Remember back in April when the German branch of EA openly endorsed the efforts of German SJWs and a far left think tank partially funded by the German government and headed by a former Stasi informant to inflict cancel culture on the gaming community and all other online communities? Well, it's still going on and I'll be translating a second wave of articles from the "No Pixels For Fascists" SJW hivemind, starting with one about review bombing. The observant should note the projection and complete lack of awareness in the last paragraph.

BY TEAM - JUNE 3, 2020 - BLOG/RECOMMENDED READING

What Is Review Bombing?

In this post we present three sources from our network that shed light on the tactics of review bombing.

"DOOM Eternal" review statistics after review bombing. Source: Eurogamer.

When groups get together online with the express goal of damaging specific movies or video games and their developers with the help of a mass number of bad reviews, this is called review bombing. The groups organize themselves in forums and through services like Discord and discuss their next goals and their attacks there. However, as a general rule, the reason for these actions is not attributable to understandable circumstances, such as video games becoming unplayable due to crashes or invasive copy protection (even if this definitely also occurs, as in the "DOOM Eternal" event) since the negative reviews there would be more individual in nature and not require any arrangements to be made. Most often in review bombing, a small group of persons who want to maintain the status quo declares themselves the "voice of the people", purportedly in the name of democracy. This happens particularly often in order to devalue game makers with an alleged leftist political agenda.

The criticism that such review bombings contain rarely has to do with the game itself, but instead regularly refers to accusations of so-called "political correctness", a catchphrase of the political right under which any depictions of social conditions fall that deviate from the desired, very conservative image of the group. Often, the desire for historical correctness is expressed, but, in the process, it quickly becomes apparent that this argument is particularly supported by misogynistic and racist ideologies. Other historical "incorrectnesses" are not only unimportant to review bombers, but they outright reject a scientific view of history, as can be seen with not only the described example of "Total War: Rome II" but also with "Battlefield V". History is not a static value, but a continuous process of refinement. Of course, one's own feeling of authenticity when it comes to a depiction is also strongly influenced by consumed media, and, once internalized, it becomes difficult to change one's own understanding of history - but it is exactly that capacity which would be vital in extricating oneself from a view of the past that has now become obsolete.

Needless to say, it would be within everyone's discretion to simply not buy a game that they do not like, which some people also certainly do. However, this is not enough for review bombers because they want to suppress any depiction that deviates from their opinion. They want to do the greatest possible damage to the developers with their mass number of bad reviews; there is no interest in a clarifying discourse. In her article "It's Not About Facts: Why You Cannot and Should Not Enlighten Reactionary Nerds", Aurelia Brandenburg explains how best to deal with such hateful comments disguised as criticism.

Mentioned Articles

Brandenburg, Aurelia. "It's Not About Facts: Why You Cannot and Should Not Enlighten Reactionary Nerds". 2018. Geekgefluester.de. (https://geekgefluester.de/es-geht-nicht-um-fakten-warum-man-reaktionaere-nerds-nicht-aufklaeren-kann-und-soll-rome-2-review-bombing)

Hennig, Björn. "Right Wing Agendas Under the Cloak of Historical Correctness". 2018. videospielhistoriker.wordpress.net. https://videospielhistoriker.wordpress.com/2018/09/27/rechte-agenda-unter-dem-mantel-historischer-korrektheit-mein-beitrag-zur-debatte-um-weibliche-generaele-in-total-war-rome-ii/

Wagner, Pascal. "Games at the Polls". 2020. Languageatplay.de. (https://languageatplay.de/2020/01/27/spiele-an-der-wahlurne-demokratie-in-videospielen-und-der-industrie/

• Original Article: http://keinenpixeldenfaschisten.de/2020/06/03/review-bombing/
• Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20200813054337/https://keinenpixeldenfaschisten.de/2020/06/03/review-bombing/
• Archive.today: http://archive.is/nLVoG