Valve making steps to address 'off-topic review bombs' on Steam

Quoting: ArdjeFinally some action against those fake reviews. Or those reviewers that have 0.5 hours on record... Why are they even allowed to review...
Since it is now up to the viewers, I want to have a filter that can filter out minimal playtime for instance. Or more statistics, like how many down and ups per week, so we can easily see if there was a shitstorm of people blindly echoing eachother not really knowing why they are doing it, just to be herding.
But personally, if a game has a negative score, I usually ignore it, and try to determine myself if I would like a game.
I have never regretted buying a game that has a bad score.

It seems you didnt get it, those reviews will be still there!! If I wrote "Game is bad, hurr durr" that review will be still there and it will be part of the score.
Valve is talking about reviews which are being motivated by things outside of the game itself, the port and the gameplay.

Its pretty dumb to pretend that someone who had 0.5 hours in game just wrote a "fake review" when maybe he cant even launch the game. But if you want to buy a game that crashes at launch be my guest.

Quoting: orochi_kyoFor being a Linux site this is really full of corporate drones, which are like, "ohh my God, those poor devs".
Review bombing works both ways, it was used on GTA V when Take Two decided to shut down the modding scene of the game by sending a C&D letter to Open GTA developers and also worked (in a positive way) when ASW (maybe most of you arent aware of this) a fighting games developer was doing their first port for PC, which were awful but everyone was happy to see the company developing for PC and everyone was like, "port is awful but ASW is trying".

Oh, great, two "positive" examples in the face of probably dozens or more negative ones... Well, the latter isn't even positive as a shitty port is a shitty port. "Is trying" is irrelevant. Game reviews are not the place for charity.

Quoting: orochi_kyoThis is just another move Valve is doing to please AAA developers, the ones who hates customers to have a voice and since Devs can ban anyone who dares to say anything negative in their hubs, this is another way for sweeping things under the rug. Too bad for Valve, so afraid of AAA devs moving to Epic Fail Store.

Nope, this has nothing to do with AAA, as games across the spectrum have been hit by it.
You also still have a voice without spamming something that is meant be about the quality of the game with irrelevant clutter: Don't buy the game, talk about it on forums, social media, etc.
It's not like suddenly you are silenced, you just cannot (well, you can, but it will be ignored by most) misuse the review system for a game for unrelated critique of the developer/publisher.
With that taken out, a bit more effort might be required - and that is a good thing, because low-effort crap like review-bombing was never useful.

Quoting: orochi_kyoAlso we stopped paid mods thanks to review bombing, but it seems being a pro-corporate anti-consumer guy is the trend these days. Funny thing all of you are consumers...

Don't fool yourself. Paid mods were stopped because of the buzz it generated, of which angry review bombs were a negligible part. Which is the same for all other cases in which review-bombs were just a symptom of a big outrage. And such outrage will continue to happen and generate buzz - just except for the review section for a game, because it has no place there.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 18 March 2019 at 8:24 am UTC

Quoting: orochi_kyoFor being a Linux site this is really full of corporate drones, which are like, "ohh my God, those poor devs".

Developers are humans, too.

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: orochi_kyoFor being a Linux site this is really full of corporate drones, which are like, "ohh my God, those poor devs".

Developers are humans, too.

Nonono, they are greedy, scummy beings, whose only intention is to suck the money out of unsuspecting, innocent users, who blindly and tragically stumble into their malicious schemes.
The suffering and screams of the innocent is the only thing keeping developers alive, don't you see it?!

How, without the powerful weapon of unrelated spam, can we possibly hope to defeat those evildoers? Oh, woe is us!

Guys, put off your tin foil hats. The only game I could find that is filtered is:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/822240/Animal_Jam__Play_Wild/

This is not a AAA game by all means. It really got review bombed without a valid reason.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider still has all reviews, Metro still has all reviews, Firewatch has still all reviews, DOTA 2 has all. I could only find this one game. If anyone has more examples I'd be very interested. But right now it absolutely looks totally sensible. Steam should have filtered out Metro's reviews, too imho...

Quoting: MalThat shouldn't even be explained. When someone decides for you what you are entitled to express your opinion on, that someone is free to shit on you.

This is not what happens. You are still able to review-bomb however you like, it's just being flagged like that. Other users are still able to see and read your review and your opinion just fine. It's just the overall score that has some new rules for calculation, and even that is configurable.

For example, you liked a game and gave it a good review. But a different new game from the same publisher has some kind of issue in your view, and you are really mad about it. You go and change your review of a different game from a different developer in order to express your disdain for the publisher.

That's one example for review bombing. For me, that is abusing a tool in a way that it never was intended for. Of course, I understand the frustration of the lack of a tool for that. If you ask me, Valve should implement ratings for developers and publishers. That way, people can express their views on these entities.

Quoting: MalBut in 2019 claiming that software is just a bunch of binaries and that everything around it from support, publisher policies, associated media, distribution platforms, pricing, DRMs, EULA and so on are totally unrelated to the product, have 0 effect on customer experience and thus must not be subject to end user review... frankly speaking: it's bullshit.

It's not that there is never a connection between those things. Just as much as there is not always a connection between them. It depends.

Quoting: stuffGuys, put off your tin foil hats. The only game I could find that is filtered is:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/822240/Animal_Jam__Play_Wild/

This is not a AAA game by all means. It really got review bombed without a valid reason.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider still has all reviews, Metro still has all reviews, Firewatch has still all reviews, DOTA 2 has all. I could only find this one game. If anyone has more examples I'd be very interested. But right now it absolutely looks totally sensible. Steam should have filtered out Metro's reviews, too imho...

Hi guys, from Valve's official announce: https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1808664240333155775

Q: Does this mean you'll be going back to identify and remove old off-topic review bombs?

A: Based on internal conversations and consultation with some of the partners that have experienced off-topic review bombs, we decided not to unilaterally grandfather in what's happened in the past.

Quoting: facePlantedHi guys, from Valve's official announce: https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1808664240333155775

Q: Does this mean you'll be going back to identify and remove old off-topic review bombs?

A: Based on internal conversations and consultation with some of the partners that have experienced off-topic review bombs, we decided not to unilaterally grandfather in what's happened in the past.

Fair enough. This Question does not appear at the News displayed when I go to steam. It always displays the German version (web and client) which only has two Q&A. Well, I guess we now should wait for the first review bombs to happen and see if this system works.
Btw. it's really easy to Show the filtered Reviews. It's more easy than usually and with a few clicks you can see why a game was review bombed. Just look for a star in the review score and click on it and from there go further.
This even helps pro-review-Bombers. You will be very quickly able so see if a game was bombed because some stupid Youtuber or DRM or Microtransactions and decide accordingly.

Quoting: monnef

Quoting: einherjar

Quoting: monnef

Quoting: stuffAnother example being Shadow of the Tomb Raider because it got a sale soon after release.

Price and value of the game is definitely part of my ratings and reviews. This is IMO deserved, they should have not cut price so soon after release ....

Hmm, but every one looking at the game a few month after release, will see a negative rating. And this does not help these customers. They want to know if the game is good if it is fun to play. They do not care, if someone thinks, the game was lowered in price to early.
So it is a point of view. If I want to inform me, if the game is fun to play - what does the reviews help me, that rate the game down, just because it was going cheap to early (and this is just a feeling of the ones, who bought it at a higher price).

The act of lowering prematurely is still present. People who bought it early were paying for a service they didn't get (exclusivity in exchange for money, they lack money and exclusivity, theft?). This is not some subjective metric, you can compare all AAA games in last several years and look at how long it should remain at the top price. Weren't last Battlefield and Fallout just weeks after release hugely discounted? Right there, that is anti-consumer and in my opinion should reflect rating of a game, because if they pulled such scam once, people should expect to pull it again and this (rating and reviews) can warn new customers against scummy practices.

I am for everything being on-topic, because seeing how Valve is incompetent - saying DRM and EULA are OFF-TOPIC and not part of a game (WTF? DRM is literally part of a game and EULA must be accepted before playing, so, in my view, part as well). I don't trust them to not **** up, because they have several times already.

Hey, I think you miss the main point, nothing is censored, you can see everything and you can decide, if you want these reviews to be counted or not!

And by the way, I shall give Eizo a bad rating for my Monitor eh? It got much cheaper, since I bought it ;-)

Quoting: monnefI am simply stating that buyers after release are paying for time-limited exclusivity, for a new game to experience it first and for some time.

Huh. When I buy a game, I'm paying so I can play a game. I don't approve of positional goods where someone pays in the hope that other people won't be able to. Seems kind of dickish to me.
But you know, under the new Steam policy I can still read the reviews explaining why lower-income lowlives like myself shouldn't be able to afford the game yet and why it's terrible that the general guideline that the proles should be kept out for a while was violated, and I can click a setting to see what the rating of the game would be with those complaints factored in. And if I'm persuaded I can then refrain from buying the game, or at least wait a decent while for the upper middle class to enjoy the snob value of the product before I muddy the waters with my economically unworthy feet. So worry not, the new policy still allows that sort of review bomb all the influence it deserves.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 18 March 2019 at 9:36 pm UTC