Support NeoGAF

[IbizaPocholo]

Valve Ends Look Into Assassin's Creed: Unity Positive Steam Review Bombing: "We're Just Going to Leave It Alone"

A month after the positive reviews came pouring in, Valve has decided that the proper course of action regarding Assassin's Creed: Unity's Steam "review

twinfinite.net

In March, Valve addressed off-topic, negative review bombs in a blog post similar to its most recent one. In it, Valve outlines how Steam Review Scores will be affected after acknowledging this phenomenon. Ultimately, a system was developed that allows Valve to filter out these sudden masses of negative reviews on the grounds that they’re unhealthy and inorganic when it comes to gauging the overall experience. This is something that users can opt out of, too.

The way Valve is handling positive review bombs, at least in the case of Assassin’s Creed: Unity, is very different:

“[…] We’re not really sure what to do here. It doesn’t actually seem to be a review bomb in the way we’ve previously defined them, but maybe that’s just our definition being wrong. But even if we define it as one, we’re not sure whether it should be off-topic or not. The overall Review Score would decrease by 1.3% if we marked it, which wouldn’t have any significant effect on its visibility in the store (see the FAQ below for more on that). So either way, the game itself wouldn’t be affected by our decision.”

Coming to this conclusion required Valve to question the validity of this particular review bombing, stating, “In this case, the Notre Dame tragedy has made it so that AC: Unity happens to now include the world’s best virtual recreation of the undamaged monument. That’s a context change that could be increasing the value players are getting from the game, so perhaps the game really is better than it was before?”

The blog post is a lengthy one, containing an FAQ section at the end, so be sure read into the full context of the decision.

 

[angelic]

Dlc: mystery of the destroyed cathedral, $19.99

 

[GAMETA]

I'd let it be too. Maybe more people get to see the amazing graphics and tech the game has... too bad it's not a good game, great benchmark and visual experience tho.

 

[Hudo]

And it deserves the positive reviews! Second best Assassin's Creed, IMHO.

 

[Acidizer]

Bin the fake negative reviews but keep the fake positive ones.

Big surprise there.

 

[Roni]

Bin the fake negative reviews but keep the fake positive ones.

Big surprise there.

Yeah, bug surprise people aren't gonna spend to effort to achieve nothing at all.

 

[Shifty]

Seems like a double-standardsy way to approach the situation.

Angry spam bad, but happy spam? Happy spam good.

Yeah, bug surprise people aren't gonna spend to effort to achieve nothing at all.

If they have the percentage change calculated then the effort's already been spent. This is a matter of whether policy says to click the 'remove' button or not.

 

[manfestival]

I played the game and beat the campaign. Played a couple rounds with friends and randos. It is a good game! With that set, they shouldn't have a double standard.

 

[Nymphae]

I can understand negative review bombing to a degree, you're mad about something, others are mad, and there's a big lash out in reviews.

But how can you disingenuously review something positively? I mean I suppose I could write up a review of something I don't like and lie about my opinion, but why would a large number of people ever coordinate to do that? It seems to me people are leaving positive reviews for things they think are positive, and I don't understand why that would ever be a problem unless it was determined they were all Ubisoft employees or something.

 

[Shifty]

I can understand negative review bombing to a degree, you're mad about something, others are mad, and there's a big lash out in reviews.

But how can you disingenuously review something positively? I mean I suppose I could write up a review of something I like and lie about my opinion, but why would a large number of people ever coordinate to do that? It seems to me people are leaving positive reviews for things they think are positive, and I don't understand why that would ever be a problem unless it was determined they were all Ubisoft employees or something.

Consider the case where the game is given out to free en masse because of the Notre Dame incident, and users receiving it for free decide to write a nice positive review to say thanks for the free game, thanks for honouring this piece of french history, etc.

Those reviews say nothing about the quality of the product, merely about the circumstances in which it was received. Since the whole point behind aggreegated reviews is to present a tangible gauge of quality to the consumer and inform their purchase, they're technically just as inaccurate as the "COMPANY XYZ SUCKS DON'T BUY" equivalent from negative review bombs.

 

[Nymphae]

Consider the case where the game is given out to free en masse because of the Notre Dame incident, and users receiving it for free decide to write a nice positive review to say thanks for the free game, thanks for honouring this piece of french history, etc.

That sounds like a legitimate subjective product evaluation to me though, there is no minimum level of thought that needs to be put into user reviews on steam is there? If I want to say I like this game because the main character looks cool, and then give it a positive review on steam, is this somehow unacceptable? It might be worthless lol, but it might also be a genuinely positive review.

Those reviews say nothing about the quality of the product, merely about the circumstances in which it was received.

Sounds like a Polygon review.

 

[AlteredForms]

How Valve of Valve to absolve themselves of any involvement within their platform lol.

 

[bilderberg]

It's about time Unity got its dues. It's a good fucking game.

 

[jshackles]

Consider the case where the game is given out to free en masse because of the Notre Dame incident, and users receiving it for free decide to write a nice positive review to say thanks for the free game, thanks for honouring this piece of french history, etc.

Those reviews say nothing about the quality of the product, merely about the circumstances in which it was received. Since the whole point behind aggreegated reviews is to present a tangible gauge of quality to the consumer and inform their purchase, they're technically just as inaccurate as the "COMPANY XYZ SUCKS DON'T BUY" equivalent from negative review bombs.

I'd be curious to see how a case like this stacks up against something without the emotional attachment. For example, Guacamelee is a pretty old game and it was recently given out for free on the Humble Store and on Steam. Did that garner a huge number of positive reviews to the degree in which it could be called a "review bomb"?

 

[Shifty]

That sounds like a legitimate subjective product evaluation to me though, there is no minimum level of thought that needs to be put into user reviews on steam is there? If I want to say I like this game because the main character looks cool, and then give it a positive review on steam, is this somehow unacceptable? It might be worthless lol, but it might also be a genuinely positive review.

How is "I got this for free because Notre Dame burned down, thanks!" a reflection of the product itself in any way, though? It's expressing gratitude for Ubisoft's actions rather than making any comment, big or small, on the actual thing you download, install and play.

I'd be curious to see how a case like this stacks up against something without the emotional attachment. For example, Guacamelee is a pretty old game and it was recently given out for free on the Humble Store and on Steam. Did that garner a huge number of positive reviews to the degree in which it could be called a "review bomb"?

I'd say almost certainly not- the context of ACU being linked to Notre Dame gave it a way higher profile (via news, word of mouth, etc) than your average free game giveaway on Steam, Humble or EGS.

 

[Nymphae]

How is "I got this for free because Notre Dame burned down, thanks!" a reflection of the product itself in any way, though? It's expressing gratitude for Ubisoft's actions rather than making any comment, big or small, on the actual thing you download, install and play.

It might not be, but is it not a genuine subjective review? Am I not allowed to give a thumbs up for something on Steam for any reason I choose? As I said, reviews like this are essentially useless for determining quality or anything beyond that, but that's not my job as a steam user. I'm just giving my subjective opinion, whatever that is based on.

 

[Stuart360]

I loaded the game up the other week, after the fire, and it hasnt aged very well graphically imo. Anything close to the camera still looks good, but anything distant looks very last gen. You can tell the tech is way behind Origins and Odyssey.

 

[logicslayer]

I'm not a fan of the idea. The positives that were added have nothing to do with the product itself. I'm biased though. I don't really like reviews in general.

 

[zeorhymer]

Initial launch of the game was garbage. After the patches, it's a really good game.

 

[Shifty]

It might not be, but is it not a genuine subjective review? Am I not allowed to give a thumbs up for something on Steam for any reason I choose? As I said, reviews like this are essentially useless for determining quality or anything beyond that, but that's not my job as a steam user. I'm just giving my subjective opinion, whatever that is based on.

I don't know that it counts as subjective so much as irrelevant if you aren't opining on the game itself, but you're certainly at liberty to arbitrarily assign thumbs up reviews for any reason of your choosing.
However, what if we were to apply this same logic to the thumbs down? Should you not be free to apply a thumbs down for any reason in the same manner? Not according to Valve, because that then becomes an 'off-topic review bomb'.

So what I'm ultimately saying is that positivity or negativity shouldn't apply. Either open the floodgates and allow it all in, or prune out the contextually-irrelevant stuff, but don't apply a double-standard of allowing junk in because it's positive junk.

 

[Nymphae]

However, what if we were to apply this same logic to the thumbs down? Should you not be free to apply a thumbs down for any reason in the same manner? Not according to Valve, because that then becomes an 'off-topic review bomb'.

So what I'm ultimately saying is that positivity or negativity shouldn't apply. Either open the floodgates and allow it all in, or prune out the contextually-irrelevant stuff, but don't apply a double-standard of allowing junk in because it's positive junk.

I think it should all be allowed, I think you should be able to freely review a game as positive or negative based on whatever your personal criteria is.

 

[Muffdraul]

There was so much bullshit around AC Unity. I played it at launch on PS4, and I kept waiting and waiting for the glitch cavalcade to start, but it never happened. I'd occasionally see an NPC doing something bizarre, and of course there was the notorious FPS holocaust when I climbed on that huge stained glass window, which was a known bug at the time. But other than that, it went fine from beginning to end. Eventually I realized that the vast majority of the glitch video and jpegs were probably sourced from people running an early leaked version of the PC version, with outdated drivers, no post-release patches, etc. I hear the co-op mode was legit glitched, but I personally can't say as I never play co-op. A lot of people were grinding axes back then, and to a degree Ubi asked for it with their stupid PR blunders and boners they kept committing. Granted, Unity was far from the best game in the AC franchise, but in my experience it was absolutely nowhere near the apocalyptically glitchy mess so many people made it out to be. It was actually a pretty decent AC, I thought. The stealth and loosened up assassination methods were top notch, actually. Unity and Syndicate were both unfortunate collateral damage, casualties of butthurt gamer outrage over lame PR boners. Most of the people talking shit about Unity probably never even saw anyone else play it, let alone played it themselves. So yeah, let the positive review bombs stand. Balance in the universe is all it is.