Metacritic Promises to Implement Stricter Moderation after Review Bombing
After the recent review bombing of Horizon: Forbidden West's DLC Burning Shores", Metacritic has stepped in to promise widespread moderation changes to prevent similar events in the future. Review bombing is not uncommon for the website that allows any user to create an account and give a game a score (as we saw with The Last of Us Part Il's story leaks a couple of years back), so why has this DLC in particular caused the higher-ups to step in? Well, this comes down to the reason so many are bombing this on the site. Towards the end of the DLC, as a player, you are given the choice to engage in a lesbian kiss as Aloy (the main character). This is very tame and, again, can be avoided if you wish so.
Despite having this kiss be optional, many Metacritic gremlins have decided to give 0/10 scores because it exists in the first place. This is hardly the first-time players have been given the option of a lesbian romance- just look at Bioware's Dragon Age and Mass Effect games from over a decade ago for proof of that. Despite this, it seems like any recent LGBT characters in gaming are accused of pandering to the woke agenda. Again, this is nothing new, so it begs the question as to why this is suddenly becoming a problem now. Unfortunately, I'm not able to answer that, but the higher-ups at Metacritic have seen this particular review bombing fiasco as a reason to step in.
Fandom- the site that owns Metacritic- has described the treatment of the Burning Shores' DLC as "disrespectful". Genuine criticism is one thing, but incessant review bombing for anti-LGBT reasons is something else entirely. Fandom had the following to say in a statement to Eurogamer:
"Fandom is a place of belonging for all fans and we take online trust and safety very seriously across all our sites including Metacritic. Metacritic is aware of the abusive and disrespectful reviews of Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores, and we have a moderation system in place to track violations of our terms of use.. We are currently rolling out processes and tools to introduce stricter moderation in the coming months."
While it’s not clear vet what new moderation Fandom plans to introduce, it does promise to put a stop to "racist, sexist and homophobic" reviews being able to stay up for days. Whether these measures will put a stop to the increasingly prevalent review bombing process is yet to be seen, but it's a step in the right direction.
With the ability to create a new account in a couple of minutes, it seems unlikely that banning certain accounts will improve the situation. The site's main goal at the moment is to remove these gremlin reviews as soon as possible, Hopefully, this fiasco will lead to some good with stricter moderation on behalf of Fandom which has been sorely lacking on the site in recent years.
