GOG says "we will not tolerate review bombing" after Hitman release sparks online DRM backlash

[Pissmaster]

The only thing that should matter is if the reviews are actually coming from people who own the game. I think Steam requires reviewers to own the game, I don't know about GOG. And obviously Metacritic doesn't. If a mass of people are 'reviewing' a game they don't actually have as some kind of act of collective protest, then they're abusing the system no matter how valid their complaints are, and the publisher is justified in taking steps against them.

Steam does require that, but as a consequence, people will tend to review bomb other games by that publisher. That happened to Rockstar over some GTA 5 review bombing, where people who only owned San Andreas or whatever bombed that too.

 

[UzumakiLeaf]

The only thing that should matter is if the reviews are actually coming from people who own the game. I think Steam requires reviewers to own the game, I don't know about GOG. And obviously Metacritic doesn't. If a mass of people are 'reviewing' a game they don't actually have as some kind of act of collective protest, then they're abusing the system no matter how valid their complaints are, and the publisher is justified in taking steps against them.

This is a gray area. On one hand, yes, this is something that is a abusable by people with an axe to grind with a game regardless of the quality of the game. On the other hand, gog has advertised itself as a DRM-free platform and it is reasonable for people to assume that what they get from the platform is indeed DRM-free without having to do any additional research.

If I was a vegan and I order something from a restaurant that advertises itself as vegan it is reasonable for me to assume what I order is indeed vegan friendly. Knowing that my restaurant has suddenly betrayed this principle is useful and important knowledge. Sure it may not be a big deal for non-vegans, but if you are a vegan this is a big deal and something that I would really want to know if I was a vegan.

I may find veganism to be cringe, but I absolutely would be sympathetic to any vegan who suddenly find themselves to be betrayed by a restaurant that they trusted to be vegan but suddenly gives them something that contains meat. It is not cool to bait and switch your customers.

This is not an idiot ordering an impossible whopper from BK and expecting it to be vegan friendly. Gog advertises itself to be DRM-free and yet it sells a game with DRM. This is a true betrayal of their customer base.

I don't blame the developers, but I do blame gog. As they are the ones that advertised themselves as being a DRM-free platform and yet they have allowed a game with DRM on their platform.

Getting back to your original point, a reasonable compromise to review bombing would be to contain a filter for people who have been verified as purchasers. If you ordered a game from the store, the store would have a record of it. So have a filter so people can view only reviews from people who have actually bought the game. You can ignore people who have an axe to grind and see what people who have skin in the game actually have to say. Hell, throw in the play time as well for the reviewer if that information is available.

 

[Thiletonomics]

The only thing that should matter is if the reviews are actually coming from people who own the game. I think Steam requires reviewers to own the game, I don't know about GOG. And obviously Metacritic doesn't. If a mass of people are 'reviewing' a game they don't actually have as some kind of act of collective protest, then they're abusing the system no matter how valid their complaints are, and the publisher is justified in taking steps against them.

Also, with Steam reviews, it also says if a person either got the game for free, or refunded the game.

 

[The tired cat]

how would you know if you can't buy it?

There's still the ripped version that was on steam, I played that.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I don't blame the developers, but I do blame gog. As they are the ones that advertised themselves as being a DRM-free platform and yet they have allowed a game with DRM on their platform.

I forget the game (I think it was some generic desert army game) had a bunch of negative reviews. They were complaining about how the game was fine, but it wasn't "good" or "old" and therefor shouldn't be on GoG. It was interesting to see at the time.

These days people are fine with GoG having newer games, or games that aren't universally considered classics. I don't know if DRM on GoG will stick, but it's not the first time this has happened.

Edit: It was Conflict: Desert Storm. Here's the reviews I was talking about.

 

[Book Thief]

Okay, so you really don't have a point. Just a typical faggot who thinks he has standards, knows so much how all this shit is super easy and everyone is just lazy/malicious, but "muh gaymers are awesome". If I'm a Redditor, then you're a typical 4Chan or /pol/ type faggot.

Oh noooOOOooo, they might have to take 10-30 minutes commenting out the If-statements that check to see if you're connected to the internet, and replacing it with a "true" boolean to enable the progression. That's just too much to expect from those poor innocent software developers.

God, imagine being this much of a cum-guzzler for DRM. It's retards like you that've gotten us in this shitstorm to begin with.

 

[derpherp2]

Oh no, people don't like something about a game, and left a bad review about it.
We need to stop them saying bad things about the game now! That'll solve our problems with a review system.

At that point just fucking remove the review system. Don't pretend like customer input matters, faggots.

 

[UzumakiLeaf]

I forget the game (I think it was some generic desert army game) had a bunch of negative reviews. They were complaining about how the game was fine, but it wasn't "good" or "old" and therefor shouldn't be on GoG. It was interesting to see at the time.

These days people are fine with GoG having newer games, or games that aren't universally considered classics. I don't know if DRM on GoG will stick, but it's not the first time this has happened.

Edit: It was Conflict: Desert Storm. Here's the reviews I was talking about.
View attachment 2576236

I remember that controversy, I think it was around that time too that they abandoned their policy of we don't do regional pricing. In fact all prices were in USD.

 

[The tired cat]

I remember that controversy, I think it was around that time too that they abandoned their policy of we don't do regional pricing. In fact all prices were in USD.

Wasn't that shit because they lost more money cause of regional pricing or something along those lines? I know they stopped doing bundle sales 'cause of that for a while.

 

[quickthrowaway]

Do you have any proof about GoG going full retard during GG days? Because I remember them getting trashed by gaming journos for posting a gif of the Postal Dude pissing on the grave of gaming journalism and lots of tumbrl/twitterfags along with journos calling GoG as Nazi's and white supremacists.

I'm with @The tired cat on this. They got into hot water for mocking games journalists. They bent the knee by deleting the tweet, but I don't remember them going woke.

I do remember back when they first started they pretended to close down in order to get clicks. What I remember about that is that in their apology video they were wearing robes for some reason. I think it was part of cult skit.

The Evil Chris on Twitter: "Just heard the GamerGate has a booth at t…

archived 18 Apr 2015 01:04:21 UTC

archive.ph

The most I could find is an old tweet from an old community manager at the time.

 

[I'm Retarded?]

the classic example of review bombing is Devotion, the Chinese horror game that got gang-raped by CCP bots all across the internet, who spread lies about the content and the quality of the game, to the point where the devs were literally forced to withdraw the game from sale as distributors folded to the harassment, because of a hidden placeholder image in the game that made a vague reference to Xi Jinping and Winnie the Pooh. people being mad that your game retail site that advertises no DRM as its primary marketing point sold them a game with DRM is not review bombing, and asserting that it is cannot be anything other than damage control.

incidentally GOG was one of the places that pussed out of letting the devs sell the game on their store because they didn't want to piss off the CCP, lol.

mysteriously these hordes of pro-CCP "gamers" that privately convinced GOG to abort the release did not show up to publicly state their approval of GOG's decision during the ensuing backlash.

 

[Sunflower Samurai]

Prison architect was another vidya that had DRM despite being on GoG, iirc you needed a paradox account and connections to it constantly to play your GoG copy

 

[Tom Nook's Gloryhole]

Prison architect was another vidya that had DRM despite being on GoG, iirc you needed a paradox account and connections to it constantly to play your GoG copy

What's funny is the original game was absolutely DRM free up until they were bought by Paradox and had to subject themselves to that level of niggery.

I should have saved the Prison Architect installer back when I could, but here's hoping someone archived it.

 

[The tired cat]

the classic example of review bombing is Devotion, the Chinese horror game that got gang-raped by CCP bots all across the internet, who spread lies about the content and the quality of the game, to the point where the devs were literally forced to withdraw the game from sale as distributors folded to the harassment, because of a hidden placeholder image in the game that made a vague reference to Xi Jinping and Winnie the Pooh. people being mad that your game retail site that advertises no DRM as its primary marketing point sold them a game with DRM is not review bombing, and asserting that it is cannot be anything other than damage control.

incidentally GOG was one of the places that pussed out of letting the devs sell the game on their store because they didn't want to piss off the CCP, lol.

View attachment 2577396

mysteriously these hordes of pro-CCP "gamers" that privately convinced GOG to abort the release did not show up to publicly state their approval of GOG's decision during the ensuing backlash.

I dunno what lies those bots spread, because quality-wise it's not a very scary or interesting game. Maybe I missed something because having played through the pirated version I wasn't really impressed. Horror wise it was pretty much the same as Layers of Fear but somehow even duller, story-wise? Eh...Wasn't really impressed with it either. Hell, I'd say Home Sweet Home was far more interesting, hell Detention a game made by the same devs that did Devotion was much better (also even got a live-action movie made) and yet oddly didn't get the CCP pissy about it. Also, Devotion wasn't the 1st game to get the Chinese patriots pissy, just recently they review bombed the new Life is Tumblr because it featured the Tibetan Flag.

 

[I'm Retarded?]

I dunno what lies those bots spread, because quality-wise it's not a very scary or interesting game. Maybe I missed something because having played through the pirated version I wasn't really impressed. Horror wise it was pretty much the same as Layers of Fear but somehow even duller, story-wise? Eh...Wasn't really impressed with it either. Hell, I'd say Home Sweet Home was far more interesting, hell Detention a game made by the same devs that did Devotion was much better (also even got a live-action movie made) and yet oddly didn't get the CCP pissy about it. Also, Devotion wasn't the 1st game to get the Chinese patriots pissy, just recently they review bombed the new Life is Tumblr because it featured the Tibetan Flag.

it didn't have anything to do with the actual substance of the game, you could tell the fake reviews, it was mostly empty accounts with no posts, no games, 0 hours played saying shit like THIS GAME VERYBAD AND DISRESPECT CHINA and IIRC hundreds were being posted per day

 

[The tired cat]

it didn't have anything to do with the actual substance of the game, you could tell the fake reviews, it was mostly empty accounts with no posts, no games, 0 hours played saying shit like THIS GAME VERYBAD AND DISRESPECT CHINA and IIRC hundreds were being posted per day

Oooo..Okay that shit. You know, now it's kinda weird how Devotion got such a huge backlash and attention from CCP and yet somethin' like Detention didn't, yet that game brought up some fucked up historical stuff.

 

[I'm Retarded?]

like anybody else these days I think it's because the CCP filters media by algo. a nuanced discussion of cultural problems doesn't necessarily trip the alarms, but post anything containing Tienanmen Square or Winnie the Pooh and you'll get the media bureau on your ass in a second

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

Review bombing is review bombing, regardless of what dickweed party you aligned with. Also, how do you easily fix this? Keep in mind, Hitman 2016 is wired to DRM because of the occasional assassination contracts that unlock for special targets. So, if you remove the DRM, that mechanic is pretty much gone (which also locks away some special weapon/gadgets linked to said targets)

Then don't put that game up on a DRM free service. Who was the genius that thought this was a good idea?

 

[ZMOT]

What's funny is the original game was absolutely DRM free up until they were bought by Paradox and had to subject themselves to that level of niggery.

is it a requirement or just for free shit? I remember cities skylines (when I played it years ago) had it as well but I think you could skip it.

Then don't put that game up on a DRM free service. Who was the genius that thought this was a good idea?

probably because they consider "being able to play it offline without mandatory online" in line with their "no drm" policy, since it's "optional". you end up with a gimped game but you can finish it without it.
there's also the point where you could argue how much DRM is actually DRM, having your purchases tied to an account is it's form of drm if you want to nitpick, but how else would you offer a digital library?

 

[The tired cat]

is it a requirement or just for free shit? I remember cities skylines (when I played it years ago) had it as well but I think you could skip it.

I don't think it's a requirement, I could be wrong but I do have Hearts of Iron 4 and I never used the Paradox account thing whenever I played it.