More developers weigh in on Borderlands review bombing

Game developers are somewhat split on Steam reviews in the wake of a recent campaign to review-bomb Borderlands and Borderlands 2 after the announcement that the next game in the series will be a timed exclusive on the Epic Games Store. Gearbox founder and CEO Randy Pitchford suggested yesterday that review bomb campaigns have made him wonder about the wisdom of publishing his company’s games on Steam at all. Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail made a similar point, tweeting that the increasing use of review-bombing campaigns has made user reviews a serious issue for developers, and that “platforms without them [are] a safer bet for launch” due to the threat these campaigns pose to a game’s financial viability. That’s basically why review bombing is effective: they use Steam’s user rating system to threaten the income developers make from their games. From the developers’ perspective, why expose yourself to that vulnerability if, years later, you might be punished for a publisher-level decision you had nothing to do with? “The whole idea of review-bombing a game’s previous installments on the platform it is *not* launching on is definitely not a convincing argument for launching it on said platform,” Ismail said.

from PCGamesN http://bit.ly/2G4p7Ou