Valve To Make Steam ‘Review Bombing’ Toothless With New Changes

Reviews are meant to inform customers, which is why Valve opted to allow users on its digital distribution platform Steam to leave them on games and other products. However, it would seem that some people have found a way to game the reviews system that can skew the impression of customers. As a result, Valve is implementing some changes to prevent this spamming behavior.

Steam has been experiencing a phenomenon called “review bombing” over the last few years, with gamers leaving numerous negative reviews of games that don’t necessarily have anything to do with the titles themselves. With previous solutions being ineffective at addressing this issue, Valve is now resorting to more direct methods, Engadget reports.

Review visibility is now going to reflect the overall opinion of the gamers who are playing the game instead of the minority that receive “helpful” votes. Basically, if 90 percent of the players of the game say they like it, nine out of ten of the top reviews will be positive.

This is to counteract the habit of some users who leave negative reviews and then artificially inflate the rankings of these reviews by voting on similar posts as “helpful.” It’s essentially drowning out the minority voices in the review section.

What’s more, users who make it a habit to rate numerous negative reviews in what Valve considers to be an abnormal rate will soon see their relevance drop, Kotaku reports. The more they vote negative reviews as “helpful” in a way that clearly indicates an attempt to manipulate the impression of the game, the less their voice is heard.

For now, these new changes are in the beta phase and users can turn them on or off as they want. However, if they prove successful in rendering “review bombing” impotent, it will likely be implemented as a permanent feature.