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Valve changes User Review system to combat "off-topic review bombs"
- Thread starter Chairmanchuck (另一个我)
- Start date
This could be good or bad. I guess you should look purely at the game and not something stupid the company said on twitter when leaving a review. Idk if this will be well received.
Interesting. Placeholder response until I read the blog post.
Ok:
Good: Specifically targeted to "Off Topic Review Bomb" = Snowflake tears over a woman in a game, a brown character or a gay romance.
Bad: "Off Topic Review Bomb"= DRM and EULA changes. The rationalization is that they don't have anything to do with the game specifically as something you can review.
Note: System is opt in.
Ok:
Good: Specifically targeted to "Off Topic Review Bomb" = Snowflake tears over a woman in a game, a brown character or a gay romance.
Bad: "Off Topic Review Bomb"= DRM and EULA changes. The rationalization is that they don't have anything to do with the game specifically as something you can review.
Note: System is opt in.
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Quoting myself from PCERA:
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As i understand, the new system is default, but completely optional, people that want can go back to the system as it has been until now.
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As i understand, the new system is default, but completely optional, people that want can go back to the system as it has been until now.
Q: I care about some things that I worry other players don't, like DRM or EULA changes. Review bombs have been about them in the past. Do you consider them unrelated or off-topic?
A: We had long debates about these two, and others like them. They're technically not a part of the game, but they are an issue for some players. In the end, we've decided to define them as off-topic review bombs. Our reasoning is that the "general" Steam player doesn't care as much about them, so the Review Score is more accurate if it doesn't contain them. In addition, we believe that players who do care about topics like DRM are often willing to dig a little deeper into games before purchasing - which is why we still keep all the reviews within the review bombs. It only takes a minute to dig into those reviews to see if the issue is something you care about.
Nah, this sucks. It seems like this is a publisher-focused move to help them avoid review score hits when they fuck up in various ways.
Shitty change.
A: We had long debates about these two, and others like them. They're technically not a part of the game, but they are an issue for some players. In the end, we've decided to define them as off-topic review bombs. Our reasoning is that the "general" Steam player doesn't care as much about them, so the Review Score is more accurate if it doesn't contain them. In addition, we believe that players who do care about topics like DRM are often willing to dig a little deeper into games before purchasing - which is why we still keep all the reviews within the review bombs. It only takes a minute to dig into those reviews to see if the issue is something you care about.
Nah, this sucks. It seems like this is a publisher-focused move to help them avoid review score hits when they fuck up in various ways.
Shitty change.
Review bombs can lead to action. I don't really support them but that's what I've observed. Maybe backlash on social media will be enough.
good. That shit was exploited by bigots and other fucks for far too long, and it was plain as day to anybody who wasn't an absolute tool
Did your game include a progressive message? Did a developer speak out against discrimination? Did it include a, gasp, woman?!
Welp, time for the fine Nazi friendly community of Steam to bomb it to fuck.
Did your game include a progressive message? Did a developer speak out against discrimination? Did it include a, gasp, woman?!
Welp, time for the fine Nazi friendly community of Steam to bomb it to fuck.
Agreed. It's totally reasonable to review bomb a game for things that might be outside its immediate purview of quality (like censorship, as was the case with Siege last year leading into Y3S4), especially since Steam already gives users a ton of tools and metrics to highlight why a game might be getting more negative reviews recently compared to its reviews since release.
This is probably the most important part. The reviews will still be there at least so if a company does some shitty they can still be held accountable. But we'll have to see how it works in practice.
Valve doing something kinda right for once. If they want a place on steam for discussion about developers and their practices external to the playing of a game they could make developer pages a place to leave customer service reviews without a stupid pointless number attached to it.
I don't think review bombing gets any real results, we should think about another way
I see more good out of this than bad. Like even the post explains, if people want to dig deeper than 3 minutes they'll find anything that people are having complaints about. Review bombs are so easy to do that I think it's better to get this system rolling out asap.
The only thing I disagree with is not allowing DRM inclusion to negatively affect a game's score. Because as we've seen, DRM can drastically affect a games performance, and if we mention that in the review it will now get flagged as a review bomb.
Pretty much.
I guess steam really wants to be extra friendly with publishers now, geee I wonder why.
If the president of a company says something racist, sexist, homophobic, etc I want to know about it and see it reflected on their review... But sadly, this is a two way street since bigots and racists will use positive comments or ones that attack hatred and a means and reason to review bomb as well...
That said, saying DRM is off topic to reviews is incredibly stupid. It's very on topic since DRM can and does have an effect on the end user.
That said, saying DRM is off topic to reviews is incredibly stupid. It's very on topic since DRM can and does have an effect on the end user.
Does that just mean reviews will change from "They put the feeeeemaaaaaaleeeees into my gamez" to "It brakes all the time (because of those feminists)"
You just have to be tiny bit more creative, right?
You just have to be tiny bit more creative, right?
I'm totally against review bombing and think Valve should have done more to combat it earlier (in fact, I think it's in large part thanks to toxic review bombing indies have embraced the Epic store), but I don't like the broad strokes approach they are implementing. DRM concerns are completely valid.
I'm glad Valve is doing something about this but I'm still wary about these new changes. I'll have to see it in action for myself.
It seems like something that will be difficult to manage and I imagine the review bombers will find a way around it.
If user reviews are ever wrongly removed it could look really bad for Valve, people will say Valve have been paid by publishers to remove legitimate criticism.
If user reviews are ever wrongly removed it could look really bad for Valve, people will say Valve have been paid by publishers to remove legitimate criticism.
Then that isn't considered "off topic".
Neither would DRM be as long as it's performance affecting. I think giving an otherwise good game a negative review score just because it includes denuvo/etc. is not at all helpful for the general user trying to see if they want to buy the game and Valve is absolutely right - anyone in this thread that is upset about DRM on principal can still read the reviews or just opt out of this feature.
I'm probably gonna opt out of this though. Review bombing sucks but it started for a reason. It needs to be dealt with, but also players need better communication with the developers/publishers.
I'd like it more if they tagged review-bombed games as controversial and highlighted all reviews during that time period. That way it doesn't just completely fly under the radar for people that don't know about this change / rely on the scores.
It's a good change, but I do not believe that DRM and EULA changes should be considered off-topic.
It's great that it's an opt-in/out, since I'll be opting out of it.
It's great that it's an opt-in/out, since I'll be opting out of it.
THQ Nordic got them by the balls or something?? This is probably a necessary step but I have some issues with the specifics of the implementation, because there are some things not related to the game that are absolutely relevant for purchase decisions. Like, "Does this game have spyware-y or CPU-throttling DRM?" or "Have this company's high-ranking executives recently been palling around with nazi pedophiles?"
if you want to read it that way rather than have general reading comprehension, go for it.
Yeah I read it wrong, sorry for misrepresenting what you said.
You were never able to review a game that you didn't own.
And the problem with having a minimum playtime of 30 minutes is that some small indie games are only 15 minutes long.
Depends, review bombing is great when it's done after a dev or publisher fucks up like how GTA5 mods got banned. Review bombing is terrible when subhuman alt righters use it to cry about women or black people in their games.
More often that not, review bombing is a collective effort to shit on a game because, "I don't like what you did".
The last thing I want to deal with is dozens and hundreds of man-children who rate a game 1 out of 5 because they didn't like the FOV slider or some stupid shit.