Epic Games Store introduces rating system designed to stop review-bombing

The Epic Games Store's rating functionality being shown.
(Image credit: Epic Games)

The Epic Games Store is improving its functionality over time, and now it's going to wade into the treacherous waters of user reviews. A recent update has added ratings and polls to the store, which players will see at intervals after playing games, and the information gathered here will be used to populate a game's store page with more information about it.

The most notable element of this update is how Epic has designed the functionality around the problem of co-ordinated behaviour. Customer reviews are now as important if not more so than those of professional critics, across many fields, but online dynamics can see them used in unintended ways.

The most striking example of this in the games industry is review-bombing, whereby a game that is seen to have committed some great offense is flooded with negative reviews. The intentions are of course impossible to tease-out with group behaviour like this, but certainly elements of it seem to be making a public spectacle of the target, expressing frustration, and ultimately harming sales.

The important thing to remember about review-bombing is that it can happen for the most trivial of reasons while in other cases it's because of wider cultural issues. Shadow of the Tomb Raider once got review-bombed, for example, because it got a chunky discount not long after launch, so people who'd bought it were pissed. On the other end of the scale, the Taiwanese horror game Devotion was review-bombed en masse by Chinese players for including a Winnie the Pooh meme (The Chinese Communist Party has declared war on Pooh bear, because of the insinuation president Xi Jinping looks a bit like him).

So user reviews are good, but the opportunity they allow for group behaviour can be and often is exploited. Epic's solution is that not everyone can review a product: It randomises the feedback requests that will appear for users at the end of some sessions.

A room in Devotion.

(Image credit: Red Candle Games)

"Following a play session, random players will be offered the opportunity to score the game up to five stars," writes Epic. "Over time, these scores will help populate the 'Overall Rating' that will appear on the product’s store page. Because these requests are randomized, we won’t spam our players, and we probably won’t ask about every game or app used. This approach protects games from review bombing and ensures people assigning scores are actual players of the games."

You'll also have to have spent at least two hours total in a given game before the EGS will ask you about it. As well as the ratings, players will also be randomly selected to answer polls.

"Players will be asked a question that relates to their most recent session," writes Epic. "The questions cover a broad range, and will have a number of potential responses. Players might be asked to respond 'Yes' or 'No' to 'Is this game good to play with a group?' Players could also be presented with a multiple choice poll asking 'How challenging are the bosses in this game?'"

Here's what the polls will look like.

(Image credit: Epic Games)

The poll answers will be used to generate tags for store pages, which players can of course use to filter the offerings. The intent is to build-out the tagging system so it gets very granular about a given game's content, which is an interesting approach, and eventually "will be used to generate custom tag-based categories driven by our players that will appear on the Epic Games Store home page."

Well it's good that Epic is addressing the problem of review bombing, because it doesn't really seem to serve any good purpose, and games can be targeted for the most flimsy of reasons. Whether this solution is a good one remains to be seen, however: I don't want to close down a game and do a customer satisfaction survey, in fact I think that sounds quite annoying. But I also don't really review games on my Steam account either so, if you're into these systems, your mileage may differ.

Ratings and polls are live on the Epic Games Store now. There's also a free Game of Thrones game on there at the moment.

Rich Stanton
Senior Editor

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

Read more
Epic Games logo behind the Epic Games Store
Epic gave away nearly 600 million games in 2024, and it's 'not slowing down' for 2025
TF2 Heavy giving the Bret Rambo thumbs up
Steam now warns you if that early access game you're eyeing up has been abandoned by its devs
Edge
Microsoft Edge Game Assist hits Stable release so you can now use it to pin videos in-game without setting it as your default browser
The Spy from Team Fortress 2 holds up a folder with an accusatory expression.
Steam users react ecstatically to update that lets them access their heaving game notes via the web, also it fixes Monster Hunter Wilds video recording
overwatch 2 stadium mode
Overwatch 2 achieves the improbable, clawing back a 'Mixed' rating in recent Steam reviews after a well-received perks update
An AI-generated image, posted to Activision's socials, of a fake Crash Bandicoot game that doesn't actually exist.
Finding a new and inventive way to annoy everybody, Activision has company use AI to generate fake advertisements for games that don't exist
Latest in Gaming Industry
Monster Hunter Wilds' stockpile master studying a manifest
As layoffs and studio closures continue to deathroll the western AAA industry, analyst points out 5 of 8 major Japanese companies hit all-time share prices this year
A still from a video announcement of Game Informer's return, featuring the magazine's Halo 2 issue.
Game Informer is back from the dead: 'The whole team has returned'
Typing on internet search toolbar: What am I doing?
How a Microsoft exec managed to pitch Microsoft Word through the genius tactic of being able to actually use it in a 'type-off' demanded by clients: 'I was the only one who'd actually been a secretary'
Half-Life wallpaper - Gordon Freeman
Former Valve exec says the company struggled to sell Half-Life until coming up with the ultimate 'one simple trick' of marketing manoeuvres: slapping a 'Game of the Year' sticker on the box
Gabe Newell looks into the camera, behind him is a prop of a turret from Team Fortress 2.
Gabe Newell's cult of personality is intense, but a Valve exec who worked with him says his superpower is how he 'delighted in people on the team just being really good at what they did'
The Spy from Team Fortress 2 holds up a folder with an accusatory expression.
One of Valve's original executives shares a very simple secret to its success: 'You can't use up your credibility' by trying to make bad games work
Latest in News
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'
Otter AI Meeting Agent
As if your work meetings weren't already fun enough, now Otter has a new all-hearing AI agent that remembers everything anyone has said and can join in the discussion
Monster Hunter Wilds' stockpile master studying a manifest
As layoffs and studio closures continue to deathroll the western AAA industry, analyst points out 5 of 8 major Japanese companies hit all-time share prices this year