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PayPalValve have carefully tweaked the user review system for Steam games, to now include language-specific user review scores.
This new system is on by default for all Steam users, however Valve said they realise changes will bring scrutiny and so there is a dedicated setting to disable it. If you do disable it, your Steam account will go back to seeing the overall review score from all languages posting Steam reviews.
Why have they done this? As Valve explained, they've grown a lot into having a massive global presence from users from all difference regions. Some games may have translation issues, specific cultural references and so on. Valve feel this language-based review score will help to capture these issues and that "Calculating a language-specific review score means that we can better distil the sentiment of these different groups of customers, and in doing so, better serve potential customers that belong to those groups".
Keeping it all rather transparent, there's a whole new language breakdown section for Steam reviews you can click to open. At the top of the reviews section is this now:
And when you open the language breakdown you'll get to see the overall score as well:
Source: Valve
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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* Exclude reviews that are off-topic and from other languages
* Include reviews from all Steam purchases
No option to "include all languages, exclude off-topic"?
No option to "include all languages, exclude off-topic"?
I guess that's still the default (first picture upper left)?
No option to "include all languages, exclude off-topic"?
I guess that's still the default (first picture upper left)?
Default is "Exclude reviews that are off-topic and from other languages".
Last edited by Vigil on 18 Aug 2025 at 8:46 pm UTC
FutureSuture 18 Aug 2025
when we think steam is feature complete, they find another way to inovate, and in this case, this sound like an obvious feature to add, im surprised no one thought of that before.This feature has existed on GOG for several years.
And of course, for consumers, it makes it easier than looking for reviews mentioning this specifically.
Last edited by Salvatos on 18 Aug 2025 at 11:01 pm UTC
Also, they could at least add "neutral" score, if they don't want to extend it to full 5 score (which I kinda understand, because people can't comprehand it and can't give 3/5 for "OK title that's neither good nor bad" and everything is inflated upwards 🤦♂️)
R Daneel Olivaw 19 Aug 2025
Like for instance, I love playing fantasy or scifi rpgs. None of them are based in any semblance of present day places or people. So ... again, I don't care if a person speaks spanish or english, or whatever, why would I?
Also, as someone who wants to be LESS insular (especially in these horrible united states right now) wouldn't it be good to get some gaming thoughts and reviews from people from different cultures all over the world? Why would I want to remove all that?
I see specific "this game isn't translated well" negative reviews totally separate, and feel they could have tackled that issue differently.
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