Isn't the issue with Deus Ex that they offered pre-order bonuses that people thought they would be able to use in any save and after launch the developers changed their description to "consumables"? That sounds misleading and scummy as hell and it obviously bothers some people more than it does others.
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There are 2 huge flaws in Steam reviews.. playtime and Steam refunds
- Thread starter texhnolyze
- Start date
Isn't the issue with Deus Ex that they offered pre-order bonuses that people thought they would be able to use in any save and after launch the developers changed their description to "consumables"? That sounds misleading and scummy as hell and it obviously bothers some people more than it does others.
the microtransactions are only available in the online-connected filler arcade mode
it's like being mad about FOBs in MGSV
You can never look to close at crowd sourced reviews. Yelp, Rotten Tomatoes, imdb, Metacritic etc. all have user scores which deviate from critics.
The issue is that critics review a wide swath of things and can be assigned to review things. People self-select what they see/play, and self-select what they review. If someone only writes reviews for a game they feel strongly about, that will skew ratings.
I just ignore user scores. If I'm curious about a game I'll read/watch professional reviews, watch some gameplay on twitch, and check out what people are saying online more generally.
The issue is that critics review a wide swath of things and can be assigned to review things. People self-select what they see/play, and self-select what they review. If someone only writes reviews for a game they feel strongly about, that will skew ratings.
I just ignore user scores. If I'm curious about a game I'll read/watch professional reviews, watch some gameplay on twitch, and check out what people are saying online more generally.
stuminus3
Banned
I mean this in the nicest possible way, but If your first reaction is "this game is a train wreck, I'm going to post a negative review on Steam!" then perhaps PC gaming isn't for you.
StereoVsn
Member
Speaking of a feature I hated in MGSV. I certainly rated the game lower on Steam because of that. I do hate that shit and it's not welcome. You may think different, and that's why aggregate reviews work.
so you rated it negative?
because you can't really rate something "high or low" on steam, it's either FOR or AGAINST
which is another dumb thing about steam reviews (not that they should have numbers assigned but a middle option would be nice)
SENPAIatLARGE
Banned
Take a minute and go to Jim Sterlings channel and gaze upon the mountains of trash that makes it to steam. In simple 10-30 minute videos thir quality is obvious. Enforcing a 2 hour limit ro review a digital homicide game and removing the review if you refund it is beyond ridiculous and only benefits bad publishers looking to make a quick buck.
Patrick Young
Member
If they won't fix the issues I have with Steam refunds, then I don't care what other people do.
I was refused a refund of Street Fighter V because I had more than three hours logged. What actually happened was the game didn't quit properly at launch and kept running in the background. I would've actually played for an hour.
The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter VR was the first game to give me motion sickness. I purchased it a few weeks before my Oculus Rift arrived. I was refused a refund because I purchased it too long ago. I played it for maybe five minutes.
I was refused a refund of Street Fighter V because I had more than three hours logged. What actually happened was the game didn't quit properly at launch and kept running in the background. I would've actually played for an hour.
The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter VR was the first game to give me motion sickness. I purchased it a few weeks before my Oculus Rift arrived. I was refused a refund because I purchased it too long ago. I played it for maybe five minutes.
PeskyToaster
Member
People use them to voice their displeasure at having to pay for content or if they are mad at some pre-order thing when I want to know if the game is good or not. Kind of tired of people whining about paying for shit.
SENPAIatLARGE
Banned
So you shouldn't warn others so they don't waste their time or money?
This is usually true except in cases where:
The developers/publishers of the game are doing something fishy, like paying for good reviews.
OR
When some internet hate group has an agenda against the game, like a gamergate situation.
To the uninformed, how would you know either of those things has taken place? In the event the dev is buying reviews, you can always refund, but in the event a good game gets buried? That sucks a lot for the devs.
abracadaver
Member
I thrust the average steam review score more than metacritic, websites or youtubers.
A 5 minute review can be just as valuable if not more than a 5 hour one.
Refund should not remove the review either.
There's a reason you got "recent reviews" and total as a game may crash for everyone at booting the first week and be patched the next. All which is valuable information.
An arbitrary time lock over the 5 minutes one that's already there is stupid.
I mean this in the nicest possibly way, but if you think this about people who post reviews on the storefront of the game about issues with playing the game then perhaps you shouldn't play video games.
Refund should not remove the review either.
There's a reason you got "recent reviews" and total as a game may crash for everyone at booting the first week and be patched the next. All which is valuable information.
An arbitrary time lock over the 5 minutes one that's already there is stupid.
So you shouldn't be able to portentialy warn others of your issues?
I mean this in the nicest possibly way, but if you think this about people who post reviews on the storefront of the game about issues with playing the game then perhaps you shouldn't play video games.
ebullientprism
Member
On an individual review basis, Steam reviews mention time played so I dont really see a problem there. Read the reviews and find out for yourself. As far as aggregates are concerned, the stupidly negative balance out the inane fanboy hype fed positive. So overall you get coverage from the entire spectrum.
I have very, VERY rarely seen Steam games whose ratings dont reflect their actual worth.
And the argument against Steam refunds boggles my mind. People make up all kinds of bullshit reasons as to why refund system is broken. Its not. Publishers are welcome to take it up with Valve if they feel it is. Its not your problem as a consumer. This is the only industrs where consumers lobby for less consumer rights. Its straight up baffling.
I have very, VERY rarely seen Steam games whose ratings dont reflect their actual worth.
And the argument against Steam refunds boggles my mind. People make up all kinds of bullshit reasons as to why refund system is broken. Its not. Publishers are welcome to take it up with Valve if they feel it is. Its not your problem as a consumer. This is the only industrs where consumers lobby for less consumer rights. Its straight up baffling.
RichiRamjag
Member
This doesn't apply for some games, but the time played is not always accurate. I had an MMO on there that I played for years just get steam and I left a review regarding the shitty practices of the devs, bad changes, etc, but of course my time played only showed like a minute because I had to install the game to leave a review.
Teletraan1
Banned
You can also choose not to read or put any stock in a review that doesn't fit your definition of what quantifies a good review. They are merely a guide and have no bearing on anything really. It is a glorified comments section with a recommend/not recommended toggle. You should probably put as much stock in them as you would YT comments since they are pretty much coming from the same source.
I trust piles of reviews more than any single review. Steam reviews serve that purpose, the same as Rotten Tomatoes does for movies. It only needs to be a reliable scale. It's only noticeably odd when a game gets dogpiled for reasons that aren't obvious like performance issues or just bad gameplay. Mankind Divided is getting shellacked right now for microtransactions. It will probably pop up to where the game itself deserves to be but the initial "mixed" serves the purpose of telling people something is off about this new release.
I know what you're getting at, but I don't think Steam playtime is a particularly informative stat.
If someone tries for 10 minutes to get the game to run and it crashes constantly, that's something I'd want to know. Someone can leave a game running in an idle state and the playtime would be artificially padded. Etc., etc.
How about adding a listing that shows their play time versus the averge of other reviews.
IE:
Played 1 hour out of a community average of 18 hours
That way if the community at large has sunk a lot of time into the game, they may not have gotten to deeper gameplay mechanics.
Similarly, if the community agrees the game is trash, the community average is going to be low.
Or how about a frequent refunder badge?
IE:
Played 1 hour out of a community average of 18 hours
That way if the community at large has sunk a lot of time into the game, they may not have gotten to deeper gameplay mechanics.
Similarly, if the community agrees the game is trash, the community average is going to be low.
Or how about a frequent refunder badge?
If refunds don't remove the review, they should at least note that it was refunded by the user.
Most of the shit posting are by people that don't play the game and just want to troll, so there should be something to stop them. If it's a review with any substance at all than great but I've seen way to many examples of shit reviews that don't contribute anything and those should be deleted.
stuminus3
Banned
Not it you haven't spent more than 5 minutes on it. PC gaming isn't console gaming.
To use Mankind Divided as an example, the game crashed at the splash screens for me. I couldn't get into the game. A little level headed troubleshooting led me to discover that the issue was actually because the game doesn't seem to like you disabling some DLC but leaving other DLC active. Yes, that's pretty stupid. But it's counter productive to instead have immediately flown into a rage and posted an angry review to "warn" others not to "waste their money".
That's how PC gaming goes, sometimes. It's a downside, sure, but there are many, many upsides to PC gaming to make up for it.
Of course it's a different story if it's a product that's absolutely fundamentally broken and there's no attempt made by the pub/dev to fix it.
Add a label saying "User refunded this" same as "user received this for free" but removing it is outright stupid IMO.
If i try for 30 minute to get the game to run with constant crashing on booting, wait a day for devs to respond, which they may or may not do and perhaps not even to satisfaction, make a review saying it is crashing and then refund it, its still a legit review of the game experience.
Rand0m TAG
Member
why? if a game is shit i would rather get a refund. a person who spends hours with a game can also be said to be biased. why the fuck would i play a game 200hrs if i hated it? should we remove those too because they are upscaling the average
this thread is stupid. reviews are reviews. should amazon remove reviews if the customer returned a defected or shitty product?
GuitarAtomik
Member
I agree the system needs some refinement OP and it's ripe for abuse. There was a guy recently who was going around downloading and giving all the free VR games negative reviews saying they should work without a headset. He obviously hadn't actually played the games because he kept proclaiming in multiple reviews that he didn't have a headset and didn't want one. The only real recourse is to tag it as "unhelpful". Maybe they can weight the review's bearing on the overall positive/negative score with how helpful it is, but there's still room for abuse there in both directions.
Either way I do think giving as much context to the review as possible helps (ie play time / was refunded / maybe version of the game at time of review). I also think separating reviews from maybe a technical performance score could be a good idea. That could give a clearer picture of the situation and give people who had little play time because of technical problems a better avenue to report that. Valve has a long way to go for sure.
Either way I do think giving as much context to the review as possible helps (ie play time / was refunded / maybe version of the game at time of review). I also think separating reviews from maybe a technical performance score could be a good idea. That could give a clearer picture of the situation and give people who had little play time because of technical problems a better avenue to report that. Valve has a long way to go for sure.
StereoVsn
Member
Yes, rated it negative. Explained in the review body why. As you say unfortunately there is no "meh" or number option. I hate the entire concept of in-store microtransactions. If I could work with a 10 scale the game probably would have gotten a 6 but that's not present.
Maintenance
Member
You say like that's a good thing, that's some stockholm syndrome right there.
The worst part of PC gaming is random fucking bugs that happen because some thing isn't compatible with some other thing or an installation gone wrong. I spent many, many hours trying to fix Stardew Valley because the game just wouldn't start, and no one had a clue what was happening. I had to delete a random .dll that was messing up a XNA install, after that the game ran without a problem. PC gaming has its benefits, I love it, but saying that shit like this is acceptable is just insane.
That would be a valid review but you can't tell me that there isn't just as many shitty reviews. Technically problems are valid and as long as it's noted that the user was refunded than it's good.
You should get a refund than, This is nothing about the refund but reviews are not reviews especially if they have nothing in them and that's the same for both positive and negative.
Exactly
stuminus3
Banned
I never said it was "acceptable". It's just a necessary evil, sometimes. Why are you swearing at me?
Again it's a different story if something is fundamentally broken with no acknowledgement. .
Man Called Aerodynamics
Member
The question of how much play time is enough to have a "valid" opinion on a game is completely arbitrary and subjective.
Rapscallion74
Banned
Pretty much this.
The system is fine. Sometimes you know immediately that you got a stinker on your hands. Quit worrying about what others are thinking and form your own opinions.
Thanks I laughed !
Steam needs to overhaul their review system. Supplement the yes/no recommendation with ratings on a 5-star scale in the following categories:
gameplay
graphics
compatibility/performance
sound/music
story
(or something similar)
I want to be able to rate games without writing a review. That's a big issue with the written reviews - some are quite helpful, many are not ("pressed start, died, 10/10 would play again") since in order to rate the game you need to write something. Give users the tools to better score games, then the written reviews will also improve in quality as they become optional for people who want to explain why they rated each category the way they did.
This way someone can look at the store page and get a much better picture of why a game is rated the way it is.
"Only 65% of users recommend this game. Oh, I guess it's because compatibility is rated 2 stars."
"Hmm, the gameplay and graphics aren't rated very highly but story is nearly 5 stars."
etc.
Requiring certain playtimes to review games is pointless since people can just idle them without actually playing. Focus on giving users the tools to provide better reviews and ratings. As it stands writing a one sentence review with a thumbs down is the only way for a user who has played the game to inform other prospective buyers of major flaws, performance issues, etc. That's the system working as intended/capable. Improving the system will improve the quality of written reviews (or filter out the less helpful/informative ones).
gameplay
graphics
compatibility/performance
sound/music
story
(or something similar)
I want to be able to rate games without writing a review. That's a big issue with the written reviews - some are quite helpful, many are not ("pressed start, died, 10/10 would play again") since in order to rate the game you need to write something. Give users the tools to better score games, then the written reviews will also improve in quality as they become optional for people who want to explain why they rated each category the way they did.
This way someone can look at the store page and get a much better picture of why a game is rated the way it is.
"Only 65% of users recommend this game. Oh, I guess it's because compatibility is rated 2 stars."
"Hmm, the gameplay and graphics aren't rated very highly but story is nearly 5 stars."
etc.
Requiring certain playtimes to review games is pointless since people can just idle them without actually playing. Focus on giving users the tools to provide better reviews and ratings. As it stands writing a one sentence review with a thumbs down is the only way for a user who has played the game to inform other prospective buyers of major flaws, performance issues, etc. That's the system working as intended/capable. Improving the system will improve the quality of written reviews (or filter out the less helpful/informative ones).
qa_engineer
Member
One other flaw is that it does not take into account VR headset ownership. For a while we were seeing review scores tank on a handful of VR only games, some great and some not so great, because the idiots who didn't see the clearly printed warning on the side stating you need a VR headset in order to play. Most of the reviews are a thumbs down with a sentence that reads "lol stupid game needs VR headset." or "this game sucks because it requires a 600 USD Vive"
Are you fucking kidding me?
Are you fucking kidding me?
diablos991
Can’t stump the diablos
Wtf? Port quality should absolutely be part of the reviews.
Customers need to know when they are buying an inferior version of a game.
Refunds are also important information for the consumer.
I would like a more transparent overall refund rate per game so I can make an informed decision.
Customers need to know when they are buying an inferior version of a game.
Refunds are also important information for the consumer.
I would like a more transparent overall refund rate per game so I can make an informed decision.
I still would like to see these kind of reviews, if they can be filtered. If a game is a compatibility mess I want to know it before buying, if all the people who cannot run the game refund it it won't get bad reviews. And that is also bad.
PepsimanVsJoe
Member
That's just plain baffling.
Many of the games on the service take less than 4 hours to complete.
Maintenance
Member
Again, that's stupid.
Only on gaming you see people asking for less consumer rights, what the fuck.
Yeah some of the suggestions in here are insane. Thankfully they'll never be implemented.
People should judge the review based on the merit of what was written. If you feel like one minute of play and one sentence review isn't good enough, then move on to the next review. There are tons of reviews and you can filter through them in lots of ways.
That's what it is before you can review a game on Nintendo's eShop. And that's just for scoring and preselected options, no written review.
Because people don't like it when their favourite toy isn't the favourite for other people as well.
Sgt.Pepper
Banned
who cares
there are even waifus/10 reviews in that shit
burn it all down
there are even waifus/10 reviews in that shit
burn it all down
I don't think there's any meaningful restrictions that wouldn't do more harm then they're worth. But on the other hand lets not pretend shitty user reviews are in any way useful to the average consumer. The consumer is served by having quality reviews, theres just no real way to drive people towards that other than the current upvote/downvote thing they have.
I mean, that's generally my position on Chivalry, it's shit, but it's great shit, and it needs optimization badly, but it's been abandoned by the devs p much. I like to call it the best shittiest game.
L4DANathan
Member
I came in with an open mind about Steam's many flaws and saw that your first statement was that the functionality of a game shouldn't be part of a review. Then I sighed in disappointment at the games' industry.
But in response to the general idea, opening the floodgates to everyone for review generally gets you a somewhat accurate opinion, because there's generally an equal amount of joke/shit reviews in both directions. The exception to this is games that get review bombed, but that's generally directed at AAA games where you're more than likely to get info elsewhere. Wouldn't mind a change to the review system requiring at least an hour of play though.
But in response to the general idea, opening the floodgates to everyone for review generally gets you a somewhat accurate opinion, because there's generally an equal amount of joke/shit reviews in both directions. The exception to this is games that get review bombed, but that's generally directed at AAA games where you're more than likely to get info elsewhere. Wouldn't mind a change to the review system requiring at least an hour of play though.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
only use steam reviews for reference on something that happened in the game, i.e. KF2's cash shop and patch changes, uPlay in general, etc.
Quadraphonic
Member
This is not a new system of people complaining, whether justly or unjustly.
If you do your job right, quality will out. If it doesn't, the issue is still on you.
If you do your job right, quality will out. If it doesn't, the issue is still on you.
adamantypants
Member
Steam reviews are about as useful as Youtube comments
HanzSnubSnub
Member
I disagree. If a game has negative first impressions, I would like to know about it.
You can use common sense to gauge the validity of each review. Obviously if they only played an hour, you know it was first impressions. If they have 20 hours on record, you know they gave it a chance.
You can use common sense to gauge the validity of each review. Obviously if they only played an hour, you know it was first impressions. If they have 20 hours on record, you know they gave it a chance.