Shadow of the Tomb Raider's Steam sale results in review bombing

[midian182]

What just happened? Shadow of the Tomb Raider has only been out for five weeks, yet Steam has put the game on sale already. Those who had paid full price are understandably annoyed about a discount being applied so soon, and that anger has led to SotTR being review bombed on Valve’s platform.

When it launched on September 13, the latest Tomb Raider cost $59.99 on Steam—a standard price for most big releases. Reviews have been mostly positive, and many people bought, or pre-ordered, Eidos Montreal’s title.

But those who paid full price for the game got an unpleasant surprise last week when Shadow of the Tomb Raider was temporarily discounted by 34 percent, knocking its price down to $39.59. The special Croft edition was reduced even more: down 47 percent from $109.96 to $58.78.

On October 16, the game was suddenly hit with a high number of negative reviews, most of which came from disgruntled buyers angry at paying full price just a few weeks ago. These comments aren’t related to the game itself, of course, but review bombs are often the result of external factors. Firewatch suffered a slew of negative comments after developer Sean Vanaman filed a DMCA takedown against PewDiePie for his racial slur last year.

Back in September 2017, Valve introduced its histograms as a way of tackling review bombing. These note when a high volume of negative reviews are detected, but they don’t really do much to address the problem.

The number of negative reviews has slowed down but remain unusually high. Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s sale ends today, so those who haven’t already done so might want to grab it while they can.

It's not known exactly why the sale arrived so soon, but the obvious answer would be that the game hasn't been selling as well as expected.

In other Shadow of the Tomb Raider news, Weta Workshop, the New Zealand special effects and prop company best known for its work on the Lord of the Rings movies, has unveiled an $800 polystone model based on a scene from the game.

To survive in the deadly jungle, Lara Croft must hunt or be hunted. Deadly enemies swarm the forest floor. And from above, stalks the Queen of the Peruvian Jungle.

Learn more about the exclusive statue designed by @WetaWorkshop: https://t.co/m55v1UlP5Y pic.twitter.com/SrEawf6DQh

— Tomb Raider (@tombraider) August 16, 2018

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https://www.techspot.com/news/77031-shadow-tomb-raider-steam-sale-results-review-bombing.html

 

[gigantor21]

User reviews are such petty garbage.

 

[Puiu]

User reviews are such petty garbage.

but some of them are really funny to read.

 

[VitalyT]

So nickle-counters are furious, they are so damn broke, playing games instead of making money for a living.

 

[ShagnWagn]

News flash: If you want it when the price is full, you pay full price. That seems pretty much cut and dry to me. Duh! Some companies and credit cards will adjust the product price if it drops within 30 days. Know what would be cool? If Steam would give you a credit for a price drop for Steam-only credits.

Putting out a bad review of the game is terrible when it's the price you are reviewing. Isn't there a voting system on user reviews?

Where are the reviews of Star Industries? They have paid $1000+ and not even a production release to play yet...

 

[TomSEA]

Wish there were a way to filter out garbage user reviews. On Metacritic, I've seen games that haven't even been released get bombed by supposed "users," just because fanbois of competing games don't like it. CoD vs. Battlefield fan bases as example. Bummer there's not some mechanism to identify 12-16 year old fools who throw up worthless reviews.

And speaking of going on sale early, I saw Greenman Gaming listing Assassin's Creed Odyssey for 50% off over the weekend. And the PC version of that game was released just last week!

 

[Kibaruk]

Oh right, but if the developer sells part of the main game as DLCs everyone looses their heads...

So nickle-counters are furious, they are so damn broke, playing games instead of making money for a living.

Condescending way too much. So... if I bought something at a store and is on sale the next week, I shouldn't be able to request the price discounted?
That is not how things work on a retail level (At least on my side of the world), so why people can't be mad for purchasing something full priced that's a new release and see it a couple of weeks later on sale?

 

[alabama man]

The base product (game) has no value anymore, it's just a store front to sell DLC. Even the companies selling the games wont value them at anything and prices drop way too quickly for it to be sensible to buy games at launch. You usually get punished on DLC pricing as well so you should always wait for the goty. Luckily I have too many games so I don't mind waiting.

 

[Bl00dyMinded]

Thats why you never pay full price for any new games... Mainly when it's towards the end of the year.

 

[ShObiT]

Thats why you never pay full price for any new games... Mainly when it's towards the end of the year.

Some people dont know how to be patient...

 

[Evernessince]

Oh right, but if the developer sells part of the main game as DLCs everyone looses their heads...

So nickle-counters are furious, they are so damn broke, playing games instead of making money for a living.

Condescending way too much. So... if I bought something at a store and is on sale the next week, I shouldn't be able to request the price discounted?
That is not how things work on a retail level (At least on my side of the world), so why people can't be mad for purchasing something full priced that's a new release and see it a couple of weeks later on sale?

You can be mad but giving a game a fake review is another matter. You loosing out on $10 does not entitle you to lie.

 

[Versutus]

so why people can't be mad for purchasing something full priced that's a new release and see it a couple of weeks later on sale?

If a price for a product is too high for you, don't buy it. If you want it cheaper, wait for a sale. People can be mad... for themselves, because they didn't wait for a sale.

 

[Kibaruk]

You can be mad but giving a game a fake review is another matter. You loosing out on $10 does not entitle you to lie.

This is true, but heck, the amount of hate towards those -well deserved if you ask me- bombing the developers, too much.

If a price for a product is too high for you, don't buy it. If you want it cheaper, wait for a sale. People can be mad... for themselves, because they didn't wait for a sale.

I think it was already settled that those who can't, won't. It's not the matter of saving a couple of bucks rather than having payed a premium for a game that was on sale not even within a year of purchase so... you are a loyal customer, who likes the franchise, who liked how the developers worked on the previous game, who is willing to pay full price for the best next thing, and suddenly WHAM sale. I certainly wouldn't be happy.

 

[Capaill]

Has anyone else noticed that new PC game releases have gone awfully expensive? It used to be that PC games cost $/€40 at launch and console games cost 60. But lately I've been seeing new PC games cost 60. So even a "sale" where it comes down to 40 doesn't seem worth it. When did PC games start costing the same as console games?
I prefer to buy games at 40 and go to GMG for a 10% discount or more. I'm not paying more than that.

 

[BSim500]

"Those who previously paid full price are understandably annoyed about a discount being applied so soon"

Translation - "Impatient 'real gamers' with zero sense of self-control who insist on being pre-orderers volunteer unpaid patch beta testers are upset that other people had more common sense and waited for the price to come down after seeing how the price of semi-flop Deus Ex Mankind Divided by same publisher rapidly dropped like a rock due to 'disappointing sales'..."

"Firewatch suffered a slew of negative comments after developer Sean Vanaman filed a DMCA takedown against PewDiePie for his racial slur last year."

I don't particularly like PewDiePie but most of the backlash for that wasn't what he said but rather the fact that false DCMA (copyright) claims are a serious abuse in themselves with behaviour no different to "patent / copyright trolls". Whatsever "racial slurs" he uttered may well be a breach of Youtube's T&C, but they have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with copyright claims (as in "you stole my content" which is what the DMCA was designed for). Two wrongs don't make a right, hence the mass review bomb against how it was dishonestly handled by the dev.

 

[Dimitrios]

Has anyone else noticed that new PC game releases have gone awfully expensive? It used to be that PC games cost $/€40 at launch and console games cost 60. But lately I've been seeing new PC games cost 60. So even a "sale" where it comes down to 40 doesn't seem worth it. When did PC games start costing the same as console games?
I prefer to buy games at 40 and go to GMG for a 10% discount or more. I'm not paying more than that.

You would think Developers save a lot more money with Digital sales than making CD's and sending them to store shelves.

 

[TomSEA]

Has anyone else noticed that new PC game releases have gone awfully expensive? It used to be that PC games cost $/€40 at launch and console games cost 60. But lately I've been seeing new PC games cost 60. So even a "sale" where it comes down to 40 doesn't seem worth it. When did PC games start costing the same as console games?
I prefer to buy games at 40 and go to GMG for a 10% discount or more. I'm not paying more than that.

You would think Developers save a lot more money with Digital sales than making CD's and sending them to store shelves.

That's only a fraction of the cost. These big triple-a games take 3-4 years to make and involve hundreds of employees. I don't think the average gamer realizes the amount of resources and up-front money it takes to put out one of these high profile games.

 

[NahNood]

Some people never learn, right? Now hear this: You are a FOOL if you EVER pre-order a game, unless there is at least a decent discount. It does not matter what useless "collector" crap or otherwise bonus items are included, as that stuff will almost always be offered later anyway. The urge to "play first" and/or your franchise obsession must be resisted, unless you just don't mind contributing full price. So: HAHA! to all the jerk review bombers! lmao

 

[texasrattler]

Has anyone else noticed that new PC game releases have gone awfully expensive? It used to be that PC games cost $/€40 at launch and console games cost 60. But lately I've been seeing new PC games cost 60. So even a "sale" where it comes down to 40 doesn't seem worth it. When did PC games start costing the same as console games?
I prefer to buy games at 40 and go to GMG for a 10% discount or more. I'm not paying more than that.

CoD MW2 started all that when Activision found that it was better to develop for consoles and just port to PC. It made them a Billion dollar in sales and that went on for a few years for CoD games. That's when games went up on PC and when DLC was no longer free. BF series went ahead and started charging for DLC when again it use to be free.

Now devs use a pay to play bs. Loot crates, microtransactions etc... DLC may be free for some games but everything else like crates and microtransactions will be there. It makes them a ton of money, several Billion dollars annually.

 

[texasrattler]

Has anyone else noticed that new PC game releases have gone awfully expensive? It used to be that PC games cost $/€40 at launch and console games cost 60. But lately I've been seeing new PC games cost 60. So even a "sale" where it comes down to 40 doesn't seem worth it. When did PC games start costing the same as console games?
I prefer to buy games at 40 and go to GMG for a 10% discount or more. I'm not paying more than that.

You would think Developers save a lot more money with Digital sales than making CD's and sending them to store shelves.

That's only a fraction of the cost. These big triple-a games take 3-4 years to make and involve hundreds of employees. I don't think the average gamer realizes the amount of resources and up-front money it takes to put out one of these high profile games.

While it's true it can cost a lot to make a game but if im gonna get charged full price I better be getting a fully working game and not some bs that needs massive updates every other week.
Some games come broken and still ask for $60.

You release a game, it's buggy or whatever and as you say can take years to make, you damn right I have the right to complain about the price. I paid to play now, not to wake a week or however long it is for a dev to get their sh*t together. They had years to make the game and to get it working. Not my problem that it cost them XX of dollars, I paid them, I deserve a working game not some pile of sh*t.

 

[ghostf1re]

News flash: If you want it when the price is full, you pay full price. That seems pretty much cut and dry to me. Duh! Some companies and credit cards will adjust the product price if it drops within 30 days. Know what would be cool? If Steam would give you a credit for a price drop for Steam-only credits.

Putting out a bad review of the game is terrible when it's the price you are reviewing. Isn't there a voting system on user reviews?

Where are the reviews of Star Industries? They have paid $1000+ and not even a production release to play yet...

I think you mean Star Citizen and there is plenty of backlash for that game, including law suits.

 

[Namtrooper]

People are so salty.

 

[kapital98]

Too bad for the people who bought the game. A discount is great for consumers and people who may have been on the edge.

Plus, who didn't expect this to go a little on sale for the holidays? This seems petty. It would be very different if Tomb Raider was making false claims about the game or there was any substance behind the outrage.

 

[PcePce]

It's funny how much scrutiny is given to negative reviews, when absolutely none is given to positive reviews.

 

[captaincranky]

Oh right, but if the developer sells part of the main game as DLCs everyone looses their heads... Condescending way too much. So... if I bought something at a store and is on sale the next week, I shouldn't be able to request the price discounted?...[ ]...

Here in the states, some of the larger chains, (Walmart for example), will allow you to "return an item", then re-buy it at the sale price. There's not much else they can do, when you're dealing with 30 days return for cash store policies.

In certain instances, I have seen disclaimers saying "coupon not good for prior sales". But still, before the 30 day return period expires, I think most larger stores would work with you.