It was needed to filter fake reviews. So I think it's a good measure to take.
Comment has been collapsed.
I do not think this is good way of solving it, as many reviews done with cd-keys are legit. This is way too broad action and might hurt on longrun.
Comment has been collapsed.
But all others are legit, so problem solved (:
Besides they are all still counted, just aren't on top
Comment has been collapsed.
we can short them. from in steam store or from other store
Comment has been collapsed.
Not counted, not displayed. For someone like me, who reviews everything but gets games outside Steam, this means all my work is pretty much thrown into the trash as nobody will ever read it.
Comment has been collapsed.
A change such as this should have been opt-in not opt-out, the majority of the userbase will never even know a change has been made.
Comment has been collapsed.
+1 ... wait, no. Sorry, I changed my mind. So many fake reviews, I'm glad this system nips it in the bud.
Comment has been collapsed.
Even though I agree that Steam community seems to be specially bred in a lab somewhere in Siberia and do not possess the ability to read and understand as we normal human beings do, I think even they should be able to notice the change if they take a look at the user reviews. The new "options" are literally right there at the top painted in light colors to make it noticeable.
Comment has been collapsed.
I'd much rather Valve focus on people who they know have paid for the game and will take an objective view on their appraisal over the people who grabbed it free (regardless of the source).
Of course, going further, Valve should in theory be able to work out, based on the key supplied, whether it came directly from a developer's key-gen or via a 3rd-party shop, so should weight accordingly.
Comment has been collapsed.
True, but from my experience, an average user (meaning, essentially everyone who is not coming directly to read reviews in details) will be too lazy to even do that. The drop-in readership of the reviews not displayed directly will fall or vanish with some games. And this is my optimistic, hopeful view.
Comment has been collapsed.
I agree, and if they ask for you to log in to change that option, you can count me as an example. I usually keep steam closed, sometimes i find a new game and i go to steam (on my browser) to read some reviews quick. Often, sience i live in a spanish languaje country, i only get the spanish reviews, and in some cases there are no reviews at all (or just a few that i dont find relevant), specially with new indie games. In such cases, instead of logging in to read reviews in english, i just give up trying to find reviews, ignore the game and go do something else. Im 100% sure i will do the same if they ask me to log in to read reviews by people who used keys.
Comment has been collapsed.
^ my thoughts on this matter exactly (except I don't review everything. If I have nothing good to say or if the top review says everything I wanted to say, I don't post a review).
Comment has been collapsed.
That is very much the lazy Valve method of solving problems unfortunately...screw everyone over to deal with abusers.
Comment has been collapsed.
there is no good way to solving it, but valve seem fair, we still can look cd key review, it more transparant.
i like, i just miss funny section, sometimes i just want read stupid funny review.
Comment has been collapsed.
Display As checkbox on the right of the selection options, click on it and the drop-down menu will give you 4 options: Summary, Most Helpful, Recent, Funny.
Comment has been collapsed.
Looking over games, many of them seem to have a surprisingly low percentage of reviews from people who used keys (even games that have been bundled repeatedly, like King's Bounty: The Legend - a mere 20 key reviews vs ~760 store reviews, for a fairly high-quality game that has been in many, many bundles.) Dropping those 20 key reviews isn't gonna have an impact on its overall score.
I suspect that part of the reason they're willing to do this is because normally, people who get a game via a key are less likely to write reviews in the first place (which makes sense; often it was from a bundle which they didn't buy for that specific game, so they're less likely to play it at all or to devote the sustained attention to it that people do when they buy a game directly in the store.)
Comment has been collapsed.
Seems to be going back only for a little while. Look at the reviews of Random Access Murder instead to see how much reviews can be decimated.
Comment has been collapsed.
Wow, it was certainly decimated... although in that particular case everyone seems to agree it was terrible either way (which is probably why almost nobody bought it in the store!)
I do wonder if this will hurt bundles a bit, since some people may have been bundling their game in hopes of getting good reviews (since having no reviews at all is bad.)
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, this may essentially negate one of the big reasons indies resorted to bundles.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes, but Steam doesn't sell CD-Keys does it, I think it's fair that Valve says, if you want to take part in certain community features, you have to purchase the game from our store.
Comment has been collapsed.
Was about to start a thread but since you beat me to it: ..Steam has effectivel erased all review scores that do not come from a direct steam sale. So to punish the "thief" we decided to cut all the prisoners' (and non-prisoners) heads off..
Who is taking decisions over there and why are they so thick to understand the repercussions?
PS. Perhaps you should amend the title to reflect that ALL sales outside steam store have the same "fate" regarding reviews..
Comment has been collapsed.
Interesting .... so cheap games that ppl literally only get from bundless will have No reviews at all huh ..
Comment has been collapsed.
At first I thought you were referring to the 89 -0, but then I saw the joke on his profile.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ambidot, the review only counts to the score if the user who wrote the review purchased the game directly from Steam. The article explains that several times. You should read the article again.
Comment has been collapsed.
Brace for "Very Positive, 75% of the 4 user reviews for this game are positive."
Comment has been collapsed.
Digital Homicide is on charge now?, jokes aside, idk, felt that reviews were pretty ok as they were, the real problem are those who post negative reviews with "this game dosent run on my PC" and alike.
Comment has been collapsed.
The ones with a decisive factor were fine- ie, 'this VR-compatible game does not actually work with VR' and 'This game is not AMD compatible', and so forth. I mean, there should have been ways of labeling your reviews by topic [Developer/Publisher Conduct or Update/Patch Performance, Hardware Performance, Gameplay, etc], and then filtering reviews by what you deem important, so that everyone could easily organize reviews by what they deemed important [or relevant to their build].. but see, that'd have required far too much effort from Valve to implement.
But yeah, even I don't agree with 'this game doesn't work on my precise build' reviews- that serves no purpose whatsoever, since 1: It's far too precise a topic to be appropriately relevant to any meaningful subset of users, and 2: That's just the way many games are, and have always been. It's not ideal, but it's something we take as commonplace- ergo, it's not worthy of making note of.
If you know what is wrong, I definitely feel it ought be mentioned, though its impact on [eg, Intel users for an AMD incompatibility] should definitely be filterable for lack of relevance.
Fact is, Valve is making a joke of things yet again, rather than attempt to change policies or implement better design. And, while there's no reason to totally freak out over it just yet, you do have to wonder if this snubbing of off-site purchasers is going to be a continuing mindset for Valve in the future.
That said, we can still filter in the key reviews, from what I understand- so I guess only time'll tell how much the change affects reviewing habits.
Comment has been collapsed.
OMG, some people actually buy Digital Homicide crap in Steam, example: 52 reviews from Steam purchasers for The Decimation of Olarath. Unbelievable.
Comment has been collapsed.
Funny how you edited/deleted your comments about Me not reading the article ... when it was You who havent read it >.>
Comment has been collapsed.
have you never made a mistake in your life? imo laughing at others mistake is a mistake your currently making.
Comment has been collapsed.
I mean if you have read his comment you would see why i am doing that :)
Is it a mistake or not , can be put up to debate , but idc to be fair ...
The guy was a dick towards me , so back @ him for it ...
Comment has been collapsed.
b-b-ut u said you didnt read it? and it was deleted already so i couldnt read it. i agree though i mean idc really either, just saw you laugh at them twice about it now so thought i'd say i did not find it funny really. if they indeed were a dick and not just a massive wall of thoughts poster then its i suppose justified. =)
Comment has been collapsed.
lol, so only reviews done by buying products on steam count.
amazing. pay on steam or your reviews are void.
on the other hand, it's a great way to stop peasants getting free keys and reviewing stuff (either free keys or promos for "critics").
Comment has been collapsed.
These reviews will still be visible on the store page, but they will no longer contribute to the score.
I don't see where you got that they're still counting towards the score.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ambidot, the review only counts to the score if the user who wrote the review purchased the game directly from Steam. The article explains that several times. You should read the article again.
Comment has been collapsed.
If I read it well, it won't matter in the % calculation, but at least will be visible. I'm not sure yet what to think about it - Valve both under, and overachieved itself by adressing an issue, but their own, AGAIN automated way.
Comment has been collapsed.
yes, that was pretty "generous" from valve. if people review just because they enjoy it, they can still do it. but people doing it to alter the scores will be stopped instantly.
Comment has been collapsed.
Seems like a drastic solution to a relatively small problem. Maybe 80% of my games are key activations. That kinda sucks.
Comment has been collapsed.
same with me, but i think it fair, so no worries. our review still show, just not count.
+
think like this, how much money steam need spend just to find legit reviewer from cd key? but they not get any money from it, yet steam let us cd key buyer to download from steam, share screenshot and share it, chat with our friends in steam. when you buy from cd key, steam not get any money, they just provide you place to enjoy the game you purchase from outside, and now they need spend another money just verified our cd key buyer review is legit or not? LOL
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't. It basically means that your voice as someone who didn't buy the game through Steam means less and that shit games will most likely show so few reviews that it'll end up with a positive or mixed rather than negative rating.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, but the default filter is set to show only reviews from Steam purchasers as well.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, they only show if the user switches them to show, manually, for each visited game. And we all know how lazy an average website user can be…
Comment has been collapsed.
and that is if they even realize they miss something
Comment has been collapsed.
An user who doesn't want to make a single click effort to filter reviews wouldn't bother reading your reviews anyway. While user who cared to read before will still read now.
Personally, I don't care either way. Steam reviews, even without fake ones, are full of crap. And it's unlikely that Valve will do anything against joke reviews and useless one-liners. So if you want to see some constructive criticism and actual opinions about the game, you will still need to scroll the page looking for a half decent review in a pile of trash.
Comment has been collapsed.
Steam reviews, even without fake ones, are full of crap.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of us were actively working on it to change that. I am among the less productive writers with about 280 reviews in the past two-two and a half years (not to mention that I am staying out of curator groups on purpose), but that still means that since now the vast majority of my work is now put behind a curtain some users may or may not lift to see what is behind there, they are just barely more visible now than never being made.
Now imagine if many other writers are in the same shoes. What work was put into elevating the average quality of Steam reviews was now all but erased with a single motion.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, as I said, users who cared to read before will still read now, while most of the rest wouldn't bother reading them anyway. I doubt those who can't make a single click effort to filter reviews will bother reading a text that's longer than few sentences.
I agree that at least the filter default should be set to "all", instead of "steam purchases", as some of the new or less experienced users may not get what that "purchase filter" is about, and go without touching anything, but I wouldn't go as far as saying it makes it "barely more visible now than never being made".
Comment has been collapsed.
It's good thing on one side because there is many devs who just want you to write positive reviews for them even of their games are bad, and there is a way to exploit it. But it also bad thing because it will affect bad many devs, who even have nice games, whose games mostly sell outside Steam as keys, they will be very dependent on ppl who decides to buy their games for a higher price on Steam. It will affect devs who give their games away on SG or other places hoping for good reviews if you like the game to help them. Also many bad stupid reviews of game not working on someone's PC or troll reviews or reviews remained after game refund will still be considered as the "eligible" reviews(all made by ppl who bought it on Steam)
Comment has been collapsed.
- Steam RIPs Gleam.io
- Steam RIPs curators begging devs for keys
- ???
Whats next? This gon be good
Comment has been collapsed.
This is stupid. Most of my Steam games I get from bundles or buy from 3rd party sites (GMG, Humble Store, etc.), it doesn't make my reviews any less valid. When I look at reviews for a game, I don't just look at its score. I look for reviews that have lots of play time and ignore reviews with the minimum of 0.2 hours. They should have make reviews with less than 2 hours of play time not contribute to the score or count reviews with high play time more than those with just a few minutes. It wouldn't stop fake reviews from idling games longer before leaving reviews, but the fake reviews are easier to spot already. They generally have the minimum 0.2 hours and leave a few words with a thumbs up.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thnx, that's where my (game-) nic comes from, Alia Atreides the Abomination.
Great of you to notice, fellow Dune fan! (I hope)
Comment has been collapsed.
yep. read them all. and saw all the movies/mini-series.
and ofcourse i know where the name is ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
You can filter between "Steam key" reviews, "Steam gift/direct purchase" reviews, or "all/both together".
I'm not too sure about score but the "all" category also takes into account Steam keys.
In "all" and "Steam keys" The review is still shown on the game page.
It's not as bad as it seems:
This review I wrote was done with a Steam key, It still shows on the "Steam key" filter, and the "all filter". It is also at the top of the list for those two filters. The only thing that irks me is that the filter is on "Steam gift/direct purchase" by default. I'm not saying I agree with this change but I think some people might be blowing it out of proportion.
Comment has been collapsed.
just wanted to add same picture!
I agree that this is a good and well thought idea! from Steam Devs!
Comment has been collapsed.
This, things aren't bad at all and can help in some cases.
Comment has been collapsed.
So, the main issue is that the Enhanced Steam extension will have to be modified to try and parse the data differently now, maybe giving us three review scores, one for Metacritic, one for users who bought directly from Steam, and one for all overall users.
Comment has been collapsed.
I like the "Or, from inappropriate sources such as copies given in exchange for reviews" jab for Key Activations.
Comment has been collapsed.
Most of the completely asinine reviews actually come from people who buy it on Steam, make a Meme-y review and then immediately Refund it.
Steam showing just how intelligent they are once again.
Comment has been collapsed.
Next step: none of your past or future reviews will count if you've made a refund in the last 6 months.
Comment has been collapsed.
Seems like an overbroad solution for a problem that should be addressed on a case by case basis, but given the low likelihood of that happening, possibly better than nothing.
Comment has been collapsed.
To address on a case by case - you need extra people who would do this. I think it's not what Valve wants.
Comment has been collapsed.
Exactly. The idea of differentiating key and bought-copy reviews is okay, but they are against booster reviews - they remove the shitty review scores from the abysmal indiegala-filler games, making them appear better. Also, as others said, bought at resellers - still won't count. And they picked the system to be as huge as possible: affecting any key, and then just automated the whole system by ignoring each of them for a score - no extra manpower needed, Valve can still focus on answering support tickets. kek.
Comment has been collapsed.
2015: You don't own a mobile phone, that makes you a scammer.
2016: You buy bundles, that makes you a scammer.
2017: ???, you are a scammer!
I'm already 2 out of 3 (and likely will meet arbitrary reason 3 too). Valve hates me! And in turn I shall hate them.
Comment has been collapsed.
The Backers of any game are the most damaged by this new System
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, sometimes I wrote reviews for games activated by key. But I understand it was necessary feature to stop "boosting" review score for free keys. So, after all, it's a good news.
Comment has been collapsed.
Eh. On the one hand, if it curbs abuse (which it will), that's great, but it also harms legitimate feedback by backers, bundle buyers, etc. For example, my CrossCode review will not count, despite being legit, because I got the game in a bundle. Perhaps a more case by case system would be better.
Basically, I think it's stupid. Everyone could tell that some bad games had inflated reviews, and they should fix that by cracking down instead of punishing people who activate keys predominantly. About 80-90% of my library are key activations from bundles, giveaways, and third party retailers and this punishes me for not buying games from the often overpriced Steam store. Sad day.
Comment has been collapsed.
Guess they feel the hot breath of cheaper 3rd party sellers... so... queue random thing against them which is totally unrelated and marketed as something completely different than the goal... like getting their stupid app on your phone under "security" (obvious lie). Is this another one of those lies just to serve another purpose?
Comment has been collapsed.
I think it's a good step. My usual key reviews will still be visible, can still be marked as Helpful, and will show in the accounting at the top of the review section; they just won't be counted in the review count at the top of the page. When I'm looking into a game I start at the breakdown on the top of the page, but then I go down to look at the reviews. It won't change much of how I consume the reviews, but if it works it will change the content that's displayed.
Comment has been collapsed.
Steam Purchase reviews tend to be more meme-like and unhelpful though. While this is not a terrible move from Steam in my opinion, blocking out legitimate key activated reviews from the score is just stupid. This simply punishes people who don't regularly buy on Steam and let the joke reviewers get away with their actions.
Lesser known games are usually received from bundles too. Blocking out their legitimate backers might prove quite counterproductive towards their sales.
Comment has been collapsed.
of what i saw, they are not blocking pp from posting review, they just added a filter to see if the key come from steam or from another place.
that way we can ''eliminate'' the fake review and see only the pp that bought the game.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, it's not blocked, just not counted when counting ratings for game.
Comment has been collapsed.
it is counted, but separately.
there is a rating for out side buyer and a rating for inside buyer
Comment has been collapsed.
Was it really counted as well? I can't seem to see the scores for key activation purchases.
Comment has been collapsed.
o no my bad, i red to fast, i was thinking that if you check the ''Key Activations'' , the sentence right under the box
" reviews match the filters above'' was the number of positive review from the total review of the key activation
Comment has been collapsed.
Ah, I overlooked that small sentence the first time I took a look at it.
You need to set the filter to All > All/Key Activations > All Languages for all key purchases to carry weigh to the scores now. But all in all, it's just a hassle to do.
Comment has been collapsed.
Perhaps I worded it quite badly lol. What I meant is that while people who purchased games from third party resellers are not blocked from posting reviews, their reviews just don't matter much now. There are always people who judge games solely based on the review score found on top, which is now only for Steam purchases. Now that key purchases are out of the equation, it's unfair for hidden gems to be judged badly after their scores dropped down.
Bringing down a game's score might be more easier than ever now since you can still make negative reviews and then immediately refund the purchase. Steam reviews are usually a bandwagon. If there are a plethora of negative reviews on a game, you can expect others to follow it on that specific game too. We'll see how it goes though.
Comment has been collapsed.
Very good change, I'm all in for reviews of people who paid actual money, and considering the fact that devs can generate as many keys as they want and give it to anybody as they please, this is required to fight the abuse. Indeed, many people will get hurt in the process, but if the game truly deserved the score, then 1:100 will not be any different than 10:1000.
Comment has been collapsed.
Being that the pool of Steam Store buyers will be so small in comparison, it will actually be even easier to rig the score by unscrupulous devs now.
ie. Dev buys a few dozen copies of his own low-priced shit game from the store, distributes them to shills...gets 99%+ positive reviews instantly...and that score will actually linger much longer than key review scores would.
Comment has been collapsed.
It's a lot easier to manage and police the 1,000+ developers on Steam than the hundreds of thousands of reviews made every day,
Comment has been collapsed.
Cause I don't pay for bundles, Humble Monthly, GMG, kickstarter?
Please give me back my thousands of "not paid actual money" for keys then?
Comment has been collapsed.
All my games from this year but one are from bundles, and yet I'm happy with the change. Your point?
Comment has been collapsed.
You must not write reviews then. How can anyone be happy about this.
How can ANYONE think all key's are free giveaways, especially on THIS site?
Comment has been collapsed.
I do write reviews (from time to time), and I also do write bots for many people, so I can understand that this is a must in order to fight abuse.
I don't know based on which part of my comment you imply that all keys are obtained for free, considering I paid for more than 3k of them myself. There is literally no way for Steam to tell if key generated by dev is going to be sold, given away, used in faking reviews procedure or otherwise abused. Marking all keys as prone to abuse is much easier and a good solution to the problem without influencing that much actual numbers, while still leaving all reviews in-tact. You probably don't understand what problem Steam is supposed to solve with this change.
Comment has been collapsed.
The "I'm all in for reviews of people who paid actual money"... bundle buyers paid actually money. Yet you dismiss them for "not paying actual money"... you should know better being on this site.
"Marking all keys as prone to abuse is much easier"
I hope Steamgifts support is around. They can save themselves tons of support work by just nuking this website. Bound to fix all the problems and abuse so much easier. What possible problem for legal users is there? Very little you say? Well, let's see how many agree there...
Comment has been collapsed.
The "I'm all in for reviews of people who paid actual money"... bundle buyers paid actually money
Yep, they did, and there are also people who didn't, yet obtained keys from the same source - generated by devs. While everybody had to pay from his own pocket for steam gift, and there is no way around it. I don't know how my sentence implies otherwise. I should instead write "I'm all in for people who paid for their games with steam store, as you can't trust target of keys generated by devs"
I hope Steamgifts support is around. They can save themselves tons of support work by just nuking this website.
They're all volunteers that are not paid in any way for their work, so if they wanted to quit they'd do that already. Your analogy doesn't make any sense.
Comment has been collapsed.
While everybody had to pay from his own pocket for steam gift, and there is no way around it.
What about people who buy games on Steam with Steam wallet money, generated by selling cards dropped from free gleam games?
Comment has been collapsed.
That's legit, because you can still ensure that people spent actual money and not received code for free, so I can't see how that affects anything.
Comment has been collapsed.
Nah, you already hit the nail... Steam willingly places people in "bought" and "freeloader" camp, and you just willingly walked into it agreeing with them keycode = freeloader. Even being an user of this site, making it all the sadder.
Exactly, volunteers who DO A LOT MORE EFFORT THAN VALVE, A BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY.
How is that in any way "Good Valve"... rather than "sort your shit, Valve, don't dump it on us?"
Comment has been collapsed.
you just willingly walked into it agreeing with them keycode = freeloader
Nope, I willingly walked into agreeing with them that steam gift = 100% legit buyer, keycode = possibility of key being received from free directly from devs. If you think otherwise, then I'm sorry that I didn't state that precisely enough.
How is that in any way "Good Valve"... rather than "sort your shit, Valve, don't dump it on us?"
They stole majority of my future profits in a way that I can't easily workaround, neither devs can. It's very rare for me to stumble upon issue that can't be easily hacked or workarounded - this is a very good change that will ensure no abuse without spending money - and if somebody decides to spend money to cheat the system, then Valve profits from it, so it's definitely a good change for them, regardless if moral or not.
The difference between your opinion and mine comes mostly from the fact that you're trying to understand it only from customer's point of view, while I know deep truth from inside of the problem. They couldn't solve that problem in any other way reliably, so it's either do that or don't do anything, and I'm glad they decided to do something with it, even though I should be actually super angry that I lost small part of my job offers. Legit people are indeed hurt in the process, and I never stated otherwise, but finally Steam reviews will mean something else than shovelware in disguise, like it's done today.
Comment has been collapsed.
So buy game, write positive (paid)/negative (troll) review, refund = 100% legit buyer? Since that's what you're saying now. And that's... very widespread on Steam.
They can get after the 160 cases they identified. Problem is, it would take them maybe a day of work... God forbid Valve actually works for their money right. I mean, pulling a game OFF Steam must be so darned hard to do. It's just... oh god, the work.
Nah, better punish the user. That way Valve won't loose money when they have to actually act against a corrupt developer. They can stay and produce money, user is pushed to buy from Valve store is money... money money money.
I know exactly the side Valve is coming from with this.
Comment has been collapsed.
Between Valve and Developer there is strict contract that assures both parties how things are done, and Valve can't easily take down the game because of something like that, while they can change how their platform works in any way that doesn't conflict with those terms. Fixing 160 games doesn't solve the problem, the solution is supposed to work long-term, not short-term. And delegating actual humans to work on that problem in usual basis makes them lose money, so of course they prefer to annoy some bundle buyers rather than lose money - I'd do the same if I was in their shoes.
Comment has been collapsed.
Then they SHOULD DO IT... rather than this.
Sjeesh, how hard is it to understand that they should just punish the offending developers, who break THEIR LICENSING.
Rather than all users and just keep the game going. But we all know why, getting the game booted doesn't give Valve money, having it be still around even with a bad developer gives them money. So they coerce it.
This only makes it more obvious than ever.
Comment has been collapsed.
The reason they're loosing money is people abandon them over crappy service and crap like this. Actually HIRING people to actually improve their utterly crappy customer service and image works.
It's called PR. It's proven to be super-effective in the field. Some companies can even sell thin air based on image, like Apple used to do.
Comment has been collapsed.
bundle buyers paid actually money. Yet you dismiss them for "not paying actual money"
While it's true that bundle buyers pay actual money, there's no way to know if a key was bought in a bundle, obtained from a gleam giveaway, or straight from the dev for reviewing purposes. So Valve decided to penalize all 3 groups for the 3rd's fault.
Comment has been collapsed.
And that... is the entire problem.
Instead of dealing with the problem, they just spread a big wide net catching pretty much everyone, without any utter disregard for their catch, and branded ALL of them "freeloaders".
And that's why we're all up in arms.
Comment has been collapsed.
You probably don't understand what problem Steam is supposed to solve with this change.
A problem that shouldn't even be considered a problem in the first place.
Because, come on, how many people actually use Steam reviews to decide if they want to purchase a game?
And most importantly, how many people actually buy Steam games on Steam, when there're lots of bundles, and better sales by third-party distributors?
Comment has been collapsed.
A problem that shouldn't even be considered a problem in the first place.
This is a bigger problem than you can imagine, people are actually paying crazy money for bot makers for that purpose, and even more to ensure to stay anonymous and be untracked. That's one of the reasons why you don't consider it a problem - because abuse part is done so well that community found out maybe 2-3 rigged titles, with only one being truly loud (because done by some idiot and not an expert).
Because, come on, how many people actually use Steam reviews to decide if they want to purchase a game?
Many. In fact, every user is influenced by Steam reviews because I can't believe there is somebody who would buy utterly negative game for 100% price, still saying "I shouldn't care at all about reviews!". Come on.
And most importantly, how many people actually buy Steam games on Steam, when there're lots of bundles, and better sales by third-party distributors?
People that want to support devs and pay for actual product, and not for shovelware. I won't say any names, but majority of devs buying bots from me should have utterly negative rating, yet they have much, much different one that misleads everyone considering buying that particular game.
Comment has been collapsed.
They can just continue, but with Steam keys. Sollution: 0. It's obviously not the real cause of this change if it can be circumenvented without second thought.
+bonus for having your alts refund all those fake reviews. +manipulation achieved. Steam allowed. Unchanged. It's shifting the issue to a more crappy one (Steam itself). And surely the next hit will be... the refund system. Since handling those problem devs is less important than just harming all users. I wonder what they will invent there. Knowing Valve, it'll suck more than imaginable.
Community found 2-3 titles, Valve found 160. Valve ignores 160. Profit? Clearly they're capable of finding them and acting upon it.
I would say Kickstarter backing is better support for the dev than buying on Steam. Yet according to your text, it's the other way around. Yeah... no... it's not.
Comment has been collapsed.
I would say Kickstarter backing is better support for the dev than buying on Steam. Yet according to your text, it's the other way around. Yeah... no... it's not.
Once again I don't know based on what you imply such things, if it's known widely that Steam takes ridiculous cut from all sold games on their platform, and any other distributing method is better in terms of money for devs. I said why people are doing that, not that it's the most effective way.
Comment has been collapsed.
The "how many people actually buy Steam games on Steam" with your answer "People that want to support devs and pay for actual product" which translated means... If you kickstart a game you don't support the dev. If you buy from their store, you don't support the dev. If you buy from Humble Bundle and set the slider to 100% goes to that dev, you don't support the dev.
Nope, only Steamstore games count. Again going back that in the OP you already go Steam store or freeloader... and here you once again continue on that line of thinking, and when pointed out scuttle back your words, until the next time you "accidentily" call all non-store buyers freeloaders again.
And yes, other stores take less thant the 30% cut you make making the "People that want to support devs and pay for actual product" all the more mindblowingly what the hell?
Comment has been collapsed.
You're only seeing this as a positive change to prevent score manipulation, and that's actually not the troublesome part of the change.
They didn't just alter the numbers, they defaulted Steam to HIDE all reviews by people with keys. Not counting score is all well and good, but many of the best written reviews are from people who really wanted to play the game and thus redeemed from a key (whether for free to review, or purchased early on kickstarter/external website).
Making it so review scores can't be bought with bots is swell; HOWEVER removing the written reviews from the casual user (who won't bother chanigng the default view) is a heavy blow to indie games, which probably only have 1 or 2 quality reviews in the first place.
Comment has been collapsed.
Looks fine to me.
If you go to the various review filters and change from Steam purchases to all or to just CD-activations, it shows you the percentage and pos/neg categorization.
Comment has been collapsed.
http://store.steampowered.com/news/24155/
Second update:
http://store.steampowered.com/news/24331/
What do you think?
Comment has been collapsed.