Players are using review scores as a protest vote
A review bomb is a wave of negative user reviews that can sink a game's store rating in a day. Players use it as a protest vote, over prices, account rules and politics alike, so a review score may not be measuring the game.
Where it stands
In May 2026 Slay the Spire 2 was review-bombed after players noticed Anita Sarkeesian, a target of the 2014 Gamergate campaign, listed as a consultant. Nothing in the game had changed. Steam left the period out of the score, as it has done for such waves since 2019. Most large review bombs are not political: the biggest, against Helldivers 2 in 2024, was about an account requirement. Adam Ruch's study documents what the critics believe. Nobody measures how widely that view is held.
Timeline
2014
Gamergate targets women who make and write about games
An online harassment campaign against women who make and write about games, among them the critic Anita Sarkeesian, reaches its peak. Its participants describe it as a campaign about ethics in games journalism. A Reddit forum founded that year becomes its main hub.
2017
Steam names 'review bombing' and declines to change its scores
A review bomb is a burst of negative user reviews posted to drag down a game's score, often over something outside the game. Valve adds a chart to every Steam store page showing reviews over time, so that shoppers can spot one. It calls a bomb a temporary distortion and leaves the scores alone.
2019
Steam starts leaving review bombs out of the score
Valve says it will identify review bombs that are off topic and remove them from a game's score. A tool flags unusual activity and staff investigate. The reviews stay up, and any user can choose to count them.
2020
Metacritic makes users wait 36 hours before reviewing a new game
The review site Metacritic introduces a delay of 36 hours between a game's release and the opening of user reviews, so that, it says, players have time to play first. MCV notes that users had given The Last of Us Part II a score of 5.5 out of 10 against the critics' 94 out of 100.
2024
200,000 negative reviews in 48 hours make Sony back down
Sony says PC players of Helldivers 2 will need a PlayStation account. Players post 200,000 negative reviews in under 48 hours, and within days Sony reverses the decision. The protest had nothing to do with politics. It showed how well the tactic works.
2025
Steam starts showing review scores by the reader's language
Steam begins showing each shopper a score based on reviews in their own language by default, for games with enough reviews. Valve says it gives a better indication of what players like them think.
2026
Slay the Spire 2's score falls twice over changes to the game
The card game Slay the Spire 2 launches in March with more than 574,000 people playing at once. Two waves of negative reviews follow, in March and April, both over changes to how the game plays, and many of them from players in China. Its rating for recent reviews falls from Overwhelmingly Positive to Mixed.
A third wave follows when players notice a name in the credits
Around 5 May, users on X notice that Anita Sarkeesian is credited as one of the game's three consultants. 2,525 negative reviews arrive on 7 May alone, and the recent rating drops to Mostly Negative. Nothing in the game had changed. Steam marks the period as off topic and leaves it out of the score.
Publishers start banning AI in contracts, for fear of the same treatment
GamesRadar+ reports that publishers are writing bans on generative AI into their contracts with developers, and credits players' boycotts and review bombs of games that used it.
Consequences
012024
Steam reviews have become gaming's protest vote
Morgan Park of PC Gamer argues that Steam reviews are not really reviews. 'They're something way more powerful.' Steam puts the rating at the top of every store page and words it as the verdict of all players, so moving it is the quickest way for a crowd to be heard.
022025
Gamergate made room for a permanent argument
The media scholar Adam Ruch argues that Gamergate levered open a space on mainstream platforms for reading games as political. The critics he studied believe progressive politics are being forced into games by an organized campaign, to push out traditional players and attract investors. His paper is a close reading of selected Reddit threads and YouTube channels. It does not measure how many players agree.
032024
Harassment campaigns rise and fall with politics
Rachel Kowert of the mental health charity Take This tells WIRED that large-scale harassment campaigns fuel, and are fueled by, political events. She expects more of them around elections.
042026
For some players the review box is the only complaints desk
Casey Yano, co-founder of the studio behind Slay the Spire 2, says Chinese players feel that the only way to be heard is through Steam reviews, because their other routes to developers are restricted. GamesRadar+ relays the remark from an earlier interview.
Objections
Counterpoint2020
Valve says review bombs are rare and wear off
Valve has published a count only once: by February 2020 it had marked review activity as off topic 44 times in about eleven months, across all of Steam. It has called a bomb a temporary distortion from which scores generally recover. Nobody publishes a count by year, so no one can say whether review bombing is rising.
Counterpoint2026
Most big review bombs are not about politics
Helldivers 2 was about an account requirement. The first two waves against Slay the Spire 2 were about game balance. ComicBook.com, the source of the widely quoted figure that 65% of the game's 51,859 recent reviews were negative, says that total mixes anger over updates with anger over the credit.
Counterpoint2019
Steam does not count the votes it judges off topic
Since 2019 Valve has removed review bombs it judges off topic from a game's score, though the reviews stay up and any user can choose to count them. A protest vote that the store leaves out of the total may be seen without being counted.
What to watch
2026
The US midterm elections
3 November 2026, the US midterm elections. It is a test of the claim that harassment campaigns in games rise with election-year politics.
2027
Whether the score recovers
From March 2027, the earliest that Slay the Spire 2 is due to leave early access, on its developer's estimate of one to two years. If Valve is right that review bombs are temporary, its recent rating should have recovered by then.
Further reading
- ResearchForced: Perceptions of “Woke” Politics in Video Gamesijoc.org
- ReportingSteam review bombing is gaming's most powerful method of protestpcgamer.com
- CommunityI hate what the culture wars have done to the discourse surrounding this gamereddit.com
Where to follow it IJoC and Games & Culture (scholarly), Aftermath and 404 Media (critical journalism), Wired culture desk, SteamDB review-anomaly data
- Old games take most of players' time
- Older players are a large audience the industry overlooks
- Campaigners are pressing to keep sold games playable
- Regulators are age-gating loot boxes
- Governments are weighing legal caps on children's playtime
- Children's privacy rules are nudging games toward checking every player's age
- Problem-gaming research is shifting from hours to compulsion
- China is using game approvals as a policy dial