Players review bombing games due to decisions they don’t like has only become more prevalent in recent years, and GTA 6 publisher Take-Two is acknowledging the negative impact the trend can have. Between a costly shift in sales, reputation, and new marketing initiatives to put out fires, review bombings cost a lot of time and money, even if players succeed in the end. With Rockstar’s next crime epic due out in 2025, Grand Theft Auto 6 isn’t going to be safe from players mobilizing to criticize decisions they don’t like, and Take-Two knows it.
Take-Two’s stance on players review bombing its games comes from the publisher’s most recent 10-K SEC filing, an annual report containing a summary of the company’s recent financial performance. In it, the GTA 6 publisher explains how its business is dependent on commercially successful upcoming PC games, and details the challenges it can face in achieving that goal.
“Obtaining and maintaining high ratings of our games on the third-party platforms on which we operate are important as they help drive players to find our games,” Take-Two writes in the filing. “If the ratings of any of our games decline or if we receive significant negative reviews that result in a decrease in our ratings, our games could be more difficult for players to find or recommend.
“In addition, we may be subject to negative review campaigns or defamation campaigns intended to harm our ratings. Any such decline may lead to loss of players and revenues, additional advertising and marketing costs, and reputation harm,” Take-Two adds (initially spotted by Game File).
We explored the history of Steam review bombing way back in 2017, and while all the cases in that report are at least seven years old, the impact review bombing can have on a game and its developers is more prevelent than ever. Even Grand Theft Auto 5 suffered from review bombing back in the day, and it’s clear that the GTA 6 release date won’t be immune to it – in fact, the sheer popularity of the game makes it even more susceptible, and Take-Two is aware of this.
2024’s biggest culprit is undoubtedly the Helldivers 2 review bombing. After publisher Sony reminded everyone on Steam they would be required to sign up for a PSN account to play the co-op hit, chaos broke loose. Players flooded the Steam page with over 220,000 negative reviews in May of this year, and, while most of these criticisms have been reversed since Sony backpedaled on the PSN requirement, the damage has been done. Helldivers 2’s player count was in a natural decline anyway, but the PSN fiasco cemented this downturn in player interest.
On top of HD2, Starfield was review bombed earlier this year for adding paid mods, and Apex Legends suffered review bombings in July over some incredibly controversial battle pass changes.
Whether you like it or not, players engage in review bombing to make their voices heard, and it often works. Publishers and developers reverse decisions or at the very least acknowledge negative player sentiment, and this empowers the review bomb trend even more.
While you wait for the next Grand Theft Auto we’ve already put everything together that we know about both the GTA 6 map and GTA 6 cars, so you can learn everything possible about what will easily be 2025’s biggest game.
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