Ruthless Reviewers

The concept of "meta bombing" has been around for as long as websites have allowed user reviews.  In the case of video games it's typically seen on Metacritic, Steam, or even Amazon.  "Meta boosting" is the same concept just taken in the opposite direction; giving a game the highest possible rating rather than the lowest though still without any real consideration put into actual merits and flaws.  Unsurprisingly, Blizzard's latest nostalgia cash in is no exception, but the way people are reacting to this game makes me think meta scoring has been taken to a whole new level.

As of the posting of this blog entry, Warcraft III: Reforged is the lowest rated game on Metacritic.  No especially astonishing given Blizzard's conduct of late, but what did surprise me was the extremely-poorly-reviewed games competing with Warcraft III: Reforged getting meta boosted in order to push them up and out of the bottom spot.  In addition to this, I have seen user reviews that gave the game a perfect score yet only had bad things to say about it.  The insidious reasoning behind this is to ensure that even people only viewing positive reviews will still see complaints made against the game.  It's savage to say the least.

Now, to a more mature minded individual this might all seem awfully petty.  Don't pre-order games, right?  Absolutely.  However, Blizzard/Activision have gone to great lengths to ensure that even if you don't fall for their marketing tricks support for the original Warcraft III is still being discontinued in lieu of their largely inferior remake.  This practice of killing off games is something that Ross Scott of Youtube fame has been campaigning against for awhile now primarily because it is an erosion of consumer rights (not to mention a major barrier when it comes to game preservation).

So what if companies are trying to strong arm customers?  You still don't have to buy their products.  Vote with your wallet, right?  True, but boycotts have proven time and again to be largely ineffective (see Pokémon Sword and Shield for the latest in a depressingly long list of examples).  Additionally, the fact remains this has been an disconcerting trend in the industry for a long time now.  Big businesses get to dictate whatever terms they see fit and the only way to contest them is via costly legal action.  Worse still provided a game has the most basic functionality (i.e. it will boot up sometimes) it is, by legal precedent, not in violation of consumer protection laws.  Left with no real avenue of recourse, it's not hard to see why there has been an escalation in review bombing/boosting.

Generally speaking, it feels like some government legislation is in order.  In particular, laws that make software corporations more accountable.  Otherwise this problem is only going to get worse and worse until the situation degrades into some kind of dystopian nightmare.  Of course all that is another can of worms beyond the scope of this blog.