Blizzard has opened up about the impact Overwatch 2 “review bombers” have had on the team, acknowledging that the “dissatisfaction” stems from “the cancellation of the much larger component of PvE that was announced in 2019 […] that Blizzard ultimately couldn’t deliver”.
In a statement posted to the game’s official website, Aaron Keller said that while being review bombed “isn’t a fun experience”, the plan was to “move forward” by “adding to and improving Overwatch 2”.
Developers were right to be in fear of Baldur’s Gate 3 resetting expectations. This isn’t close to all of the reason for this backlash, but for me it’s a notable part.
Here we all have for contrast suddenly an expansive, complete, player-respecting game that isn’t trying to squeeze money out of you at every turn… it reminds me of old PC games, before the enshittification of the industry began, before the corporate rot set in. When I bought my copy of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, it was complete. It was expansive. It was before micro-transactions were really a thing, so it was a finished product. BG3 makes me think of those games, but with modern technology. My gaze shifts back to the allegedly “modern” games we have now, to Overwatch 2, and it just feels cheap and disgusting. A minimum-viable pile of gameified gambling covered in greasy MBA penny-pincher fingerprints, shrouded by half-truths from marketers trying to puff it up to look like a complete experience. It is still possible to deliver the better experience. It’s clearly just a matter of “want”.
I feel like I’ve just come from a family-owned restaurant on the beach in Cabo and came back home to a McDonald’s in a roadside casino, and I’ve just realized how genuinely shitty it all is.
I think I would actually rather just go outside or start a new hobby than touch “games” like this ever again.
Aren’t these review bombs prior to Baldur’s Gate 3 though? I’m pretty sure they were just put out when OW2 was released on steam.
Certainly all of Overwatch 2’s issues were known and well documented before Baldur’s Gate 3’s release, I think people have just put two and two together (or more aptly, put the two next to each other for comparison).
Hey man, outside can be pretty cool.
I think I would actually rather just go outside or start a new hobby than touch “games” like this ever again
I had honestly forgot why I hate gaming now, but I think you hit the nail on the head
You are in a similar position (it sounds like) to where I was a short time ago.I was so fed up with the state of things on the computer/console/handheld front that I just kind of did not want to play anything anymore. Two things, and adjusting my expectations, really helped:
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Game Pass - I’ve had it forever, but now it is more important, since I’m not buying new games as much anymore. It’s a small monthly fee, and I can frequently be surprised by the quality of some smaller indie games.
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RetroAchievements - This is my current “thing”, and hopefully it will be for a long time to come. You use an emulator that has support for RetroAchievements (the biggest one being RetroArch) and the correct ROM file, and you can earn achievements in thousands of old games, from the earliest days of mass-market computing and consoles (magnavox, intellivision, apple ii, fairchild, amstrad cpc, etc.), through all 8 and 16 bit consoles, and up to Ps1/2/PSP/N64/3DO/Dreamcast, with Gamecube, Vita, or PS3 likely to be the next “big” console release (probably Gamecube). Revisit your favorites from years past and play them in new ways to get all of the achievements, or try out games you never had (or systems you never had) for the first time. Biggest criticism is that they have a tendency of being “too hard”, but you can either just pick games that don’t have ridiculously hard achievements, or just not go for 100%.
I will absolutely be buying Baldur’s Gate 3 as well.
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I wish more people realized the same and stopped buying shitty games, while rewarding the good ones.
I grew up during the “old times”, I remember how it was so I’m quite wary of new games, but I think a lot of gamers are much younger than me and when shitty predatory practices is all you know, it’s probably difficult to believe something different can exist.
I didn’t want to buy BG3 at first because I probably won’t be able to play it, no doubt it’s a masterpiece but I can’t stand isometric view, I don’t like turn-based combat and click-to-move, but when I saw how AAA devs reacted to Larian integrity, I bought it anyway and I will at least try, hoping someone will develop a mod to make controls more “bearable” for players like me.
Even if they don’t, I firmly believe it’s money well spent, AAA devs are still attacking Larian for petty reasons, it means what they’re doing is extremely good for the players, they deserve to be supported by all means, let the current “AAA practices” rot.
EDIT: in case someone else is interested, I found modders did it! Hope they work on Linux:
using a controller with BG3 actually feels really good. you can also adjust the zoom so you are more in a third person view as opposed to isometric (nearly over the shoulder camera). you can also play the game real-time with pause, which may or may not help push you along as you say you don’t necessarily jive with turn-based.
i hope these things help you get into BG3. i personally LOVE isometric view and turn-based tactics but even if these things don’t appeal to you, the game itself is such a breath of fresh air that i do not see myself putting it down for a long, long time.
have fun!!
Thank you so much for the tips! I’ll definitely try them, as soon as I finish downloading the game :D
Getting a lot of bad reviews is always going to elicit “muh review bomb” from now on, isn’t it
I mean they’re kinda the same thing.
Somehow people started interpreting “review bombing” as illegitimate.
I don’t think they’re the same thing but get muddle to seem that way on purpose.
Review bombing is when a game gets poorly rated for something, mostly completely unrelated to the game, but due to something surrounding it - be that a publisher decision like deciding to ban and not give Blitzchung his prize money for saying support Hong Kong, or some perceived language/political/regional slights like with Nier Automata. Tons of examples out here in this category, where legitimately good games are being affected by somewhat legitimate but not relevant reasons.
Overwatch 2 being poorly rated on Steam isn’t review bombing. It’s gamers saying how shit the game is, like the false promises for Cyberpunk 2077, the addition of denuovo to games, or horrendously egregious microtransactions added to games, like with horse armor or the entirety of everything thst happened leading up to Star Wars Battlefront II (the second). These may be legitimately good games severely affected by terrible decisions from the developers, publishers, or marketing team.
I understand why the latter is so easily mixed up with the former, but it’s something that happens as users and media outlets erode the meaning of these words. It’s disingenuous to say that something is review-bombed when it’s poorly rated for legitimate reasons but as you said it’s something that is now interpreted that way.
There’s also something to be said about Valve’s internal metric for review bombing which is the increased number of reviews leaning in a particular direction due to some external force. For example, Assassins Creed Unity being given for free led to positive reviews but was excluded from being counted as a review bombing, compared to something negative like being completely unable to leave reviews at all on the Epic Games store, leading players to leave reviews on Steam
Review bombing is when a game suddenly gets a lot of negative reviews, affecting the initial rating of the game. The reasons for it may vary, but this distinction has between reasons has never been established, not even among the people using the term. The only reason why this might not count as review bombing is because this is the first time Overwatch is getting Steam reviews.
The issue is that the media has gotten into the habit of treating all review bombing as a illegitimate temper tantrum rather than a valid protest, even when there are good reasons for it.
some perceived language/political/regional slights like with Nier Automata
This is news to me? Nier Automata got bombed because Square Enix never released a patch on steam to fix the game’s performance problems. It came up when the Game Pass version was released without those problems but Steam was never brought to parity.
Nier was review bombed in China for not having proper localization.
Same thing happened to Football Manager '17 lol
Ah, that’s what happens when I get all my news from US/EU games journalists lol. Thanks.
It’s difficult not to when it’s what’s primarily pushed on us, so it’s understandable. My friend from college moved to China right after we graduated so I’m just lucky to have someone who can tell me about regular peoples experiences. Granted he’s in Shenzhen so it’s still skewed tech, but honestly without him I’d not have the same understanding.
U.S. media tends to throw a lot of shade at Chinese players. If you look up pretty much any game and “Chinese review bombing” you’d see quite a few that paint these players in a negative light. And for some the reviews are definitely not as legitimate, like a game having bones or the number 4, versus something actually reasonable to complain about, like a half-assed or absolutely no localization of a game that’s being sold at full price in your region anyway.
Like with most things I think there’s fair/reasonable expectations to have, like buying a game and it being in your language when it’s sold in your country. And in some cases, pretty unreasonable expectation for getting positive reviews like having entire skins/textures/gameplay changes made to the game.
I hate how companies have decided that if something did work the way they thought its not a “stupid protest” and isn’t actually how the customer feel.
