GTA 6 publisher Take-Two expresses concern over review bombings

[midian182]

A hot potato: Review bombing has become a common practice these days. The act of flooding a game with negative reviews for a certain reason, even those not actually related to the gameplay, is no longer an unusual sight. But does it have any effect, especially on established franchises? According to GTA publisher Take-Two Interactive, "negative review campaigns" can have a significant impact, suggesting the company might be worried about GTA 6 suffering this fate.

Take-Two's latest 10-K annual stockholders' filing with the SEC includes an interesting section on review bombing. As noted by Game File's Stephen Totilo, it highlights the effects that bombings can have on a game and the companies behind it.

The filing states that obtaining and maintaining the high ratings of Take-Two games on third-party platforms are important as they help drive players to find the titles.

The filing goes on to explain that Take-Two's games may be subject to negative review campaigns or defamation campaigns, which might have little to do with the quality of a title. This decline in ratings could lead to a loss of players and revenues, additional advertising and marketing costs required to negate the effects, and general reputation harm.

Take-Two is no stranger to its games being review bombed. In 2017, GTA V was targeted after its publisher issued a cease-and-desist against the widely used game modification tool OpenIV – an attempt to stop single-player and multiplayer mods for GTA V and Grand Theft Auto Online.

The move dropped the game's overall Steam rating from Positive to Mixed, while the Recent Reviews fell to Overwhelmingly Negative. Take-Two quickly allowed the OpenIV tool to return, with the review bombing likely to have played a part in the decision.

It's interesting that Take-Two has highlighted this issue ahead of GTA 6's release in fall 2025. While it's hard to imagine the game being anything other than a massive success, there have been reports that the often-controversial humor for which the franchise is famous might be less prevalent this time around.

Rockstar is reportedly going to take a more politically correct stance in GTA 6 and not "punch down" by making fun of marginalized groups. That, combined with the inclusion of the first playable female main character, a Latina woman, might be worrying Take-Two. You might remember that the Saints Row reboot was accused of going too "woke," which led to a review bombing.

A more recent example of successful review bombing, though not involving a Take-Two game, was against Helldivers 2. It happened after publisher Sony announced that an upcoming update for the game would require all PC players to link to their PlayStation Network accounts. A few days later, the Japanese gaming giant reversed its decision.

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GTA 6 publisher Take-Two expresses concern over review bombings

 

[NumberNine]

Perhaps after all this research and analysis into the consequences of bad decisions they may remember to make a decent video game.

 

[Farkinell]

Playing Devil's advocate, a lot of the time when companies cry review bombing it's because they've made a terrible product or a terrible decision and fans are expressing legitimate criticism, en masse.

This game is going to sell by the hundreds of millions anyway even in the very unlikely event it's an absolute stinker, so T2 really doesn't have anything to worry about.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Making your be-a-criminal game politically correct is a weird move period let alone keeping the same gameplay vibe that made it popular (before even considering the woke aspect).

 

[maxxcool7421]

Making your be-a-criminal game politically correct is a weird move period let alone keeping the same gameplay vibe that made it popular (before even considering the woke aspect).

So you are a racist and bad guys ''cannot be black"? .. weird hill to die on for a conservative who hates back people

 

[redgarl]

Well, this is what you get for having a bunch of video game cringes using bots to post fake reviews all over internet.

 

[kira setsu]

Its grand theft auto,

its gonna make all the money it wants,

what are they worrying for?

its almost pointless listening to gamers, they will complain about everything, you could create a game that indulges every wish they have, make it free and gift it to them and they'd probably b***h that the case isn't gold.

 

[Dimitriid]

Yes is clearly not an issue with Rockstar and Take Two mishandling their most valuable franchise with terrible, exploitative decisions (Remember the Remastered ports? Or pretty much the last 6 years of GTA Online nonsense?) It is clearly the end users expressing concern that's the problem.

This is specially baffling since there's very little chance GTA VI won't be a run-away success for them anyway: they just need to do V again with graphic improvements and what do you know? The single player experience will probably be the most successful entertainment release of all time right above GTA V

But nope, they're probably doing the current GTA Online model of pay to win: gotta pay Rockstar a subscription on top to get new content early, exclusive content, discounts and other ways to jump ahead of everybody else, etc. And they know they probably have turned that way up on VI so they know at least some people will review-bomb because of the online model but it's still silly: Can't be happy about making all of the money at launch they want VI to make money with the online portion for 10 years after release at least.

 

[Burty117]

If they’re worried, that says to me someone internally knows, or has reported, the game kinda sucks.

I guess it had to end at some point.

 

[Manoa]

They kil OpenIV, that is the problem, and I don't expect 6 to be moddable at all

 

[emmzo]

If they’re worried, that says to me someone internally knows, or has reported, the game kinda sucks.

I guess it had to end at some point.

I kinda expect it's strongly woke too, since they already worry about backlash, years in advance.

 

[RudyBob]

The word woke means less and less everyday. Just like "awesome", "iconic" "aging", etc. I suggest a new word to replace woke which is more accurate. Garbage

 

[gingerbill]

I am glad we have steam reviews and people can express when they are not happy with a company.

Some companies would love to stop you giving their game a negative review , one day it might happen.

 

[themastergoose]

For an entire game series built around criminality and creating controversy in what it depicts, this doesn't look like a good move.

The old Rockstar and Take-Two would have grown a pair and ran head first into woke ideals and the whole cancel culture crap we have today. Instead, they seem like they'll be caving to "popular opinion" because the entire generation beneath me can't handle controversy without needing a social media soap box and a councillor for 2 years afterwards.

 

[UdyrL]

So much effort squandered worrying about what will happen, instead of taking what made the franchise so popular and improving on it.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Just turn your brightness up and all is good again.

 

[hahahanoobs]

I am glad we have steam reviews and people can express when they are not happy with a company.

Some companies would love to stop you giving their game a negative review , one day it might happen.

Weird logic.
They can't stop reviews....

 

[toooooot]

No doubt. Because the culture did not stand in one place. It moved to more and more extremes with this insanity and its cultists.
If they indeed do something that is too big to not see it, they deserve "review bombing"
and an ill fate of Tlou2.

 

[lonetac]

The issue they are getting as if you have a female lead then all the insecure incels out there on the internet will leave a negative review on the game calling it woke garbage.

Lord help us if there is a gay person in the game, extra review bombing.

Ive seen the targeted campaigns within "private" steam groups first hand filled with folks who plan and do this on purpose whom have never played the game and never intended to play it. Their only intent to sow discord.

But review bombs can be good such as helldivers 2 for example. It actually drove meaningful change.

 

[toooooot]

If they’re worried, that says to me someone internally knows, or has reported, the game kinda sucks.

I guess it had to end at some point.

Given similar occurrences from other studios, this seems realistic.

 

[Burty117]

The issue they are getting as if you have a female lead then all the insecure incels out there on the internet will leave a negative review on the game calling it woke garbage.

Lord help us if there is a gay person in the game, extra review bombing.

Past GTA’s had gays, I also don’t think anyone has an issue with a female lead either.

The problem will be that they’ve gone soft and we’ll have little comedy, a weird push from the developers political views, and instead of missions to assassinate gang bosses for money, we’ll be walking around the street, looking for local straight people to shout at.

The reason South Park has done so well is because they joke, and make fun of, absolutely everybody, nobody is safe.

GTA kinda had that going for it, you play as a zero conscience criminal, nothing was out of bounds, by allowing players to do anything was a big draw, a part of the comedy was the making fun of basically everything and everyone.

By protecting “minority’s” or particular groups within the setting and game worlds of GTA will ruin the game, will transgender people be invulnerable? Will run down neighbourhoods be exclusively straight white people? Will every radio DJ be gay? Will every town and city in the game consist of the exact same amount of varied ethnicity’s? Will all the bosses be lesbians?

All those little bits add up, what made GTA immersive was the fact it did a pretty good job of making the world feel real and relatable to real life, the comedy and what made it so funny was how extreme it took everything, removing either of these will make the new game just feel shallow and probably be quite boring compared to it’s predecessors.

 

[lonetac]

Past GTA’s had gays, I also don’t think anyone has an issue with a female lead either.

The problem will be that they’ve gone soft and we’ll have little comedy, a weird push from the developers political views, and instead of missions to assassinate gang bosses for money, we’ll be walking around the street, looking for local straight people to shout at.

The reason South Park has done so well is because they joke, and make fun of, absolutely everybody, nobody is safe.

GTA kinda had that going for it, you play as a zero conscience criminal, nothing was out of bounds, by allowing players to do anything was a big draw, a part of the comedy was the making fun of basically everything and everyone.

By protecting “minority’s” or particular groups within the setting and game worlds of GTA will ruin the game, will transgender people be invulnerable? Will run down neighbourhoods be exclusively straight white people? Will every radio DJ be gay? Will every town and city in the game consist of the exact same amount of varied ethnicity’s? Will all the bosses be lesbians?

All those little bits add up, what made GTA immersive was the fact it did a pretty good job of making the world feel real and relatable to real life, the comedy and what made it so funny was how extreme it took everything, removing either of these will make the new game just feel shallow and probably be quite boring compared to it’s predecessors.

TBH none of that has anything to do with what I have personally seen as outrage in video games.

ANY inclusion what so ever is woke. Any female include at all is woke. Thats exactly the arguments against star wars, aliens, etc. Its the fact they even just have 1 women as a lead.

It takes absolutely nothing for the far right to start screaming woke now days, they will label any sort of inclusion no matter how small it is and boycott the game.

ive seen it first had in the steam forums and even personally read through some of the "private" groups that do this. They have no intention of playing the game or ever playing it, their only purpose is hateful takedowns of anything that has women, minorities or any reference what so ever about LGTBQ.

Hell, they lost their heads over a unisex bathroom in the new dead space game. The only way you even know is if you look at the little sign going into the bathroom when exploring. I played through the whole game and didnt even know that was what was going on. But when I went to the forums, oh man were people losing their crap over a bathroom sign.

You can try and make it sound legit, but its not.

*EDIT* For context, we exposed a huge group of these individuals in the Starfield forums. They thought one of their groups was private and it wasnt. Then we discovered some more. After exposing everyone of them, they all made their profiles private and disappeared. But new folks showed up with the same arguments, mannerisms, statements, quotes, lies, etc. Its a problem in the industry right now and many games have fallen victim to it. Hogwarts, Starfield, Aliens dark decent, dead space remake to name a few. Nearly every forum for every game has a thread "is this game woke". Its painfully obvious what is going on when you are involved and seeing it first hand.

 

[Uncle Al]

The biggest review bomb I see is the fact that once you "own" the game you can't play it unless you go through yet ANOTHER web site, that constantly loses your credentials and gives you a very hard time getting them renewed. I've got games I bought over 10 years ago that they keep asking for a serial number on the original ticket. When I explain how long it's been they have a dozen excuses why they won't help. So I've written off ANY game that goes through their system and spread the word to many, many friends why ....

 

[yukka]

Oh dear. Its going to be shite

 

[RudyBob]

It takes absolutely nothing for the far right to start screaming woke now days, they will label any sort of inclusion no matter how small it is and boycott the game.

That is a woke comment...ooops I mean garbage