Diablo 4 didn’t receive a warm welcome from users when it arrived on Steam last month. The overall reviews for it are “mixed” but recent reviews have been slightly better.
One user on the Diablo subreddit thinks that bots are manipulating the recent ratings for the game. According to user Nodlimax, Diablo 4 is getting positive reviews from suspicious accounts on Valve’s digital storefront. While the user didn’t point a finger at Blizzard, Nodlimax believes that a nefarious entity is behind the shenanigans.
“If you check the D4 Steam reviews you can find a lot of entries from accounts with unreal play hours (1.600 hours within the last two weeks on one account for example),” the user wrote. “Some serious foul play is going on here and if Activision is actually involved in this that would be a new low.”
Nodlimax also shared a link to a Steam user named Roanokay who played 1,792 hours in the past week on Steam. The user’s profile has three games that had 594 hours each in the last two weeks which is highly suspicious.
According to the user, there have been confirmed cases where employees from video game companies “were involved in manipulating user review scores of video games.” Nodlimax also likened the situation to Amazon where product reviews were manipulated to give high scores to terrible merchandise.
While not directly pointing a finger at Activision Blizzard, Nodlimax said that they are not ruling out the publisher’s involvement. “It’s not unreasonable to think that a company that would profit from better reviews could not be involved in this. I’m not saying they definitely are but I won’t rule out their involvement.”
Some users on the subreddit agree with Nodlimax in thinking that something going on with the Diablo 4 reviews. Having suspicious user accounts reviewing the game positively does raise red flags. There is speculation that a third party has been paid to boost the popularity of the game on Steam.
Others think that it is a stretch to think that Activision Blizzard would try to boost the ratings for Diablo 4 with just a handful of accounts. Some speculate that a botter may be testing or establishing new accounts by reviewing games. Steam may have some measures to protect games from being flooded by reviews.
Diablo 4 will be having a free-to-play weekend starting Friday until November 28. So far, Season 2 of Diablo 4 has been great and there is also an ongoing Thanksgiving event. Many are also excited for the upcoming DLC which was just recently announced. With so many things going on with the game, it is indeed a bit of a stretch to think that Blizzard would try to boost the ratings for Diablo 4.
