Here’s the crux of the article in video form:

War Thunder is a popular free-to-play military combat game that stands apart from others for being entirely vehicle and aircraft based.

Recently, the dev team announced some changes to the in-game economy system that players didn’t like. After that, the game is getting ‘review bombed’ on platforms like Steam.

War Thunder

It seems that the situation hasn’t pleased the War Thunder dev team either, who just delisted Steam as one of the supported platforms on the official game website.

War Thunder devs delisted Steam from the game website after review bombing

The changes to the War Thunder in-game economy basically consists of significantly nerfing the amount of ‘Silver Lions’ currency and ‘Research Points’ rewards that players can earn by playing.

So, it seems that the dev team got more ‘aggressive’ in terms of pushing players to spend real money. Of course, the changes didn’t go unanswered, and thus the initiative to review bomb the game was born.

war-thunder-website-delists-steam-supported-platforms-review-bombing-2
Source (click/tap to expand)

Several players began to give very low scores to War Thunder on Steam as a protest against the changes. This way, they wanted to raise their voices and make the dev team reconsider them.

However, the reaction of the dev team was unexpected. After starting the review bombing, the community noticed that the game’s official website delisted Steam from the ‘supported platforms’ section.

war-thunder-website-delists-steam-supported-platforms-review-bombing-1
Now vs Before
(source)

The screenshot above this paragraph shows a comparison of what the ‘supported platforms’ section looked like and what it looks like now. The ‘Steam’ logo was between the ‘Windows’ and ‘Mac’ logos.

PC version reportedly delisted from Microsoft Store too

Steam’s removal as a supported platform after noticing the effects of review bombing is unlikely to be a coincidence. The company could be looking to hide the negativity that has been generated recently.

In addition, it seems that they are doing the same with any platform where the effects of review bombing are noticeable.

For instance, players are reporting that the Microsoft Store for PC link now redirects to the Xbox version.

Steam has been delisted from War Thunder’s website (and now the microsoft store) Hide the negativity all you want Gaijin, it’s not going to get rid of it

Edit : as the title says, it’s now gone from the microsoft store, if you manage to find the link the PC store version, it’ll redirect you to the XBOX version instead
Source

Players consider this a ‘childish move’, some fear removal of the game from Steam

Of course, this is far from the answer that players were hoping for. Currently, the community feels that the actions taken by the War Thunder dev team are a ‘childish move’.

@WarThunder This is the most childish thing I’ve seen a game company do, maybe instead of being anti consumer dickheads, you could try owning your mistake like an adult and work with the player base, I have the steam version, I wont be installing it a second time. #WarThunder
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There are also players who fear that this is the first step before something bigger (like completely removing the game from Steam). However, for now this is just speculation.

It is certainly concerning though. It is for sure an indicator of something more. Either Gajin is just trying to block people from viewing Steam to avoid viewing the Steam reviews, or they are considering removing the game from Steam.
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Yeah, thats the scary thing. With how Gaijin’s been acting, them pulling out of Steam without giving everyone a heads up, is now a possibility if it means total damage control.
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There is still no official word on this situation from the War Thunder devs. We will update this story as events unfold.

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.

Jean Leon
1613 Posts

A tech enthusiast since ever. I like to always be up to date on the latest news in the industry and write about it. Twitter: @jean_ERdC

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