Ori Dev Pushes Back on No Rest for the Wicked Review Bombing; Says Players Who Tried It After Hotfixes Are “Extremely Positive”
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In today’s gaming industry, it’s common for some games to face waves of negative reviews on platforms like Metacritic, social media, and Steam. However, many of these reviews are unjustified.
Thomas Mahler, the CEO of Moon Studios, addressed this issue with the community through his Discord server, explaining that the Austrian studio could be at risk if the situation doesn’t improve.
Ori Creator Warns Review Bombing Could Lead to Studio Shutdown
Mahler admitted that the review bombing of No Rest for the Wicked could lead to the closure of his studio due to a drop in sales on Steam.
He said,
Folks, if you’re writing here and are enjoying Wicked and are excited for future updates, but haven’t left a positive review, it’s entirely possible that we won’t be around in a couple of months to do anything anymore simply because we got review bombed which leads to people not buying the game.
If you like No Rest for the Wicked, Mahler asks you to leave a positive review. Of course, if you don’t like the game, you are welcome to leave a negative review, but only if you’ve played it.
A few hours later, the creator of Ori clarified his words on X/Twitter, saying that his statement was not meant to be taken literally. In other words, the studio is not in immediate danger of closing. Instead, he was trying to highlight how serious the issue of unfair online attacks is.
Mahler explained,
It’s allowed on Steam to buy a game, leave a negative review that doesn’t even talk about the game at all (there are negative Wicked reviews that literally just say ‘.’), and then instantly refund it… and the negative review still counts. If that’s allowed, then it should also be allowed for a developer to encourage their players to share their real experiences.
He mentioned that they had received threats for not taking sides in the war in Ukraine, and they are often called “nazis” for not including certain elements in their games.
Mahler also pointed out that, overall, pretty much everyone who tried Wicked after the latest hotfixes has been “extremely positive.” The reason he left his post on Discord up was to push back against some of the unfair reviews.
The important thing is that Moon Studios is not in immediate danger, but the studio could face serious challenges if No Rest for the Wicked continues to get unfair negative reviews without users having played the game. Remember, the studio is now completely independent.
Mahler added,
And no, we’re not in immediate financial danger—but from time to time, I think I’m allowed to speak up about issues within our industry I personally find unbecoming. We are continuing as always—our goal is for every game Moon Studios creates to be an absolute masterpiece, and with Wicked we’re already on the way.
At the time of writing, No Rest for the Wicked has recovered its “Mostly Positive” reviews on Steam, with 74% of votes being positive.
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I hate how if a game gets bad reviews from players it’s just called review bombing. It also sucks that devs are now using female presenting characters in their ads for the sole purpose of being able to claim review bombing.
If the devs literally said ‘after patches, reviews became more positive ‘ then how can they cry about review bombing? They are admitting players played an inferior version that required fixes to get positive reviews.
That’s not review bombing…
Go read the reviews… It is 100% review bombing.