So yeah all the stuff we talked about in the previous threads, and now, it all comes down to this that no matter how objectively unfair the reviewbombs are (there is no other venue for them to voice opinion, putting bad review is a relief mechanism for the pissed-off steam users and works as a punishment, it's the industry's fault as well that there aren't more types of feedback venues for different purposes) the damage has been done and in exchange for SUPPOSABLY maximized profits the publisher will have to deal with substantial negativity in almost all the comments/responses of the future promotional content, a totally tarnished review scoring that is now completely invalid with so many rogue parameters, and a totally demoralized development team, even if the RAW developers weren't part of any consideration towards the decision or whatever, they see this happening and deep down it is demoralizing and negative even if they themself's don't notice it as it may work on a subconscious subtle level for some, others like the one who went public has been greately affected and probably will be affecting life for some time, remember RAW developers don't get satisfaction only from money like financial zombies do, they get it from seeing satisfied customers, they're seing a shitstorm taking place, even if all is invalid and they "ignore it", yes, we suppose to ignore the invalid bad reviews, but the point is here, psychological damage has already been done.
This has irrepairably tainted the reputation of the game in the public view for those who haven't got the full story, individually and technically you can totally disonnect from the internet and enjoy the game without zero influence from the review bombing but the side effect will still be there in the back of everyone's mind playing it who were tuned into this debacle or the ones who never wanted EPIC Launcher and were forced to use it.
This is probably one of the most stupid decisions ever for a publisher, complete and utter garbage. Don't they know what the internet is, don't they know there's more children on the internet every day than the day before?
As I said before (past threads), it's all tradeoffs, if the publisher did investigate and test all the scenarios and odds, they might have come to a conclusion that financial gain from this decision would be more worth than the pissed of hoardes as well as the development team to some extent, you just have to be a piece of crap greedy dirtbag to do actually do this in practice.