‘Infinity Nikki’ Community Accuses Game of Receiving Paid Bot Reviews on Steam

Infinity Nikki players believe that the gacha RPG has been receiving fraudulent reviews on Steam. According to the community, the free-to-play title is being flooded with suspicious user review posts that may be purchased.

Are Review Bots Giving ‘Infinity Nikki’ a Positive Spin?

If you’re unfamiliar with the Infinity Nikki 1.5 update drama, there’s quite a bit of lore to catch up on. Essentially, the game’s developer, Infold, has stumbled from one controversy to the next—fracturing the game’s player base. From expensive 11-piece outfits to players launching a “girlcott” after the word “boycott” was allegedly banned from social media platforms, Infinity Nikki has been caught in a tailspin with its community. That’s not even getting into Infold retconning the game’s opening story. Or even just the litany of bugs introduced in the 1.5 update.

However, a new controversy recently emerged when fans discovered a suspicious uptick in “positive reviews” on Infinity Nikki’s Steam page. It was first mentioned in a Reddit thread on May 1. But it wasn’t until a second thread appeared on the r/infinitynikki subreddit on May 10 that it started to get widespread attention. Players observed that Infinity Nikki was receiving a flood of positive Steam reviews. Each of these posts looked suspiciously similar and came from accounts with low playtime.

“I was browsing the reviews on Steam this evening and started to notice a pattern in some of the recent positive ones. Most of the Chinese reviews with less than 4 hours of playtime are from profiles set to private, with no other reviews and Steam level 0,” user Masterre explained. “I then found another group of reviewers that were not set to private. They all share the same traits, except they all reviewed the exact same set of four games, all with low playtimes. These other games are also new and receiving negative reviews. This tells me that this bot farm was purchased to generate fake reviews for games that are failing on Steam.”

Paid Reviews Are Not Very Gongeous

Of course, the most concerning aspect is the possibility that these Infinity Nikki reviews are paid for. The fact that the same positive reviews are appearing in clusters and are being posted for multiple games adds weight to this. To be clear, the Nikki community isn’t accusing anyone specific of buying these reviews. But it is interesting that the influx of positive feedback seems to be combating the wave of negative reviews submitted by players upset with the 1.5 update.

If anything can be learned from the Infinity Nikki debacle, it’s that silencing criticism is rarely the right move. As mentioned earlier, fans cleverly launched a “girlcott” after the developer allegedly banned the word “boycott” across their platforms. However, the studio reportedly soon began censoring the term “girlcott” as well, further outraging the player base. Given that Infinity Nikki has one of the largest female player bases in the genre, this move seems especially misguided.

In fact, I’ve seen quite a few players quit the game entirely over this. So, if these are indeed paid reviews, they’re missing the point. Infinity Nikki is receiving negative reviews because its players are unhappy with the current state of the game. More importantly, they feel unheard by the game’s developer. No amount of fake positive reviews will change that. If anything, it will just further erode what was once one of the most laid-back communities in gaming. And that’s definitely not very gongeous.