has weighed in on the most recent review-bombing marketing campaign on Steam, which is targeting the original Borderlands games in mild of the announcement that Borderlands 3 will be a timed exclusive on the Epic Games Store.
If you’re simply tuning in, it’s a well-recognized story at this level: A game is introduced as an Epic unique, and Steam customers vent spleen within the evaluations for the builders’ different games on Steam. You could recall earlier this 12 months when this happened with Metro Exodus, and now Borderlands and Borderlands 2 are bearing the brunt of Steam customers’ anger.
Gearbox developer Scott Velasquez retweeted a publish displaying the sudden spike of unfavourable evaluations on the primary two Borderlands games, saying “Not cool at all to misuse a system like this, and shame on @steam_games for allowing it.”
Pitchford replied, saying that evaluate bombing was emblematic of Valve’s hands-off method to retailer curation.
“Ironically, that this misuse is possible and that Steam has no interest in correct this misuse makes me kind of happy about 2K’s decision [to release Borderlands 3 on the Epic Games Store] and makes me want to reconsider Gearbox Publishing’s current posture on the platform,” he tweeted.
Here’s the tweet:
Ironically, that this misuse is feasible and that Steam has little interest in correcting this misuse makes me type of blissful about 2k’s determination and makes me need to rethink Gearbox Publishing’s present posture on the platform.
— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) April 5, 2019
It’s an comprehensible sentiment, particularly from the angle of a developer. But it’s not strictly true that Valve is popping a blind eye to the review-bombing phenomenon. Just final month, actually, Steam applied a system that automatically ignores ‘off topic’ reviews – in different phrases, the shop detects sudden upticks in evaluate exercise and excludes these evaluations from the mixture rating.
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In reality, that system has kicked in for the Borderlands games already, and the current evaluations for Borderlands 2 that Steam counts are 90% optimistic. Negative evaluations nonetheless seem if you happen to scroll right down to learn by way of them, however now they received’t affect the games’ general scores or – presumably – their discoverability.
Still, Pitchford’s tweet hits on a way of frustration different builders have expressed already with Valve’s automation-first method to working Steam. At the second, the plan is for 2K to finally launch Borderlands three on Steam six months after the game first seems on the Epic Games Store, but it surely appears Pitchford is rethinking that association for future Gearbox titles.
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