The indie Steam game Domina has been review-bombed with a large number of negative reviews on Steam due to the developer Dolphin Barn Incorporated making an anti-mask rant in the game’s recent patch notes. Fans are not pleased with the developer inserting personal political stances so bluntly into a game that’s supposed to be about gladiator management.
Anti-mask rant in patch notes causes immediate backlash
In the v1.3.18 patch notes for Domina, between the rather mundane bullet points for optimized particle effects and game balancing, the developer has some choice words about masks during the Covid pandemic:
“TAKE OFF THE FCKN MASKS – Next time you’re at the grocery store, try showing a woman your face. Be confident, unafraid of the LIES — you might get a girlfriend. Women like confidence. Women don’t like dudes who cover their faces in fear. What are you afraid of? Getting laid? Grow up.”
This is not the first time Dolphin Barn has inserted commentary into their patch notes. In the v.1.2.89 update to the game, there are some… choice words for people who the developer considers “weak men”:
“…weak men lack character. strong moral fibre is hard to come by. it’s earned through hard work and sacrifice and it cannot be had via onlyfans or pornhub. no, those fuckin’ things are demonic posessions waiting to show you a succubus tiddy in the hopes you’ll waste a load on her…”
At the same time, the developer doesn’t want you to “let strangers on the internet tell you how to live your life.”
Not surprisingly, backlash from user reviews on Steam have been swift and severe. One reviewer is bewildered by the developers “using their patch notes as a glorified twitter feed,” though many just accuse the game for “removing content from the game to sell later as dlc.” At the time of this writing, the game has a “Mostly Negative” rating with only 24% of reviews within the last 30 days being positive.
In other news, the game director for the Perfect Dark reboot has left, and many Xbox games, except for Halo, work currently on Steam Deck.
