Valve restricts who can leave Steam game reviews to thwart shills

[qubit]

They've done several things, but this is the main one and it's a biggie:

The majority of review score manipulation we're seeing by developers is through the process of giving out Steam keys to their game, which are then used to generate positive reviews... As of today, the recent and overall review scores we show at the top of a product page will no longer include reviews written by customers that activated the game through a Steam product key.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/24155

 

[INSTG8R]

Hmm I don't write many reviews but I do buy alot of games and most of them are keys. Wonder how that will work.
I don't have any issue with there reason tho.

 

[Ungari]

The practice of buying reviews and paying PR Agency people to pose as gamers on forum boards and reddit has become so rampant that it has become very difficult for shoppers to find out the truth before they purchase.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Wouldn't that eliminate reviews by people that bought it from Humble Bundle, Bundle Stars, and Green Man Gaming? They're activated with keys, not direct purchases from Valve.

I think the correct policy is that Steam should mark keys explicitly as promotional so when the key is redeemed, Steam instantly knows that was a "free" key given out by the publisher for the sake of publicity.

 

[rtwjunkie]

So, I noticed they specifically mentioned CD keys can also not do reviews. That little action seems to not be to thwart paid reviews, but to force publishers to stop making physical game copies.

I do like their attempt to make sure reviews are legitimate, though.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Isn't it pretty obvious which reviews were paid though? They're usually a lot longer and have fancy formatting. I think most potential buyers are all TL;DR on them.

 

[qubit]

Isn't it pretty obvious which reviews were paid though? They're usually a lot longer and have fancy formatting. I think most potential buyers are all TL;DR on them.

Yeah, they're so tedious to read. I don't think you can say that they'd all be like that. Sometimes short and sweet does the job too. Long story short, you can't fully trust any of the reviews due to this pollution.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I'd say the aggregate is usually pretty accurate though (Overwhelmingly Positive, Very Positive, Mostly Positive, Mixed, Mostly Negative, Very Negative, Overwhelmingly Negative). I wish they'd change to at least a trinary rating (up, meh, down) instead of binary (up, down).

 

[qubit]

Yes, a mid "meh" rating would be appropriate and I've been thinking that myself.

Even though I can't quite trust the reviews (and seeing this development I was a bit shocked at the level of rigging going on) I still use them as a guide and generally look at the bad reviews first.

The one game where the reviews were total pants though is CoD: Ghosts. I really liked the game and thought it was as good as the previous ones I'd played and even better in some ways, with a compelling storyline. However, every single review that I managed to find on Steam and there are a lot of them, totally slagged it off as complete garbage. That includes the "positive" reviews as well! Clearly the reviews for this particular game are garbage and therefore don't reflect its true quality. Never seen so many anti-fanboys frothing at the mouth so much.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

I dont think Steam really knows what to do with reviews, it cant verify each user is an actual gamer/purchaser, they may as well remove review comments too.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

They could also add a time played metric and break it down on a bell curve. That would give a good idea how long the game is and you would be able to narrow it down to people who most likely beat the game once. The problem is that this creates a conflict with trading cards whose drops are also based on time played.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that Valve could be doing a lot of things with reviews and put the tools to find the best reviews in the consumer's hands. Instead, they're choosing what they want consumers to see in an effort to boost sales.

I don't think reviews boost sales, they narrow the selection of what a consumer with money is willing to buy. Valve fundamentally needs to decide between consumers (provide review filtering tools) and publishers (cook the books to hide negative reviews).

 

[RejZoR]

So, I noticed they specifically mentioned CD keys can also not do reviews. That little action seems to not be to thwart paid reviews, but to force publishers to stop making physical game copies.

I do like their attempt to make sure reviews are legitimate, though.

Exactly. And I often buy games on CD KEYS where the keys come from retail versions. Meaning my reviews won't count towards the review score of the game. Which is just stupid.

 

[slozomby]

They could also add a time played metric and break it down on a bell curve. That would give a good idea how long the game is and you would be able to narrow it down to people who most likely beat the game once. The problem is that this creates a conflict with trading cards whose drops are also based on time played.

that punishes downvotes. sometimes the games not worth playing all the way through. on the other hand I might only have 5 hours of goat simulator according to steam. but I've enjoyed every second of it. on multiple platforms.

 

[Recon-UK]

I leave reviews, like how Far Cry 1 is a crock of shit on Steam, instant dislikes on it even though it is the truth lol since it uses a patch that breaks AI and game content.... who would have known eh?

Dick riders.

 

[INSTG8R]

They could also add a time played metric and break it down on a bell curve. That would give a good idea how long the game is and you would be able to narrow it down to people who most likely beat the game once. The problem is that this creates a conflict with trading cards whose drops are also based on time played.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that Valve could be doing a lot of things with reviews and put the tools to find the best reviews in the consumer's hands. Instead, they're choosing what they want consumers to see in an effort to boost sales.

I don't think reviews boost sales, they narrow the selection of what a consumer with money is willing to buy. Valve fundamentally needs to decide between consumers (provide review filtering tools) and publishers (cook the books to hide negative reviews).

Yeah it's "almost" as bad as Metacriic for anything reliable outside of the fact you at least have to own the game. But as you said time played should really factor in.Typical 1hr of played negative reviews are getting to be the norm and don't do anything to help buyers decide if they just look at the just the Overall scores.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Any game that has been given away for free often gets farmed for trading cards and these people farming often leave reviews too even though they did little more than start and stop the game. Bell curve would eliminate those reviews unless the game is really, really, short.

I'm still baffled they haven't made trading card drops based on achievement unlocks not unlike how uPlay does action -> reward.

 

[D007]

About time. lol.. Steam is so full of trolls, I can't even take it seriously, in regard to reviews.

 

[Recon-UK]

About time. lol.. Steam is so full of trolls, I can't even take it seriously, in regard to reviews.

It's full of defenders too.

 

[D007]

It's full of defenders too.

Yea those are like trolls in bizarro world..lol..
Molls n trolls, molls n trolls.. work, work, work, work.