Sudden and extreme negative review spike?

[Clockwork13]

Just noticed this on KSP's steam page. What happened?

EDIT: It's definitely a spambot, and it appears to still be running. Many of the reviews are exact copies of eachother. Who's doing it though and why?

 

Edited April 24, 2018 by Clockwork13

[Reactordrone]

Possibly the 1.4.3 patch delay.

[klgraham1013]

A quick glance at the reviews suggest it was the EULA changes.  Don't worry.  Just as with the forums, Squad will stay silent, the community will forget after a month, things will resume as normal.

Edited April 24, 2018 by klgraham1013

[Clockwork13]

3 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

A quick glance at the reviews suggest it was the EULA changes.  Don't worry.  Just as with the forums, Squad will stay silent, the community will forget after a month, things will resume as normal.

But these look like they were posted by spambots. Many of them are identical

[Mr. Peabody]

15 minutes ago, Clockwork13 said:

But these look like they were posted by spambots. Many of them are identical

So who is out to ruin KSP? Orbiter?

[Blasty McBlastblast]

8 minutes ago, The Dunatian said:

So who is out to ruin KSP?

could be a flat-kerbin konspiracy? 

hopefully steam has a method to purge spambot reviews once reported...

[psilop]

It's not a spam bot, there is a post trending on KSP subreddit. Many people have an issue with this change, it is a possible breach of your privacy and breaks the law in various ways in different countries. It's immoral, this is something Take-Two does and it should not be in a game like this.

[Clockwork13]

10 minutes ago, psilop said:

It's not a spam bot, there is a post trending on KSP subreddit. Many people have an issue with this change, it is a possible breach of your privacy and breaks the law in various ways in different countries. It's immoral, this is something Take-Two does and it should not be in a game like this.

Like I said, most of the recent reviews are exact copies of one another. That's not normal

Edited April 24, 2018 by Clockwork13

[psilop]

5 minutes ago, Clockwork13 said:

Like I said, most of the recent reviews are exact copies of one another. That's not normal

It is not a spam bot, again, they copy that review because it is trending on KSP subreddit, that exact screenshot of that review you're speaking of. It's people who copy paste it because they agree with it.

Take the time and look at those accounts, they are legitimate accounts with purchased products and some age to them, not just fresh out of the oven.

[radonek]

I am not happy about T2 fiasco either, but copying pre-made review? Man, people nowadays are lazy to even get angry properly…

Edited April 24, 2018 by radonek

[purpleivan]

If you're angry enough about something to post a negative review, then most people will feel strongly enough to write something of their own. If a lot of these are identical then it suggest it's not real anger, but either a bot or just people jumping on a bandwagon.

Additionally why April 23rd? The EULA change happened weeks ago, so a one day spike so distant from that event looks either suspicious or a freak culmination of events that happened to strike that day.

Either way, most likely a blip and not a trend.

Edited April 24, 2018 by purpleivan

[The Aziz]

Remember how you were just clicking through the installation process of every game, skipping even the EULA there that you should have read, not many years ago?

Just a friendly reminder that, for example, steam still has full rights to cancel your paid subscription for any game without a reason and people don't care anymore.

Sigh. *opens up KSP* I couldn't write a negative review for this game even if it stole my pants, it's just too much fun.

[LoSBoL]

8 hours ago, psilop said:

It is not a spam bot, again, they copy that review because it is trending on KSP subreddit, that exact screenshot of that review you're speaking of. It's people who copy paste it because they agree with it.

Take the time and look at those accounts, they are legitimate accounts with purchased products and some age to them, not just fresh out of the oven.

Wow, over sixteenthousand! upvotes and 1300 messages in less than 24 hours, that's one big bandwagon. It's sad really, that so many people just jump on the hype train...
It does hurt to me to see this happening with the game I love most of all games I've ever owned.

Well, If you ever wandered if there was any life left in KSP, with that one post on Reddit is a pretty big testament to me that its alive AND kicking. 

Edited April 24, 2018 by LoSBoL

[Tewa]

This is just in the last 24 hours, too. Yesterday the recent reviews were "very positive" and I only saw 4 anti-EULA reviews. Now there's a ton.

I had assumed some streamer was stirring people up. But reddit... well, that explains everything, doesn't it?

The funny thing is that the EULA changes were, what, 2 months ago? And people are just now getting their pants in a twist.

Edited April 24, 2018 by Tewa

[QCRulzz]

KSP is now a spyware. It's a single player game Darn it, they dont need to datamine and SELL my infos. Time to uninstall. Which is a shame, I bought the game years before official release.

[LoSBoL]

27 minutes ago, QCRulzz said:

KSP is now a spyware. It's a single player game Darn it, they dont need to datamine and SELL my infos. Time to uninstall. Which is a shame, I bought the game years before official release.

KSP hasn't become spyware. 

The EULA isn't important, Take 2's privacy policy however is. And everybody jumping the EULA bandwagon neglects reading the privacy policy. There you can find as to how, and why certain information is gathered, and what's it used for. Reading that sheds light on the EULA and then the EULA starts making sense. 

Here's a link to Take 2's privacy policy. 

https://www.take2games.com/privacy/

Edited April 24, 2018 by LoSBoL

[Tewa]

26 minutes ago, QCRulzz said:

KSP is now a spyware. It's a single player game Darn it, they dont need to datamine and SELL my infos. Time to uninstall. Which is a shame, I bought the game years before official release.

If it bothers you that much, I sincerely hope you don't have a cel phone, then. Or (heaven forbid) a credit card. Since they do far worse with your data on a daily basis. (And, you know, actually DO THINGS with it, unlike the paranoia about what an "evil video game publisher" will do).

Edited April 24, 2018 by Tewa

[MechBFP]

People sure love to bandwagon onto imaginary wars to fight imaginary enenimes for imaginary reasons.

Edited April 24, 2018 by MechBFP
Typo

[Tewa]

Just now, MechBFP said:

People sure love to bandwagon onto imaginary wars to fight imaginary enenimes for imaginary reasonable.

Taking on an actual, real-life, worthy cause would require them to get out of their chair. But taking on video game publishers on reddit? Boy, that's right up their alley.

[klesh]

More concerning for TakeTwo and Squad would be the paltry number of positive reviews of the Making History Expansion.

Currently sitting at 283 total reviews, and only 53% are positive.

 

 

I would not want to have to sit on a conference call and have to explain to the guy that just bought my company why our latest product is not doing so well.

[QCRulzz]

The thing is, I do not see why an offline game would want to gather my photos, for example, how would that help the development of this game in any way? The excuse of ''everyone does it'' it not good enough, sorry. The informations they take on my hardware is legit to help them gauge what they can implement or not, but not my gender, my age, my street name etc. I hope you see my point. They make a space themed game, not a credit card company (with real life impacts on credit scores etc).

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

These review-bombs are infuriating. It's not only dishonest, but downright despicable. It undermines the entire review system. I don't trust a game developer to tell me how awesome their game is. I trust you, my fellow gamer, because I assume we're honest with one another. This is the same crap that happened the last time KSP had a negative review spike. Then, it was Chinese players angry about changing that "you must be a real man to get to the Mun" thing in the 1.3 version. This, I think, is even worse. A lot of those players had just bought the game for the localization of 1.3 in Chinese. This time, these are actual players. One guy has over 600 hours. If you actually play this game and give it a negative review, you are a liar. This is not an opinion. It is a fact. Someone can say this game is not for them, and that cannot be argued, but you cannot say it is a crappy game. I don't play GTA5 because it's not for me, but I've seen it played enough to know that is obviously a good game.

These reviews matter. It was Steam's bombardment of ads that showed me KSP when 1.0 was released, but it was the reviews that sold me. I watched the first video on the store page like I always do, then scrolled down to the reviews. I always read a few good reviews and a few bad ones. There were no bad reviews near the top at that time. By the second review I knew I would buy the game. It simply said "I think I have a problem". I didn't get it at first. Then I looked at his hours played. It was well over 1,000. That seemed to me to be absurd at the time. I now have over 3,000 myself.

These reviews matter. Giving a negative review to an obviously great game is an outright lie. You are stomping your feet to show how angry you are; and disparaging an obviously great game in the process. And you could also possibly be depriving would-be Kerbonauts from ever experiencing what amounts to a life-altering game if it really gets ahold of you (and God help you if it does).

In short, if you wanna do something that matters, get off your couch. Make a sign and go stand outside Take2 headquarters and shout at their executives as they come and go. This might actually accomplish something, but it would also require you to actually do something. At this point, I have zero respect for you. Now get the hell away from my game. And good riddance to ya.

[KSK]

6 minutes ago, Cpt Kerbalkrunch said:

If you actually play this game and give it a negative review, you are a liar. This is not an opinion. It is a fact. Someone can say this game is not for them, and that cannot be argued, but you cannot say it is a crappy game.

I don't follow the logic here. If I play the game and decide I don't like it then to me, it's a crappy game. The fact that many other people would disagree doesn't change that and it doesn't make me a liar. However, unless I can articulate why I think the game is crappy, then my opinion isn't a terribly helpful basis for a review.

On the other hand, if I post a good, thoughtful review describing what I see as the flaws in the game, then that review is at least as helpful and probably more helpful than an uncritical positive review.

Also, if a great game is saddled with a mediocre expansion, then I would expect the reviews to reflect that.

Single issue 'boycott this game for the lousy EULA' style reviews are less than helpful - I will concede that. Although personally I think it's a good thing that bad EULAs are being flagged up - about the only way they're going to change is if enough consumers vote against them with their wallets.

Finally, speaking  personally, I have played KSP and have also sunk a lot of time into this forum community. And I would say that KSP is not a great game. It's a wonderful concept, it's a great sandbox (especially if you use mods) but, in my opinion, stock KSP is not at all a great game. 

I can elaborate if you're curious, or take this to PMs but for now I think it would be going off-topic.

 

 

[LoSBoL]

1 hour ago, QCRulzz said:

The thing is, I do not see why an offline game would want to gather my photos, for example, how would that help the development of this game in any way? The excuse of ''everyone does it'' it not good enough, sorry. The informations they take on my hardware is legit to help them gauge what they can implement or not, but not my gender, my age, my street name etc. I hope you see my point. They make a space themed game, not a credit card company (with real life impacts on credit scores etc).

The photo is actually a good example to explain it by. Because this forum lets you upload a photo which you can use as an avatar if you want to. They can't provide you the opportunity to do so if you would decline them from collecting, and sharing your avatar to other users of the forum.  The same goes for gender and age/birthdate, which you can choose to share to others on the forum/internet.
Your address could be used for billing information of your original purchase of KSP, or if you choose to enter a contest and win a Kerbal pluchie, they can't send you if they may not collect your address.

Edited April 24, 2018 by LoSBoL
grammar

[QCRulzz]

It doesnt specify HOW they access the photos. I dont want any game company sifting through my hard drive looking for photos. What I decide willingly to put a forum such as my age, gender and photos is my own decision and not anyone else's. If it ends up on the internet, then good for T2, but sharing it with third parties and this part,

he transfer of any personal information and other information to Licensor, its affiliates, vendors, and business partners, and to certain other third parties, such as governmental authorities, in the U.S. and other countries located outside Europe or your home country, including countries that may have lower standards of privacy protection;

This section doesnt appeal to me at all, considering I don't get to decide WHO is referred to when they mention them. You can collect these infos and use them INTERNALY, but sharing it with third parties, what the actual ****?!

And if you win a pluchie, they'll have to ask you where to ship it anyway, because people move around and you may want it shipped at a different place from your home.