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Criticism of television shows, movies, video games, and books is nothing new. But the internet has made it easier than ever to weaponize critical commentary with sprees of “review bombing,” wherein users hoping to call attention to a particular cultural or political issue purposely inundate review aggregators with negative feedback. The goal? Ruin a project’s popularity or sales, sometimes even before the work is officially released.
Game
The term “review bomb” was first invented in an ARS Technica complaint of the 2008 video game “Spore,” which saw users flood Amazon’s negative complaints regarding the game’s virtual rights control formula and gameplay. And since then, the explosive complaint has a common position in the video game industry. Video game complaint sites are “the position in which critical enthusiasts occur at their most often, but they’re probably the most ignored at this stage,” noted Paul Tassi in Forbes. It has general because, unlike other industries, “the video game industry is the war factions of the Console Wars, or incredibly reactive enthusiasts who respond to technical upheavals or general gaming upheavals with ultra-basic scores. “
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Theara Coleman has worked as a staff writer at The Week since September 2022. She frequently writes about technology, education, literature and general news. She was previously a contributing writer and assistant editor at Honeysuckle Magazine, where she covered racial politics and cannabis industry news.