For years, gamers have taken to the internet to voice their concerns and opinions about certain titles and the developers that make them. It’s no big secret that an angry mob of gamers can bring down the sentiment of any title by launching a crusade against said game, making a vast effort to ‘review bomb’ a title based on anything. It could be an update they don’t like or a promise broken by a developer, but these days, the concept of the ‘review bomb’ is all too commonly seen.
Speaking candidly in a recent SEC filing, Take-Two Interactive, the parent of Rockstar Games and publisher of the Grand Theft Auto series, spoke about the harm that review bombing has on a company or a franchise.
‘Defamation Campaigns’
In the recent 10K annual filing, the leadership team at Take-Two Interactive highlighted review bombing as a very real threat, opting to be a little more professional and brand the practice as ‘defamation campaigns’.
In recent months, we’ve seen some developers buckle under the weight of review-bombing efforts – Helldivers 2 is probably one of the best examples of a game that was horrifically review-bombed this year. It’s not fair to say it doesn’t work, as in that particular scenario, changes that caused the negativity to rise in the community were reverted based on Helldivers 2 receiving hundreds of thousands of deliberately poor reviews.
Here’s what Take-Two’s leadership team wrote in the recent SEC filing that was shared by Game File’s Stephen Totilo:
Furthermore, obtaining and maintaining high ratings of our games on the third-party platforms on which we operate are important as they help drive players to find our games. If the ratings of any of our games decline or if we receive significant negative reviews that result in a decrease in our ratings, our games could be more difficult for players to find or recommend. In addition, we may be subject to negative review campaigns or defamation campaigns intended to harm our ratings. Any such decline may lead to loss of players and revenues, additional advertising and marketing costs, and reputation harm.
In the run-up to the release of Grand Theft Auto 6, this could be Take-Two Interactive preparing shareholders for a potential ‘defamation campaign’ aimed at Rockstar Games because of something in the game. Perhaps it’ll be ‘too woke’ for some players, or maybe it won’t have the right networking features or in-game mechanics for others. That’s all it takes at times – developers are forever walking on eggshells.
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