Summary
While Steam reviews for Blizzard titles haven’t exactly been positive, oneDiablo 4player discovered strong evidence that its review score may have been manipulated by an unknown party.Diablo 4has been the subject of review-bombingsince launch, as it didn’t take long for players to become frustrated with the game. This frustration continued to simmer in the community unabated, arguably reaching its peak with the debut of Patch 1.1, just a few days prior to the launch of Season of the Malignant.
By contrast,Diablo 4’s Season of Bloodrepresented a course-correction for the game, implementing a laundry list of changes that players had been demanding since the open beta. However, the damage had already been done, andDiablo 4’s reputation sunk deep enough that it endured another bout of review-bombing as soon as it launched on Steam. Though it could be argued that many of these reviews likely came from temporary purchases who refunded the game after leaving a negative rating onDiablo 4’s Steam page, it would appear that score manipulation in the other direction has also been developing in the background.
Thanks to some detective work by Nodlimax on Reddit, thisDiablo 4player uncovered an array of what appear to be Steam bot accounts, all leaving behind positive ratings ofDiablo 4in a suspiciously uniform way. The reviews all have “-blizzard” written on them, and most curiously, the accounts themselves have playtime in the past two weeks that far exceed the amount of hours in a period of 14 days. Though the situation is perplexing at first glance, there are a few factors to consider.
These positive ratings come from Steam Key reviews, meaning thatDiablo 4was either gifted to the account in question or redeemed through a CD key. Furthermore, the Steam Awards are currently ongoing, where player accounts can be awarded a badge for nominating games in every category, and then they can upgrade that badge by writing a review. A likely possibility is that these bot accounts are usingDiablo 4to establish an image of being a “legitimate” account that could then be used for score manipulation in the future, as the games on their account are primarily free-to-playtitles such asOverwatch 2.
Diablo 4currently has mixed reviews on Steam, with 65% of them being positive. Given how much Season of Blood has attempted to fix the game’s major shortcomings (such as the leveling grind and lack of endgame variety), a decent number ofDiablofans would begrudgingly agree that it’s a fairly accurate score for the latest Blizzard title. With Greater Rifts coming back toDiabloas theAbattoir of Zir pinnacle dungeon, and with the mysterious Season 3 on the way, the developers have a clear path ahead to turnDiablo 4around. After all,Diablo 3’sReaper of Soulsexpansion has already proven that it can be done.
