They're removing the worthless off-topic reviews that have nothing to do with the actual game. That's not what most people would consider "censorship".
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I have to disagree because the business choices of a company and the resulting 'trustworthiness' or perceptions of them also factors in to people's opinions and is reflected there. This is absolutely relevant to me when I'm reading reviews. It's funny how this only raised as an issue when the reaction is critical or unfavorable as opposed to complimentary.
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That's probably because people aren't organizing massive campaigns to spam undeserving games with positive reviews because of something the publisher did right with another, completely unrelated title. If that /was/ happening, you can bet your ass that I (and others) would be complaining about it. Getting suckered into buying a mediocre game because of deliberately misleading reviews is worse than getting put off of a good game due to review bombing.
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Well I have seen the other end of the spectrum. I can't tell you the number of times that I have seen positive reviews that look suspect or like they are the result of organized manipulation or bribery. Beyond that it also seems like no one bats an eye when there is some positive 'reviews' that only say useless things like "my cat approves" or "10/10 would sell my kidney again for this game" with absolutely zero substantiating content to them but now these same people who turned a blind eye to that want to get up in arms about negative reviews. And as far as what I said previously that hasn't changed. A company's business practices/ethics can and should be a factor in people expressing their opinion if they feel that it is a part of the equation. They want their voices to be heard by these companies that are making poor decisions that they don't approve of as consumers and whom aren't getting the message.
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You're mischaracterizing things there.
You're right, people usually don't bat an eye over positive reviews that aren't very substantive. Though it would be nice if they explained /why/ they loved the game, a ton of people posting something positive at least tells you that the game's generally well-liked and people are enjoying it. But people also don't bat an eye over NEGATIVE reviews that aren't very substantive ("This game blows!") - like the positive ones, they still help give a feel for whether or not the game's worth buying.
No, what people are up in arms over are negative reviews THAT DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE GAME AT ALL. If I'm looking at reviews of Borderlands 2 to help me decide whether or not to buy it, people spamming negative reviews because of something the publisher did with some other game is completely irrelevant and misleading.
And has it occurred to you that maybe not all of us agree with or care about the protestors' "ethical stance" on this particular issue? If a publisher makes their game a 6-month exclusive on the Epic store before releasing on Steam, so what? Either I'll buy it on the Epic store, or more likely, just wait a few months and grab it on Steam when it releases there. It's six months, not six years. It's not like there are no other games to play. And if it wasn't coming to Steam at all, well, same story. Either I get it on Epic, or i skip it. From a purely personal perspective, all these meltdowns and demands that publishers MUST put their games on THIS service because "WE said so!" just seems kind of childish and entitled to me.
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Q: Are you deleting reviews?
A: No, we are only changing the way we calculate a game's Review Score. All reviews are left untouched, and if you still want to see the raw Review Score, you're welcome to make that change in your Steam Store Preferences.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1808664240333155775
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No, they only don't insert the numbers in the statistics
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Are you seriously comparing review-bombing and abortion?
Also, what do you mean, it's unfair "to do that to Borderlands"? Is the game a person? Does it have feelings?
Also, who are you talking to? The people doing the review-bombing? Are they on SG?
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This is called comparison. Are You really taking it seriously?
Wait... okay. I will stop answering to You. Rethorical question is not a dialogue. When You grow up to the discussion, I will continue it.
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Now a more profound question ...
This is what it looks like when a person reacts with intellect instead of emotion. Emotions are meant to be expressed and possibly examined. Ideas, on the other hand, are opportunities for discussion and exploration. Sometimes, people get the two scenarios confused.
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Sometimes, people get the two scenarios confused.
Yep. Just as often as people confuse opinions and facts. I guess the internet doesn't help with that in general.
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Just as often as people confuse opinions and facts. I guess the internet doesn't help with that in general.
"Of course it's real. I saw it on the internet." D
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Re-read your original post, and then tell me which one of us should "grow up."
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Because it's power of community. There are previous examples of GTA V, Skyrim etc.
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Yes but this is totally different.
In that case review bombing was caused by stuff that affects the gameplay, so a bad review makes sense.
In this case nope, releasing on epic doesn't affect the gameplay of borderlands 3 and literally nothing will change for BL2\BL1
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We can argue paid mods don't decrease the quality of a game, game produced by a dev team and a publisher, same for allowing mods at all. You can play Skyrim without mods if you want.
It's not that different. What is rejected is the mentality behind those moves (paid mods, no mods, moving to EGS...) and what it means for pc gaming.
We obviously have to use all tools needed/in our possession to protect what we like in pc gaming.
Maybe you don't care about EGS exclusive, but the world doesn't revolve around you.
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I could say that maybe you care about epic but the world doesn't revolve around you...
Also mods are not just a detail, games like Skyrim are successful because of them, just take a look at Reddit, most of the shared content is about mods or funny glitch/bugs
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If a game markets itself on its mod support, then yeah, restricting mods will affect the game.
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Changing the review when game changes it's okay.
Changing the review because something else happen, that doesn't affect the game is unfair.
If the developer added microtransactions to the game, changing the review to negative is justified. But being mad is not a proper reason to to that. Even if they are right, it's not fair.
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"paid mods" didn't change the base game provided by dev team and publisher, didn't change what you buy.
So if that is ok for a review change, as you say, you'll understand easily how it's ok for an EGS exclusivity.
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I know. That's why I would like to have history of reviews, so people can see what those reviews were before someone just raged. it should be "Recent: Mostly negative (mostly positive)" or something like that. People will see that it's somehow contradictory and will check what happened. And review would show button or link saying "Show previous reviews" and it would say if the recent review was different.
For example.
Review of JohnDoe12:
Negative
"Bla bla bla, game is terrible!!!"
Was that review helpful?
Yes, no, funny
This review was positive before 2019-03-30
It would show how those people are cheating the reviews.
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You wouldn't have even noticed unless you changed your review settings from default to "Include reviews from all Steam purchases in Review Scores."
They implemented it for a reason.
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Wait, what? I pretty much didn't change anything and I did notice "mostly negative" reviews.
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it's unfair to do that to Borderlands.
People try to make their voice count with the very limited means at their disposal. That's not even doing any harm to Borderlands since Steam blanket-blocks all those reviews.
Personally I don't really care about limited-time exclusivity, particularly if it can help put a stop to an unhealthy Valve quasi-monopoly. But if people want to rant, it seems fair enough to do so on another game of the same series.
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Then boycott Epic Game Stor and/or Borderlands 3, not prequels.
It didn't harm Borderlands BECAUSE Steam blocked that. But if it didn't it would harm franchise deeply. Also it's pretty much abuse.
The problem isn't exclusivity itself. But what titles and how many of them are exclusive. And the bribery, and all the problems around the Epic Game store. Because it's making temporary monopoly. And harm the free market. It's anti-competitive behavior. EG Store just popped out of nowhere and started this mess. Nobody has ever done that. Even infamouse EA, Bethesda or Activision. Problem with Epic Game Store is that it wants to steal the sales. Not make competitive platform and set lower prices to fight with Steam. This is something, we can't allow. It's against the freedom and pretty much should be against the law. Also, EG already break law with stealing the data of its users. I somehow doubt it was by accident. It sounds so absurdal. They didn't notice they were collecting that data? Yeah, of course I will believe that xD If EG started with fair play, I wouldn't boycott it now. Time exclusivity? Well, it's bad. But we can bear it. But we can't allow a thief doing what he wants. And EG is nothing else than a thief and a briber.
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Also it's pretty much abuse.
I don't get why you seem upset about "abusive" reviews on the Borderlands franchise while at the same time you put an authentic wall of text complaining about EG-exclusives right below this.
Not make competitive platform and set lower prices to fight with Steam
Actually, they are indeed taking a significantly lower fee than Steam from the devs. But rather than setting lower end-user prices, devs chose to increase their margin.
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Oh, cool. But not only 1 and 2, TPS too.
Some people would say it's censorship, but it's actually not.
Good that Steam doesn't allow such things.
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Some people would say it's censorship, but it's actually not.
It is. Source: any dictionary.
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Firstly, dictionaries are made by people. They don't exist before. So this is exactly how it works.
And no, not a single dictionary would say that.
And dictionary won't tell You what is, or what isn't something. You have to use Your brain to judge it. That's why it's a judge who give a judgement, not a book. Because situations differs. And any intelligent person will se exactly the same, I said here.
If You are blindly reading dictionary and You think You know everything, You probably don't know anything. Cause only human being is capable of judging what is what. Definition in the dictionary can't fit every situation.
Otherwise, lying to a nazis about not having jews would be bad, because by definition lying is bad.
Also You know, we have censorship and censorship. Two words that means completely different thing?
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Otherwise, lying to a nazis about not having jews would be bad, because by definition lying is bad.
No, if you actually read the definition in a dictionary, you would know that "by definition lying is bad" is an erroneous statement. Here are the definitions of "lie, verb" in a dictionary:
1) to say (something) that you know is not true
2) (of a situation, objects, etc.) to give (someone) the impression that an untrue situation is true
A dictionary's mission is to provide definitions, not judgement about whether something is good or bad.
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What the hell is wrong with you..?
Edit: Great, got click-baited by a tr***.
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The suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.
This wasn't why they were taken down and you know it. It was because they didn't belong there. Problem is that Steam hasn't made a "publisher review system", so people have nowhere else to go. But two wrongs don't make a right. So all in all, if you feel the need to rely on a dictionary, then make sure that you know the definition.
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None of these support that censorship is the act of removing irrelevant information from an inappropriate place. Or is Wikipedia just a censorship factory now?
Removing "I fucking hate my ex-wife" from the constitution is alright if it doesn't belong there.
Not to mention, nothing was even removed. Their value in the overall score was just stripped. There's a time and place for everything and in this case, the place wasn't right. Stopping a person from publicly masturbating isn't suppression of citizens just like talking solely about the publisher in a review about the game isn't censorship.
Mind you, Steam doesn't prohibit reviews that mention publishers and what they've done. If it influences you, then they're fine with it. Just that "FUCK EPIC" isn't a review for any Borderlands. It's spam.
But I guess we just disagree on the base level already.
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None of these support that censorship is the act of removing irrelevant information from an inappropriate place
"Relevance" of the removed information isn't part of the definition.
Or is Wikipedia just a censorship factory now?
Pretty much, yes.
Removing "I fucking hate my ex-wife" from the constitution is alright if it doesn't belong there.
I don't think anyone ever tried to put up that here... maybe out of self-censorship?
Just that "FUCK EPIC" isn't a review for any Borderlands. It's spam.
Suppressing "spam" is still censorship.
PS: maybe now is the time for you to realize that censorship isn't always nor by definition "bad"? But "good censorship" is still "censorship"
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Hmm, fair enough, I guess. For you anything that doesn't exist is because of censorship. At that point, censorship loses its point. Not taking a dose of heroin is self-censorship now. So all in all, claiming something to be censorship means nothing, since censorship now is "not doing something/not saying something/removing something/deciding not to remove something" and so on and so forth. It's like saying "I breathed oxygenized air". There's a reason no one says it. Your definition kills the word "censorship"
But yeah, it's a fundamental difference we have. That's just life.
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Not taking a dose of heroin is self-censorship now
Taking a dose of heroin isn't really speech / emitting some kind of opinion or communication. Not saying/writing to someone "I take heroin" could be self-censorship. Not taking any, just self-preservation I'd say ^^
It's like saying "I breathed oxygenized air". There's a reason no one says it. Your definition kills the word "censorship"
People still seem to use "censorship" a lot with that very definition, though... So I guess the word is alive and well for them 👀
Can't say as much about "I breathed oxygenized air" indeed, although that might happen in hospitals I suppose :D
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- valve introduced changes to get rid of these "irrelevant" reviews, so they won't count anyway soon (which is a questionable move, but still). even though devs already have instruments to remove "irrelevant" reviews they don't like.
- people don't have any other instrument to provide the negative uncensored feedback that will be heard. official channels and forums will ignore it at best and censor/remove criticism at worst.
- why in fact hate epic? they just make an offer and it's devs/pubs decision to take it or not. they took it, they face the consequences.
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- I've seen that they changed something. But didn't have time or will to check it. IMO it's very good move.
- Except they do. Boycott. Not buying a game, not using the store is what works the best. And harming the other games with fake reviews will not work anyway. And will harm the franchise at best.
- Because they are not playing fair and competitive. Bribery, security breaches, monoppoly, stealing user's data etc. This is not how honest company works.
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- every censorship law is made with good intentions in mind. but later it turns into a legal power abuse. just wait.
- no they don't, you clearly didn't interact with a company that thinks it's doing the right thing. remember why paid mods failed? would it stop if everyone was tolerant about it and "just didn't buy it"? there is always this silent majority that will eat up any decision a company makes. it's kind of like a majority will never bother about minority concerns until they cry out loud. just "not buying" is not a good strategy here cause there always will be enough fans who'll buy anywhere, and it'll be just enough to justify the decision.
- what's not so fair about making an offer though? are you referring their 10% cut as bribery? really? is "stealing user data" based on egs launcher scanning steam's config.vdf? oh well, let's better ask valve why this data simply resides there in a PLAIN TEXT file, free to be scanned by any application on the user's pc? technically, if you're admin on your pc, you automatically give the right to any applicaiton launched to access any file on your pc, so... valve could at least encrypt it if it's essential to store locally. but they didn't. speaking of stealing user's data, for example i never send steam's hardware survey, cause for some reason they include some heavily irrelevant data in the report like a full list of installed applications, local user names, etc. i also bet epics covered themselves with some eula stuff for this, and you "just didn't read it".
the actual problem is that current review system is not flexible enough, which is why point 2 is a thing in the first place. give people enough options and it would simply regulate itself. the problem could be easily solved if valve introduced dev/pub rating system with reviews. i bet most of the hate reviews would pop up there instead, cause why hate a good game when you can hate dev/pub directly. the review bombing is a thing just because it is the only effective way at this point.
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Valve is a privately held company, not a government entity, they have no ability to create laws. They can create rules (rules and laws are not the same thing) for their service regarding censorship, but so far they have been relatively pro-freedom of speech compared to other similar services.
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well i didn't literally mean they write state laws. i guess this covers the confusion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translating_"law"_to_other_European_languages
valve already alienates people, who activated keys instead of buying the game off the store, now there is another lever to wipe off unwanted reviews from the rating. not so free speechy changes if you ask me.
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valve already alienates people, who activated keys instead of buying the game off the store
Can you please quickly elaborate what happened? Thank you.
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your review doesn't count for the game rating if you activated a key instead of buying the game from the store page. hence there is an option to show "store reviews" or "key reviews".
it was valve's answer to a positive review bombing caused by massive 500k trashy giveaways when people would just upvote it for cards, disregard the quality. those giveaways are not around anymore, but the rule is still there. so it ended up being an easy instrument to pump trashy game's rating. just buy 20-30 copies and ask people to write a positive review. now even if you have 100 negative reviews from humble-bundle users, it's still positively positive. it was fundamentally false, because valve assumes that key review is potentially bribed (they say it in the tooltip) and store review is always honest. the truth is it easily can be vice versa.
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what's not so fair about making an offer though? are you referring their 10% cut as bribery? really?
No, that's not what it is. It's taking a product away from a competitor through bribery. It's not solely the cut. They pay them for the exclusivity, they have guaranteed profits and then also maybe a better cut. They can do it, but people don't have to like everything that's legal. Epic didn't entice them through merit, they threw cash at them. It's actually the opposite of competition... some might say "anti-competitive"
oh well, let's better ask valve why this data simply resides there in a PLAIN TEXT file, free to be scanned by any application on the user's pc?
Because it's supposed to be scanned by some. That's how many other launchers and programs work. That's how Steam integration works. Epic didn't have the right to use it.
technically, if you're admin on your pc, you automatically give the right to any applicaiton launched to access any file on your pc, so... valve could at least encrypt it if it's essential to store locally. but they didn't.
Lol, really? This is the argument now? Basically victim-blaming a company? :D
Fair enough, technically everything's everyone's fault if we go down that path. In business, you have to give others the benefit of the doubt with some things. Otherwise you could do nothing. If you run a store, you have to trust people not to steal. Otherwise you have to hire dozens of security guards to look at every aisle. That requires you to give the benefit of the doubt to the security guards that they won't just let people steal. That in turn requires security guards to trust you to pay them and so on and so forth.
There'll be a point where you just have to stop and just trust people to not do shit that's illegal or just extremely cuntish.
I get that you still have to do stuff to ensure your safety, but that's exactly what Valve already did. Epic took advantage of them. That's what happened.
I don't care for Valve themselves. I do care for the customers though and Epic hates its customers.
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or... you can put some cameras around just in case. which is exactly what every business does. surprise, surprise!
look. you have the right to hate anyone for whatever reason you want. but as long as they do it the legal way - it's okay. they offer, the other side accepts the offer. the "victim" stuff simply doesn't work here. 2K is not a victim. 2K is a bussiness seeking for profits and fully responsible for its decisions.
it might look i'm defending epic. i don't like what's happening there, but most arguments against them are just childish at this point.
you poke a tiger - he eats you. he sure is a bad guy, but cmon. dont poke tigers and salt your passwords.
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or... you can put some cameras around just in case. which is exactly what every business does. surprise, surprise!
look. you have the right to hate anyone for whatever reason you want. but as long as they do it the legal way - it's okay.
Yeah and then you put your faith into the camera manufacturer that the camera will be good enough. Plus, cameras are actually a really bad way at catching shoplifters because footage is usually looked at when a report's made. So odds are that kids can just steal candy bars all day every day and nothing will change unless someone notices, which is why you need actual security guards, "which is exactly what every business does. surprise, surprise!".
But yeah, good luck hiring an employee you can't trust at all.
2K is not a victim. 2K is a bussiness seeking for profits and fully responsible for its decisions.
What...? Who said otherwise? I didn't. Read through my reply and I didn't say it. That's why I recommend you actually reply to statements. Otherwise it's tough to keep track when you jump randomly from one spot to another. I never even said anything about 2K. I never gave a statement on them, only on Epic and Steam. But if you feel the need to hear this, I don't approve 2K either. Bribes are two-way interactions. You can't give a bribe if no one takes it.
Having sex with animals isn't okay, but if you really say that a dog should get Dirty Sanchez, then fair enough. (see what confusion it creates? Doesn't help that you never even said this)
but as long as they do it the legal way - it's okay. they offer, the other side accepts the offer.
No one said it was illegal. But yeah, legality isn't enough. There are states where bestiality is still legal. Are you going to say "Yeah, it's fine if James just fucked that sheep! I support him 100%! It's legal, so it's okay. He fucks, sheep gets fucked. Totally fine now!
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what's your point then? if something may happen then you should not do anything to prevent it? go learn some firsts about economy - as a customer you are the one paying for business risks like this. it's there in the price. business expects the risk and takes measures to minify it. just like banks charge higher rates if you're not trusted enough. you don't have to trust anyone at all. you can buy different cameras and you can have backup cameras. you can check them regularly and you can repair them or replace them if they're faulty. you can take measures to prevent the risk. but i believe you'll instead come up with "i'm the victim, don't blame me for it! and i never said anything about faulty cameras, go fuck some dog!"
just look what you did there - you quoted the only part about 2K and wrote a whole passage about how it's unrelated. but it was a part of a larger answer. you took it out of context and you did it on purpose to avoid the discussion. and then you keep it going with bestiality passage. how low can you go?
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what's your point then? if something may happen then you should not do anything to prevent it?
Yeah, nah, it's not like we already talked about it. Fuck me, this is just willful ignorance now.
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On point one. They aren't removing the reviews, so no one is getting censored. They are just making it so that reviews made with the intention of "review bombing" won't add to the overall score for the game. This is a really good move.
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well imagine the elections in your country where you can vote, but they give you a different bulletin, so your vote can be filtered out. sure you can vote, but they still always win. definitely a good move. just for the person on the throne.
right now review helpfullness beta is enabled by default and i bet these "irrelevant" reviews will be filtered out by this option some day. it's about the default settings. general public won't bother to change the switches every time. also check how right now it says ALL REVIEWS near the rating, which is not true, since key activations "are just not added to the overall score". if you hide anything for whatever reason - it's basically censorship.
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why in fact hate epic? they just make an offer and it's devs/pubs decision to take it or not. they took it, they face the consequences.
They got a big wad of cash just for some short timed exclusive and the people who are so pissed off at them are the most likely to buy Borderlands 3 as soon as it hits Steam anyway so I don't think there's any consequence for them, really.
I do wish the pissing contest would end though. Epic was supposed to be the alternative to Steam and all they've done so far is distributing bribes and creating a toxic atmosphere.
If they really want to be a good competition and a viable option, they should clean up their act, use the money they use to bribe devs to give discounts to users and just be a competitor instead of all this childish nonsense about "exclusives".
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Yup, that's the key here.
It's good to have competition. But Epic's anti-competitive currently and it's also setting dangerous precedents for the PC gaming industry.
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doesnt matter if the old games are good. you need to make an example to the devs and the publishers. i think review bombing is totally justified if something scummy goes on.
and if steam is the only way to get heard, so be it.
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So if someone steals something and gets caught, but whatever they stole can't be recovered, do you think it's wrong for them to be forced to give up some unrelated item in compensation?
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I understand why are people mad. But posting negative review of other games from the franchise because one is not on the Steam... is like being against abortion, so You just make an abortion of all the friends of the woman that said she is pro abortion. This is the very same logic. Amelia want an abortion, You don't like the decision, so You make all her friends have an abortion, lmao. This is the solution of the problem?
Uhh, what?
It's kind of hard to even wrap my head around this unnecessary mental gymnastics here. First, why even compare a video game score to the termination of a pregnancy? Gotta be a bit fucked in the head to see these things as relatively equal.
But also, it's not the same logic because it's more like "Your friend liked Borderlands and now I made all of their friends play Borderlands...?" What? Jeesh, this is top notch pretentious idiocy.
But yeah, as to the topic itself, I'm conflicted. Personally, I think reviews for games should reflect those games specifically. An exclusivity deal doesn't change a video game. But then you can say that the work's connected to the author. Also, you can say that people don't have a voice, so they have to use this method.
Personally, I think publishers should have their own reviews on Steam that will always be displayed with their games on their store page. But with that comes the fact that people might still be very petty and ruin the reputations of smaller developers on a whim because it's hard to qualify a person to review a publisher. Can they review the company once they own one of their product, all of them, none of them? Do they have to play their stuff? There has to be some type of limit here, but also people can't be silenced because they don't fill an arbitrary quota. If a developer has one game and they did some terrible stuff, you shouldn't have to buy their product to criticize them. Maybe an account level limit? So higher levels can review companies to curb the amount of fake accounts people would make. I don't have the solution, but I think having reviews for publishers and developers is the step in the right direction here.
And with that would come the stipulation that after that system's implemented, anyone reviewbombing a game for a company's decisions should be banned from writing any reviews forever (or for some time for first offenders).
But currently, I'm not too outraged that people are reviewbombing Borderlands. I'll mock them for it, sure. But I get it. The issue isn't that people reviewbomb and the reason isn't that a company made a business decision. The issue is that consumers don't have a voice in this market.
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People who pay for the right to play a game these days (particularly since the rise of GaaS/ 'Games as a Service') often feel they are not just buying a game, but also buying into a relationship of sorts with the developer. Reviews are not necessarily seen as just a way to inform others of a games quality, as there are typically already plenty of other reviews potential buyers could rely on, but are also a way to communicate their thoughts and grievances to/toward the developer. That's not to say this mindset is good or bad, just that it is the way many people think.
Now about review bombing specifically; This comes back to the old argument of "can you separate the artist from their art?" (or "can you separate the creator from their creation"). There are many famous people over the years who created or did wonderful things, only later to be discovered to have also done terrible things. In the USA there has been a major movement lately towards tearing down statues/monuments of famous people from the countries founding because they owned black slaves. At the time it was common for wealthy people to do so, but now all those people are condemned for it, and their contributions now mean absolutely nothing in peoples eyes. Is this right? Should we say that because someone did something we don't like the good things they did should also be forgotten/slandered/destroyed? You may think this is a stretch, but this whole 'review bombing' issue is more about the modern cultural mindset then it is about games.
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but this whole 'review bombing' issue is more about the modern cultural mindset then it is about games.
I don't think this is comparable to tearing down monuments because of some thing that the people they represent did. As @UltraTaber mentioned in another comment, I think people leave negative reviews on games that are "related but not the one at fault" simply because they have no option to review either the game at fault or the game company that's behind it.
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Yes the lack of a review system on other stores definitely does impact they way people approach this issue. But I don't think it's the only reason. People feel review bombing is the best way for their voices to be heard, whether that's by other gamers (who may care about the reputation of the company they're giving money to, hence the argument of separating creator and creation) or the devs/publishers themselves (by harming product sales in a market where only money seems to talk).
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I generally don't agree with review bombing but exclusivity needs to stop because it's harming pc gaming. Exclusives are an anti-consumer practice with zero benefit to consumers. The only ones that benefit are those involved in the deal. Gamers are sick of publishers/developers making these deals and are trying to fight back however they can.
There is no reason to engage in an exclusivity deal. They already receive a larger cut from Epic. The only reason they did it is because Epic offered them even more money to make it an exclusive. So greed was their motivation. These publishers/developers don't care about gamers or their reputations. They constantly lie, deceive, and manipulate the gaming community. So I don't really feel bad about what happens to them.
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exclusivity needs to stop because it's harming pc gaming. Exclusives are an anti-consumer practice with zero benefit to consumers
I agree, but let's not forget that the top offender, by far, with the exclusivity BS on PC is Steam itself. Even though those are not explicit "exclusivity deals", thousands of games are available only via Steam.
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That's not the same thing as paying someone to only offer their product on their store. Steam is the most popular platform so it makes sense they will sell their game on Steam. There's nothing stopping devs from selling elsewhere and Steam is not bribing them to not sell some place else.
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That's still harmful though (and way more harmful than Epic's attempt at, basically, just entering / surviving in the market). But I don't blame Steam, I blame lazy development/publishing companies.
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If another business wants to compete with the top company they need to do everything better than that company. In what ways is Epic better than Steam? None. They do everything worse. So they don't deserve to survive if they can't beat the competition. I agree Steam needs competition. But forcing customers to use your inferior store, platform, and service through exclusives will not work.
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Anti-trust laws are here for a reason. Judges have been sleeping on them as far as online businesses are concerned for way too long.
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lol yeah it's so harmful to put your games on the most feature complete client/store on the market. It would be sooo much better if every game was also available on such amazing platforms like Origin or Uplay or Bethesda/Blizzard clients or the amazing Epic store. Nobody ever tried so far to give a better store/client for the customer. They throw together some bare bones barely working POS platform for the sake of some extra profit/greed and you think Steam is the bigger evil here? Man you epicheads are dense af.
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Those are not deals of any kind. Developers/publishers choose Steam on their own volition.
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Was the same problem with Metro 2033 and Last Light , they are fanboys , just ignore them.
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We, the paying customers, have every right to write whatever we want. Period. Everything else is censorship, and censorship leads to Orwell's 1984.
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If you're against censorship and promoting the boycott of Steam, why are you still playing TF2?
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It's idling for money, but I stopped buying on Steam.
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That's not what boycotting means. Oxford's definition of boycott is the withdraw of commercial and social relations.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/boycott
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My definition is that I stopped buying. :) I am buying on GOG now.
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Why are you still winning games on SG for the evil evil Steam though? Truly an amazing boycott...
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I stopped spending my money on Steam. If more people do that, Steam would be more customer friendly again. Steamgifts is just for fun.
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I'd say leave them be. Their arguments have no grounds and boycotting leads nowhere anymore:
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Though you connect it with 1984, you don't see the difference? I mean I'm nowadays used to the whole "removing something from an internet page is censorship" crying, but neither Valve nor any other company works as a government (yet).
The terms censorship and freedom of speech both relate to suppression by governments.
Removing something from your website / digital service is householder's right.
That doesn't mean that it's not bad, but your rights aren't violated. You can just decide to don't use that website anymore or to boycott that company.
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It's corporate dictatorship. Majority of the people are unaware of changes.
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Yeah, but as mentioned before: we aren't there yet. And Steam isn't a public place.
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The terms censorship and freedom of speech both relate to suppression by governments.
NO. Read a bloody dictionary.
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Corporations are becoming more powerful than countries. Dictionary is obsolete.
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You do realize I was saying +/- the same thing as you, right? 🤔
censorship, noun: the act of suppressing any parts of speech that are considered to be obscene, threatening, politically unacceptable, etc.
=> No mention of government or corporation, and even suppressing "threatening" speech is "censorship", by definition.
The 1st Amendment, which is what idiots use to define "not censorship", only bans censorship by the government, against non-threatening speech. That's not even close.
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No mention of government or corporation, and even suppressing "threatening" speech is "censorship", by definition.
And how does such an entity enforce that, if not with law (and if that isn't enough, with police or military forces)?
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Here are a few examples:
1) The subject of this very topic, Valve censoring reviews by making their rating not count and making the review not appear to most people (all those who didn't go through the trouble of changing the settings which are "censorship on by default")
2) Facebook removing posts and/or banning pages and users
3) Twitter doing basically the same
etc, etc, the examples are countless once you've properly understood the exact, textbook definition of "censorship".
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Steam, Facebook and Twitter are platforms owned by private companies. They have the same rights as you would have if you create a website and let people write something there. If you don't like what they write, you can remove it. Because the website is your property.
This doesn't hinder your Freedom of Speech, because you can articulate it somewhere else. You can go out on the streets and still claim what you might have claimed at Facebook. You can write a book about it. You can write it on your own website.
These websites don't become public property, only because they are popular.
So with my question above I wanted to know how (careful, exaggeration) Mark Zuckerberg comes to your town and enforces you to stop telling your buddies that facebook is shit?
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Cf my other reply.
Just a complement specific to what you say here: I'm not saying companies don't have the legal right to perform censorship. I'm just saying that when say do censor, it's still called censorship. Censorship generally sucks, but it isn't necessarily illegal.
You can go out on the streets and still claim what you might have claimed at Facebook
Places like Facebook, Twitter and a very few others have become the de facto "streets" of Internet (most people barely go elsewhere). But anyway, this is irrelevant to the definition of censorship.
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Yeah, been there, done that. Though I prefer more than 10 words of a dictionary to explain a term. May I ask you to provide a historical example of a non-authority (this includes theocratical governments) executing censorship in a public place? Thanks in advance!
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May I ask you to provide a historical example of a non-authority (this includes theocratical governments) executing censorship in a public place?
Again, read the definition: nowhere in it is the word "public place".
Though I prefer more than 10 words of a dictionary to explain a term
Must be because you have a problem with how formal definitions work. Those are generally as short as possible, keeping only but all the important words (although in this occurrence, the dictionary I used did provide a few examples there weren't strictly mandatory). And words that are not included, like "government" or "public place", are not included for a reason.
Still, a few examples are up there: https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/OWX5OfC
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Since I don't think that you are narrow-minded, you surely not only checked only one dictionary. But elsewise have a few more links:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/censorship
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/censorship
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/de/worterbuch/englisch/censorship
https://www.yourdictionary.com/censorship
Now if you check a more detailed description on e.g. Wikipedia, you will see that censorship is about editing or even completely forbidding media (like books) by governments or public instutions. Mostly because of critical politic or society views, because governments of course fear those.
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I'm not sure why you listed all those dictionaries, they agree with the one I previously used...
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/censorship says "the act of censoring", so I looked it up end:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/censor
to remove parts of something, such as a book, movie, or letter, that you do not want someone to see or hear:
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/censorship lacks an "etc" at the end (although "moral" and "political" reasons can be argued to be as wide as you like anyway), but they too do not mention a "government"
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/de/worterbuch/englisch/censorship says also "the act or system of censoring", so
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/de/worterbuch/englisch/censor
to ban or cut portions of (a publication, film, letter, etc)
https://www.yourdictionary.com/censorship says also "the act, system, or practice of censoring", so again:
https://www.yourdictionary.com/censor
To censor is to suppress information because you do not like its content.
I have to say I really like this one, not because it's particularly correct (you could censor stuff you like, I'm pretty sure it happens regularly enough to some moderators) but because it's really spot on about the frequent mindset of "it's censorship when my opinion is censored, but it's not censorship when opinions I don't like are censored".
Now if you check a more detailed description on e.g. Wikipedia, you will see that censorship is about editing or even completely forbidding media (like books) by governments or public instutions. Mostly because of critical politic or society views, because governments of course fear those.
I'm talking about the core definition of the word. Not about a dissertation about when and by whom it "most commonly" occurs. But since you want to check Wikipedia, you could at least quote it properly. It's all in the first paragraph:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by a government, private institutions, and corporations.
Emphasize mine on the most generic terms, so as to show how wide the definition is. Note that the second sentence isn't even necessary to the definition (it's a "can be", not an "is"), but anyhow it's pretty broad too, and I think Valve fits the "corporation" profile.
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I didn't post all the links as an argument for my statements or yours. Instead just to show how the definitions differ. However, to close the loop, I didn't even state in my first posting that it's defined as it. I think we have to agree to disagree here, because you use the term in the widest approach (removal of anyone else than the creator), whereas I view it in a legal context (pre or post censoring of media). And this is no accusation of your view being wrong.
But people get offended, because sth. like a comment or in this case a review gets removed legally (from only one community or platform), but there are countries out there, where media is completely censored, where you don't have Freedom of Speech at all and where you get killed if you're caught criticising the authorities. For me this behaviour is like the boy who cried wolf.
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I think we have to agree to disagree here, because you use the term in the widest approach (removal of anyone else than the creator), whereas I view it in a legal context
It's simple though: your "censorship" should be referred to as "illegal censorship (as per US law)".
there are countries out there, [..] where you get killed if you're caught criticising the authorities
But it is legal in those countries... Defining censorship as "illegal censorship only" is a hugely moving target. And it would actually allow such countries to say: "Eh, we don't have censorship here, all the silencing and murdering we do is 100% legal".
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Well, if it matches with US law, that's incidentally, since I don't even know US law enough to compare it. But I do know the German Constitution, a part of EU right and partially the UN declaration of the human rights.
And yes, of course, inside a dictatorship, censorship would be allowed - in one way. But there I'd refer to the UN declaration.
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Adult-children throwing a shit-fit cause the world doesn't bend to their will? They need to grow up. They should all get banned from writing more reviews too.
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Some people do make you wish there was a license to post on the internet but alas, we're stuck with them.
I think they believe it makes them significant. They like to think of themselves as big dogs making noise but really all everyone else can hear is those tiny puppies who try to bark and sound like chew-toys.
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Toxic users leaving Epic reviews. Giving negative reviews to bl1 & bl2 because of bl3. Epic xD
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I was just wondering if those reviews fit the new "troll control" policy on reviews from Steam or if they were going to let them be because it's about Epic exclusives.
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One star a really good book that deserves 5 stars on Amazon because the author didn`t hold the door for me. Ees normal. I am entitled!
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Well, what did You expect to happen when You give EVERY single user the option to write a review for a game? :D
Steam review system is and was always quite trash. There are just too many retards around and it's not possible to check every single review if it's a real review or not.
Steam is full of negative reviews like "My pc cant run this game!" (while pc beeing much lower than lowest recommended specs..) - "My internet is too slow." - "I don't like this game because it has no multiplayer" (after buying a singleplayer game.) - Or just random trash shit talk...
As long as everybody can write a review and nobody is there to check it, we will just have to accept it :>
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Just childish “ But I want to have everything on steam“ and now I want revenge fanboys
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I don't agree with review-bombing games that have already been established and done with. It's pointless to me and if anything, someone taking a cursory look at the massive amount of bad reviews will steer clear of that game series. The purpose of reviews should be to inform people if a game is good or not, not to complain about things other than the game and what may be going on in the game or surrounding the game's development.
If you're playing a game and you love it, but then the company decides to pull something shady and disables features or has been revealed to be very abusive or consummate liars or something like that, THEN I will not protest you changing your rating to a 1 star to reflect what you believe to be a shit move on the part of the developers. But review-bombing a game that has already been successful and that you have NO problem with personally but still use the review system as a platform to express your dislike of current events that have nothing to do with an already widely-ported game? Doesn't make sense to me at all.
Everyone already has Borderlands 2. It's like review-bombing an old Assassin's Creed game because you don't like the decisions made in Origins. Even the people on Tumblr who had much to say about it didn't advise people to review bomb old games to make a statement because they didn't see a point to it.
I get that we as potential customers have very little in the ways of protesting industry bullshit, but what is it going to do other than confuse new players who do not know the controversy and just want to play a good game that everyone recommends, but see all these negative reviews and assume it has to do with the game itself, not a sequel that hasn't even come out yet.
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The practice of review bombing makes user reviews useless. If good games are going to keep getting review bombed whenever the hive is in attack mode over some completely unrelated thing, people are eventually going to stop paying attention to them. If this continues to be a thing, I wouldn't be surprised if storefronts quit bothering with user reviews altogether. I think that's pretty much the definition of shooting yourself in the foot.
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most reviews are already useless with the "joke" and 10/10 reviews. i've already been tricked into buying a game do to a "good" review rating just to find out the game is shit and most of the reviews are asshats.
the best bet is find someone you agree with and follow or friend them so you see their reviews.
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Okay. So the Borderlands 3 is ex on Epic Fail Store for half a year. We all are mad about it and the anger is justified.
BUT WHY THE HELL people post negative reviews of GOOD games, harming the franchise more than Epic ever does!? Why can't those people understand what they are doing. With posting a review and changing the recent opinion to mostly negative (now it's mixed on TPS and mostly positive in BL1 and 2, but believe me... it was mostly negative few days ago - probably Steam deleted those reviews, as I reported them and probably not only I did), newcomers could think, the game is actually bad and that only fanboys think the games are good. So the newcomer see "mostly negative" and think "maaan, they said it's good, but it seems most people says otherwise". Or they can think that the problem is with some update that changed balance or made bugs. Believe me, people care about the rating subconsciously, even if they are saying otherwise. And not all of them read the review to see what is the reason of the hate. So newcomer would see that the game is bad and won't buy great game.
I understand why are people mad. But posting negative review of other games from the franchise because one is not on the Steam... is like being against abortion, so You just make an abortion of all the friends of the woman that said she is pro abortion. This is the very same logic. Amelia want an abortion, You don't like the decision, so You make all her friends have an abortion, lmao. This is the solution of the problem?
Don't hate Borderlands because what Epic did to it. You can boycott the new game, as I do. I wont' buy it. Even if it comes to Steam probably. I have 2k games on my Steam anyway. Time to play Dark Souls 2 and 3, Witcher franchise and many more. I don't need Borderlands 3.
But even if You don't like 2K, Gearbox, Take Two or Epic Games... it's unfair to do that to Borderlands.
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