review bombing
/rɪˈvjuː ˈbɒmɪŋ/
Very CommonCoordinated mass submission of negative reviews to tank a product's score over something unrelated to the product itself.
The ethics are disputed. Some argue review bombing is a legitimate form of consumer protest. Others argue it pollutes review scores for people who just want to know if a product is worth buying. Platforms like Steam have added tools to filter out suspected coordinated review activity.
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | the game went from 90% to 40% on steam in 24 hours. classic review bomb. | The sudden dramatic score drop indicates coordinated action rather than organic disappointment. | x, 2023 |
| 02 | the game is actually fine. people are review bombing it because of something the dev said on twitter | The low score is protest-driven rather than reflecting the product's quality. | reddit, 2024 |
| 03 | review bombing is either consumer protest or digital vandalism depending on who you ask | The practice is genuinely contested and people have strongly opposing views on it. | x, 2023 |
| 04 | steam filtering out off-topic review bombs was actually a good call | Steam's feature to detect and filter coordinated reviewing helped protect scores. | reddit, 2022 |
Use it when
- A game's review score dropped suddenly due to mass coordinated negative reviews.
- Describing the act of organizing or participating in mass negative reviewing.
- Discussing how review scores can be manipulated by community anger.
Do not use it when
- A game genuinely received many negative reviews because it was bad.
Variations and related forms
Origin and context
Review bombing as a recognized pattern emerged around 2013-2014 as major games platforms accumulated large enough review pools to be visibly manipulated. Steam's response of adding a filter for suspected coordinated reviews in 2017 established the term as part of standard gaming vocabulary.
- First seen
- mid-2010s
- Confidence
- medium
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/review-bombing