My take is that while reviews can be weaponized (and Steam does attempt to flag that,) companies are throwing the phrase "review bombing" around to try and undermine legitimate reviews and concerns from paying customers.
Epic's choice to avoid reviews, despite the resources they have at hand, is pretty squarely anti-consumer and part of why they struggle to gain consumer trust with their store.
Well, the companies won, given it's an official entry in the dictionary: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/review-bomb
> to manipulate an online rating system with a semiorganized campaign of unfavorable user reviews, often as a general statement of disapproval for a creator, a publisher, or other business, rather than a genuine opinion about a specific product or experience
And yeah, that's not a bad definition. This situation seem to meet that definition. It's all relative, but I don't think needing to make a free account completely ruins the experience for 99% of modern online gamers.
>Epic's choice to avoid reviews, despite the resources they have at hand, is pretty squarely anti-consumer and part of why they struggle to gain consumer trust with their store.
I think it's simply a "lose more" scenario. The sentiment changed on Epic very quickly when they had a game people wanted on Steam, so it's a pile on reason to justify their reason to love/hate. It could be spun one way or another based on mood.
In regards to Epic, I'm not sure which game you're referencing. I don't really get the sense that the sentiment has changed and last I saw the Epic Games store still wasn't profitable after 5 years [0]. Anecdotally, the people I know using the Epic Store either do it for Fortnite/Rocket League or just to claim the free games (and some of those people never go back to play them.)
As an aside, I think the Fortnite store may have some dark patterns, but overall Epic actually does a good job of knowing who the customers are and giving them what they want, to great success. (Apologies if I'm not using the correct terms for the Epic stuff, but I just don't use it.)
[0] https://www.ign.com/articles/the-epic-games-store-still-isnt...