http://store.steampowered.com/app/448780/
Store? 90% All? 54%
http://store.steampowered.com/app/436300/
Store? 1 copy! 0%! All reviews are from Indiegala bundles
And so you can easily find more examples to counter all the "it's working great, see those we already knew are exploiters" in this topic. This IS bad.
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Every other sociologist will tell you also that according to separation between customers and to that line
"These are reviews written by customers that received the game from a source outside of Steam. (This may include legitimate surces (...)Or, from inappropriate sources such as copies given in exchange for reviews)"
those changes (similar to trade restrictions) aren't made to actual make reviews better but to further divide steam users to 2 groups of users, that good guys that are buying straight from us, that are in close relations with us and another group of that 2nd category guys that are giving their money to other sellers instead of paying Valve so that should be pointed out and their lives in here should be as less pleasant as possible, slowly but step by step those guys should be "convinced" that the only right way to be is to pay Valve only.
PS. Due to people that are 'always right' and before they manage to comment I refuse to continue that statement in possible further discussion. That's just what things are and Valve is in fact employ tons of people that are responsible for human behaviour and there is no point in continue debate over it.
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Valve is in fact employ tons of people that are responsible for human behaviour
At least know why there is noone working at their support :D
Seriously though, I'm obviously not sure if this is the case or not, but after treating people without their auth app as second class people, now pulled the same with not-store-buyers.
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People that already are customers will buy anyway, what's the point in support :)
Not that i like it, I wish that at last one ticket sent to support would finish in another way that "sorry we can't do anything" reply after week :)
Yep well that's policy what Valve is doing since quite some time now, obviously we don't like it but also obviously it's working since they are continue it.
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I'm slightly hoping (stupid I know) this BS makes bundle sites (where Steam gets a monopoly from since they only deal Steam keys) offer other keys like GOG keys now... and then if the bundles are not pointed to Steam...
Well, it's bye bye golden times on Steam.
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Dealing in GOG keys would require quite some discussions with GOG and the affected publishers as well. So far GOG seems to be against selling anything outside their own system.
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I've got a few GOG keys from Humble Bundle bundles... it's rare, but it happened.
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Really? Which ones? Humble Bundle usually hosts DRM-free versions on its own servers.
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The only one I can find so fast is "Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten"...
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Only one, as he told you, Defender's Quest. It would be nice to see a "gog bundle #1", definitively better than regional or consoles only ones.
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I'd love it as well. It is getting more and more difficult to stay with Steam and Valve's constant mishaps. While my GOG library is healthy enough, I'd like if Humble did some bundles with them, even if they enforce a 1 pack/payment address rule.
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+1
The only reason my Steam library is so expansive is bundles in the first place. Nothing of Valve's own doing.
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Really only one? I thought there were more. Hmmm...
But yeah, I would churn up a GOG-bundle too... while I'm starting to buy less and less Steambundles.
Indiegala used to be a nice source of games for me to try out. Low price, can get back a chunck with cards. Might aswell try then, right? Since mobile authenticator (and bundles getting more expensive) I rarely buy there anymore. Bundlestars? Same. Humble? Getting much more picky with purchases aswell. All sites that suffer from Valve's actions, and none of their own.
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I think it was from the Humble Store, not a bundle, but I definitely got GOG keys for The Witcher 1&2 from Humble.
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Well, you can also add the Witchers in many other ways if you have them somewhere. Since it is their own game, they don't really lose business if they give you the game for free at their own store for any kind of non-GOG purchase. :) (Like how some Origin and UbiSoft games purchased on Steam essentially give you the Origin/UPlay copy for "free", if we count the mandatory registration as that.)
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I honestly doubt it - for most people the fact that bundle has or does not have steam keys is deciding factor behind their decision. Great example - look at numbers of sold copies of Humble Ubisoft Bundles. Last encore bundle - bundle full of AAA titles, sold barely over 100k copies, way less than even mediocre indie bundles. Why? Because majority of titles were not Steam keys. Most of customers don't care whether their copy of game will give visible or invisible review, because most customers don't bother with review at all. So they don't care about reviews but do care about their games being steam redeemable. It means that for any bundle site switching to non-Steam model because of reviews would be a suicide.
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It's just another drop on an already very hot boiling plate.
People said Steam was suicide too when Valve made the platform. Progress is only made by risks, and the first to break out of Steam's monopoly will be a wealthy one indeed. Can't deny it has it's risks, but one day, one will be the one who does it.
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Wasn't the first Origin bundle one of HB's most popular one? Because it may be a lot more about it being UPlay than not being Steam.
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the first Origin Bundle contained Steam Keys - the only game in it that didn't have Steam Key was Dead Space 3 - and that's because DS3 never got released on Steam. All other games contained both Steam and Origin keys (it was also why it was so popular probably - you were basically getting 2 copies of almost every game - so you could activate 1 key yourself and trade away / sell other key).
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Ah, so that's why. I totally skipped that bundle, so didn't know it was another multi-key one.
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That's also why people got angry about Ubisoft bundles I believe ;) Because in the past if the game was available on Steam they would get keys for Steam, while Ubisoft bundle gave only UPlay keys for games available on Steam - like Far Cry 3 and Blood Dragon, The Crew, AC Unity etc. And it proves even more that people really do care about getting Steam keys, because these are very comparable examples - both AAA bundles full of AAA games from one of the biggest publishers. One offers Steam keys for almost everything one offers UPlay keys only for almost everything and only 2 Steam Keys for smaller games from Tier 1. First becomes one of the most successful Humble Bundles of all time generating 2,136,893 copies of bundles sold, second one sells only 102,630 copies and fails compared even with filler indie bundles, like current GameMaker bundle ;)
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There's a lot of hate against Uplay, I'm not going to disregard that in this instance.
Only a full loved platform like GOG-full bundle, and comparing that to Steam will give a clear result wheter people do it for Steam-keys.
If choosing between shit and 2 shits, are you surprised the 1 shit wins? That's pretty much a given. Doesn't mean people will love shovelling shit if they can choose between shit and non-shit.
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There's also a lot of hate against EA, yet somehow EA bundle ended up as one of the most successful ones in history ;p
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most of that hates actually more about origin then EA, but yeah your right still.
EA support is flipping amazing though in comparison to Valves. (sadly that support part is not an opinion either)
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I personally have much more bad to say about EA themselves rather than about Origin. Origin is just a DRM platform, nothing less nothing more, it's not so bad actually - it's not as buggy like let's say UPlay, their support like you mentioned yourself is quite great, EA on the other hand is an evil corporation known for shady things, like stripping content out of their products just to sell it separately as DLCs.
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oh yeah deff can see that from them. and im not like a fanboy, but they gained alot of my respect when they activated my super old BF2 & BF2142 with just a phone call and a quick photo proving i still had the code (though they even told me they couldnt even verify my code, they were just going to generate me a new one).. and due to all that they gave deluxe/complete pack versions when i only actually owned the base's... then when i asked steam for support they just send me a pre-made step by step tutorial that was not even related to my issue..
but yeah, shady business model i can deff see and agree with. but i dont think thats where most the hate comes from still personally, it could be though i dont really know. i just remember before the digital license dl age everyone i thought was a fan for the most part of EA Games. but ofc that was a diff era altogether really.
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the part you mention in first paragraph correlates with what I said - it shows good stuff about origin and their support ;)
as for latter part - idk, even long before digital dl era EA in media outlets was presented as this big bad company. Heck - they were presented as such even in one of South Park episodes ;p I personally don't remember people ever being fans of EA, even before digital era. At most they were fans of some of their games, while still hating company (at least it was my case - I for example love BioWare games, but it doesn't mean I will ove EA. Actually contrary to this - because I know that EA business decisions affect development of games I love and make them worse - for example look at all the worthless overpriced DLCs for Dragon Age Origins or removal of the one of the most important companions from Mass Effect 3 only to sell him as day 1 DLC ;p
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At most they were fans of some of their games
you are right, that is what i mean here more.. people were a fan of them as a developer. not as a company though. and the digital dl age change thing is what made DLC that much worse, i agree.
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They should obviously just use the bundle list here on SG and have those games filtered out but leave the rest alone. ;)
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90% of bullshit ASCII and 10/10 reviews are Steam bought.
This doesn't affect them at all... infact it probably makes them more common to appear for you. Profit?
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"Fake reviews are an enormous problem, and this will do a lot to combat it."
You said this was about fake reviews... and this will help. Ignoring
1) It doesn't
2) It doesn't help at all
If you're now crawling back on your words and agreeing this doesn't help on fake reviews, then was does it work well for?
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And a bundle review != fake. A kickstarter != fake. A GMG != fake.
I figured you meant those since talking about "the highly negative, stupid, and fake, are the best known and most discussed."
Fake reviews were never a big problem. Just a few games had them, they generally got out so EVERYBODY knew, and Steam could easily handle them (and several have been pulled off the store, making it clear this wasn't needed at all).
It's Steam's lacking Quality Control on Greenlight that causes the problems in the first place. Valve wrong + Valve wrong = User wrong?
HA. NO.
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Indeed we can't. So we obviously shouldn't just throw out ALL off them as result.
I PAID for the game. I'm ignored, put in the "freeloader" camp. If you can't tell, don't fucking distinguish. Yeah, 1 brown person did something bad... let's just exclude all of them from voting, just to be sure. Remember when that used to be called "discrimination" rather than "Oh yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Better be sure right. Now we can be absolutely sure, since there are not ANY (refund-reviewing) FAULTS (family-shared game = purchased) THERE (buying Steam copies of games to deal out).
I have a simple sollution, regulate. GOG does it. Old publisher did it. Retail stores do it. It takes manpower however. Something Valve is unwilling to spent in any way imaginable, even if it would increase things much more than more automated discrimination crap.
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You can only place a review on Steam owning it... oh wait, that's not right, if you refund it THROUGH THEIR STORE, the review remains.
It's an extremely popular form of trolling. But thank god the store is now paid and all, bar those that are not. You know, those you can't tell appart from the other Steam Store purchaser purchases?
Congrats! You made it worse!
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even if review remains after game refund you can see people play time, so will you believe in 0.1 hour review
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They are (according to Aristofop) far more legit than those of 100 hour playtime people that just bought it in a different store. Or god forbid, a box.
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that's not the problem - problem is that these reviews will influence game positive ranking, and fair and square reviews done by key owners will not. Valve claims change is to stop review ranking exploitation, while ranking will still be exploitable like this. Problem is a lot of people beleve just this ranking without even reading reviews - they will not even notice that ranking is farmed with 0.1h playtime then refund reviews.
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of course this still will be exploitable, but if people so silly to buy games depending only on this rating then they deserve such games in their libraries and too bad steam allow refunds :D
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again - what does your comment has to do with anything? By same logic if people are so silly why have this change at all? People would still deserve to get this shitty games in their libraries and at least all the fair reviewers wouldn't be punished in the process.
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you know they don't want to punish fair reviewers, the thing is that they are trying to punish fake reviewers (but its hard to tell who is who) so this was a best idea what they got
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they may not want to punish fair reviewers but they DO punish them, no matter their intentions. And no - this is not the best idea they got - it's only the simplest/laziest idea they got. Because they already showed us the best idea - they did a data gathering and process, we know that because they do tell us they found 160 examples where key reviews and steam-bought reviews were substacially different. The best solution then - aka soluttion that would hurt only cheaters minority without hurting fair majority in the process would to get someone to moderate these anomalies and determine whether there is a reason for such difference (because there can always be - for example for kickstarter game backers are more likely to forgive more and give game better rating, because they are the ones most passionate about the product). If there is not and reviews are obviously fake (written by same "curator group" for example) then punish reviewers and devs of this single game. Like I mentioned - there are just 160 such games atm. It's less than 2% of Steam's library, it's a job that could be easilly done by 1 or 2 people. But Valve being Valve not the first time decides that it's better to make a system that will punish fair majority in the name of fighting unfair minority than to do any actual job like curation, moderation, support work etc. It's the same as with previous "decisions" like "no more anti-scam protection", mandatory mobile authenthication, trade locks on items and gifts etc.
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There's more than 160 such games atm.
Those cases are the extreme, the newbie ones. Actual review shaping is way softer, and has other intentions, as in pushing the score above a treshold (i.e. 69 > 70%).
(just some small FYI)
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Buy game, review game, refund game... done.
Oh hey, that's totally what will be the next time... shocking how there's this giant EXPLOIT ME there remaining... not to mention the Family Sharing stuff.
Lol.
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Of course. Matter of time till they will implement further "protections" there.
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Sad but true, they could have easily looked over all 160 titles in a week by 2 people rather than bashing us all.
But work, eh... it's so hard.
And it might lead to games out of the store (no sales) they can keep selling (money!) and they would have to ban users and groups and actually improve Steam.
Nah... this is MUCH better.
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oh man sorry I cant read so much text, I only don't understand why you crying here with only 20 reviews...... you afraid no one will notice your opinion as you humble bundle lover :D
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yes, I figured you may have a problem reading a text, especially if you don't like what the text says, if it points flaws in your thinking, so you will instead ignore it and try to offend someone.
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Fake reviews are an enormous problem, and this will do a lot to combat it. Well worth the minor fallout.It's actually other way around. In linked artickle they say thjat they found 160 games where there was a noticeable difference in review scores between key-based and store/gift-based reviews. 160 out of 10000 games on Steam. Less than 2%. And to fight it they punish reviews in 100% of games. So actual version should be Fake reviews are a problem, but a minor one and this will do a lot to combat it. But it's not worth the massive fallout.
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take a note that many of these articles and discussions cover the same titles. They are easilly noticeable (because hey - if shite game has positive rating it's easy to notice something's wrong, even without numerical stats), and as such noticeable examples bring a lot of attention to themselves and you see a lot of info about them. It doesn't necessary mean it's a widespread problem, it only means it's wide discussed problem.
Let's say that in your local newspaper during a year there will be 20 articles about murderers and only 1 article about feeding homeless cats. Does it mean that there are much more murderers around than old ladies feeding homeless kitties? No - it only means that since murders are noticeable, controversial material generating a lot of discussion they will be much wider covered than feeding stray cats ;)
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no no no, you didn't state it is a widely known issue, you said it's widespread issue. There's a enormous (pun intended) difference between these two statements ;p You also called it enormous problem, futher indicating hos big and widespread it is, while any numbers presented tell other way - it's widely known issue, but relativelly present in vast minority of examples.
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you know when nitpicking on semantics becomes important? when two things have totally different meaning - and in this case they have. And also when one personj use different meaning of something to prove their point but then uses another meaning to defend said argument. Which is also a case here ;)
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"Fake reviews are an enormous problem, and this will do a lot to combat it. Well worth the minor fallout."
I agree with this, it's worth it to stop the developers who manipulate reviews. Reviews written by key-activaters will still be available on the store page, and users can filter to see them.
Eliminating anti-consumer practices from the store should be highest priority. I'm glad Valve took action, and it looks like they really studied the problem before acting.
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"Eliminating anti-consumer practices from the store should be highest priority."
Which is funny, since this change by itself is more anti-consumer than the problem.
EDIT: Studied the problem? Don't make me laugh... they just hamfisted the "sollution" through that would give them the least amount of work. And conviently also evilised non-Steam buyers. Win/win?
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"Eliminating anti-consumer practices from the store should be highest priority."
"Which is funny, since this change by itself is more anti-consumer than the problem."
I think it's quite a stretch to call this move anti-consumer. How, exactly? No content was removed, key-buyers can still post reviews and readers who want to can still read them. It's a ridiculous exaggeration to call this "evilizing" lol.
On the other hand, review-buying is akin to false advertising and definitely anti-consumer. It doesn't matter that they found only 160 possible cases or what percentage of the catalog that is. Any fraudulent reviews are too many! Any unscrupulous developers are too many! It's not enough to just clean up actual cases after the fact (which is difficult to determine and expensive in staff-time) because the damage is already done. So what Steam did is disincentivize the practice from now going forward, to eliminate it rather than just address it. Since reviews from key-buyers will no longer be factored into the top-of-the-page review ratio, unscrupulous developers have no motivation for even trying to give out keys in exchange for good reviews.
Sorry, but your hyperbole and ad hominem invective do not constitute worthy arguments in defense of your position.
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I think it's quite a stretch to call this move anti-consumer. How, exactly? No content was removed, key-buyers can still post reviews and readers who want to can still read them.
"Removing all video game related channels from the YouTube search engine was not an anti-consumer move. Why, exactly? No content is removed, viewers can still watch the channels if they use the direct links.
On the other hand, advertising fake CS:GO beting sites is definitely anti-consumer. It doesn't matter that they found three channels out of 10,000 or what percentage of the video game channels that is. Any fraudulent advertisements are too many! Any CS:GO bet scammers are too many! It is not enough to clean up actual cases after the fact (which is difficult to determine and expensive in staff-time) because the damage is already done. So what Google/YouTube did is disincentivize the practice from now going forward, to eliminate it rather than just address it. Since CS.GO betting scam videos will no longer be factored into the top-viewed video page, unscrupulous content creators have no motivation for even trying to advertise CS:Go betting sites."
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Sorry, but I don't play CS:GO or know much about the betting situation so I'm not getting your point here. I don't readily seeing how this is relevant to fraudulent reviews.
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It is a simple word switch to show that by your logic/analogy, Google would have a solid reason to filter out any and all video game related channels, because a few were involved in things that may or may not turn out to be court cases/criminal acts. You are using the same "we found some rule-breakers, let's condemn the entire group" method valve did. Or, to make it more clear, this is the "kill them all and let God sort 'em out" way of thinking.
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No, not at all. My argument is based on a value judgement, as stated in my first post, that eliminating anti-consumer practices outweighs any key-buyers' "right" to have their review counted in aggregate scoring. You are free to disagree with that value judgement, obviously, but you're quite wrong (not to mention mean-spirited) to suggest that my argument in one case means I condone any kind of "kill them all" policy.
Moreover, I strongly disagree with your premise that anything or anybody has been "condemned" or "killed" here. The review score at the top of the store page no longer counts your opinion. I don't see that as anything like being "condemned" or "evilized".
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It is condemned, because now unless you bought a game directly at Steam your review is not counted, nor shown unless somebody flips a switch to look under the blanket Valve put on all these reviews. Any review made on a game not purchased directly from Steam is now considered second-class that is not worthy enough to be included in the statistics, not worthy enough to have a say on the game's overall score on the store page and search engine hits. People who purchased outside Steam can still say their piece, but their opinion will be discarded and disregarded. This is an actual caste system on something as trivial as a gods-damn user score on a few video games, because some people who made a few shitty games made a few more bucks and made Valve look incompetent to keep their own backyard clean. Now they decided to bulldozer said backyard and be done with it.
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Clearly, we'll have to agree to disagree. :-) I'm sorry you feel "condemned" and "bulldozed" but from my perspective that's an over-reaction. No developers, absolutely none, should be allowed or enabled to trick or cheat customers, for any amount. The whole free-market system depends on principles like these, and most Western countries have codified such ideals into law. Having your review score counted on a private website from which you did not actually buy the product, not so much.
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It's like that. You just have to pick other category and look how percentage change. So I really fail to see why people are so against it. It's just that score on top of page is set by defauls on "steam purchasers"
(It's percentage of the same game - No Man Sky)
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most people won't make the effort to change the category
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For me its a good thing because I tend to buy my games outside of steam as much as I can. Fuck steam store. Only keys reviews (what a stupid thing to do, but i wanted to share my little angry stuff with the steam store)
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Hey, have you got this game on our store? No? Fuck your opinion, then.
Again, 10 people are punished by 1 guy's mistake.
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I personally think it is a good move by Steam, since they did keep the option of filtering the reviews as we wish.
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If anything, this will probably make the review system way worse. The people/publishers that want to cheat the review system will find ways to do so. This will mainly screw over legit reviews. Valve goes for the cheapest solution possible once again and fails hard.
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there are already at least two easy ways to cheat the system, only people suffering will be legit reviewers ;) Games played via family sharing are not counted as "key" copies and their reviews show normally. You can also play store-bought game less than 2h, refund it and then post a review (refunding the game does not cancel review, only thing that matters for a review is play time).
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Those aren't really "easy" though. Both things impose a cost on the users who would engage in those practices. Family-sharing outside of your actual family is risky, and refunds are not instantaneous and if you do too many, Steam might revoke your ability to refund. So there are already checks and balances on that kind of possible fraud.
Bribing gamers to give good reviews with free keys, on the other hand, imposes no costs on the bribees at all and little risk for the shitbag developers who do the bribing. The practice was widespread enough for Steam users to complain and for Valve to look into the matter. I think they made a good decision to take away the incentive that unscrupulous developers had for engaging in the practice.
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not easy? "bribing" requires third party - users - and even then you cannot be 100% sure they will leave review and if it will be positive. On the other hand you can se up infinite number of alt accounts yourself, family share with them and write reviews for yoir game yourself - 100% risk free.
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But wouldn't Steam know that those reviews come from accounts shared with one central account? So not really risk-free.
I'm not arguing that shared-accounts aren't problematic vis-a-vis reviews. If Steam has the data to indicate that they are, then hopefully they will do something about it. All I'm really saying is that pointing out that other problems exist doesn't make for a good argument against a solution to a different problem.
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"not easy? "bribing" requires third party - users - and even then you cannot be 100% sure they will leave review and if it will be positive. "
Depends how you go about it. My point was that there was no cost on the bribees, ie. those who receive the keys. I didn't say anything about the cost to developers.
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hmm.. idk i see both sides really. i decided to try and stay out of this one long enough to let others put their opinions so that i could kinda get a better opinion on this matter myself..
i think overall though the gains outweighs the drawbacks this solution provides.. but by no means am i saying it does not have its drawbacks because it does.. there are still some games that will be abused via some other way with the review system, and there are valid reviews that no longer get taken into consideration on the overall review score of the game. but i think overall its better then no solution at all.. but like said before its a half-ass solution really.
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Good measure. Makes sense.
More accurate and fair. We can continue to read other reviews. Is just a matter of first eye contact of the game that change.
"positive, mostly positive, negative, etc"
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So what you're saying is...
Steam store buyer? Accurate and fair.
Humble bundle buyter? Inaccurate and false
GMG buyer? Inaccurate and false
Kickstarter buyer? Inaccurate and false
Ehm... yeah... no.
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No. Im not saying that. Like others have said. This is not the perfect solution...but I've seen so much giveaways asking for votes or reviews. Idk. It's unfair for ones, fair for others.
And only 5% of my games were bought on steam..so. Im not defending anyone in particular.
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Same here... apparently that doesn't make me accurate nor fair. heck, you just told me you're not accurate nor fair!
For that I need to put bundles aside, or purchases from other digital download services just giving a Steam key.
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No..........
Steam store buyer? Gives money to Valve
Humble bundle buyer? Valve don't like losing money when people buying cheap crap
GMG buyer? Valve don't like different advertisements
Kickstarter buyer? Valve have early access
So people must be glad that Valve still allow them to write review on their site without buying products directly from them, and I think this only because Gabe also get some cut from keys, even not as much as buying through his store :D
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That was in response to his "More accurate and fair."
And they just allow keys since it binds people to them, and they expect to turn that into profit from storesales and the marketplace. Costumer binding they call that. It's a marketing thing. They seem to be breaking it up now though.
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I think its a great idea, if you purchase game not in steam so write your reviews where you get it. Anyway I don't care much about reviews, but after this change it will be more easy to sort games (you will know without looking elsewhere if a game was a free or cheap bundle crap and even how much time it was bundled) and users (those paid reviewers AHAHAHaaaaaaa)
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Steam review section is a joke. Nobody takes it seriously because it's filled with endlessly biased fans or haters, not to mention the "oh look at me I'm so funny and random lol" reviews.
If this will change anything I say let it be.
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how will it change anything, please do tell me. Cannot fan or hater buy steam store copy and write biased review? sure he can. Does a troll care if he writes "oh look at me I'm so funny and random lol" review for store-purchased copy or key copy? and does he writes these reviews just for key games? no. Nothing of things you mentioned is influenced by these changes, as these things are in no way bound to source of purchase of the game you review.
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You're right, steam review section is garbage. The end.
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As expected, some indie devs are thrilled, absolutely thrilled:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-09-13-valve-takes-on-steam-user-review-score-manipulation
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/09/13/steam-review-filtering-affects-kickstarter-games/
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Who wouldn't be thrilled after a successfull Kickstarter, your backers are put away as Freeloaders, and you as a fraud for giving those KS backers "all those free keys"...
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"Roth's point is that some developers rely on reviews from those who received their game from a source outside of Steam"
Considering his game has mixed to negative reviews now, not really a surprise ^^
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Apparently, it was mostly due to it being released in early access as a barely-tested buggy mess alpha-level version, but lately after a shitload of fixes it started to get better results. So a game that probably would sell now worse on Steam but would had some chance at key stores, especially since it can be discounted better there.
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Steam shows recent reviews (IIRC, it's down right now), so why did it not improve?
Outside of Steam, meaning bundle / giveaway trash for cards? Let's be serious here, most of these games would barely have any owners outside of that purpose.
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The developer who complained in that first article must not have much faith in his project.
Ultimately, kickstarter games, like any other, have to sink or swim in the open market. If the game is good, then the top-of-the-page review score will reflect that even if it's only counting reviews from people who bought direct from Steam. Why should a kickstarted game's review score be skewed by backers who have reason to be less than objective?
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Why should a kickstarted game's review score be skewed by backers who have reason to be less than objective?
Kickstarted game: http://store.steampowered.com/app/314710/
Reviews with Steam only: 60%
Reviews altogether, including KickStarter backers: 38%
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How does that answer the question?
This seems to be a case where the kickstarter backers think less of the product than the general audience? Either way, the general experience is likely to be more relevant for prospective buyers than the kickstarter opinion.
A review system, first and foremost, is meant to serve the readers, the prospective customers, not the review writers, which is a self-selected group anyway..
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But how do you serve the readers with a review system that hides a good chunk of the reviews from the readers?
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Well, that's a good question.
First I would not describe them as "hidden". Are individual GA pages here "hidden" because getting to them requires a click from a search results list or a forum post? It's less than that with the reviews -- you check the "All" box and you don't even have to reload the whole page. So the key-users' reviews are still easily accessible and the setting is very visible for those who scroll down to read reviews anyway.
Secondly I would point out that from the perspective of the customers there are only two possibilities -- either the review score is the same when looking at reviews of key-buyers vs. Steam-buyers, or they're different. In the vast majority of cases where they're the same, there's absolutely no impact on the reader, it doesn't matter which ones do or don't get counted, any random sample is going to come out with the same score.
Cases where the scores are different indicate that there's some cause for the difference, fraudulent reviews being only one example. Given that the prospective customer is shopping on the Steam store, I would have to believe that the Steam-store buyers' reviews are going to be more relevant than the key-buyers' or the combination of both. The kickstarted games example is a good case in point. Whatever went on during the kickstarter process between the developer and backers that affected the latter, whether positively or negatively, is likely not or no longer relevant to the general audience, hence my question above.
So I just don't think that readers are being disserved in any considerable way with the new system.
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Not sure if it was mentioned, but Steam has secret mechanics that "push to the back of the line" games with little reviews, when you're doing search or sorting by a tag. So if a game has less than 50 reviews and all are positive, it's gonna be "positive" and not "overwhelmingly positive" anyway. Also, if 10 of those were from kickstarter / desura / humblestore buyers... tough luck, the game will be "sorted" after all the other games that have 50+ reviews, even if they have lower rating.
This is a problem for many smaller developers who aren't advertising in magazines and most of their early purchases come from kickstarter or some other store front via keys.
I've just seen a brand new game marked as "negative" based on 1 store review. Casual steam user will skip that game in search without even reviewing who and why marked it as that. (it also had 7 positive reviews from "dirty key activators")
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It mostly always has been, but thankfully now all but the most faithful zealots start to realise and accept that.
Now, I wonder what would Blizzard have to do to make people realise they are awful at game design and live on stolen ideas only…
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tbh - what does it matter? Why picking up on Blizz only? Almost every company in the industry lives on "stolen" ideas, very rarely something really new or innovative get's published. Game industry is taking ideas of your predecesors and making them better by your own additions. And Blizz games (mostly) why not innovative are pretty goddamn good games. Simple as that. I got dissapointed just once by them - with first version of Diablo 3 fiasco, but even then they manage to make it a good game in time and now I do really enjoy it. I'm not a zealot - when they fucked up I voiced my opinion that they did fuck up, but I simply enjoy well made game from genres I enjoy.
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Because Blizzard is the only one that built itself on that and sold itself as something original. They never did anything but repackaged existing games and fantasy storylines and sold them as their own. Even Apple has had some innovation in its field, despite building most of its modern-day fortune on selling things as their own ideas, even though all of them existed long before.
Also, because their gameplay before Overwatch really, really sucked. An RTS where the players' most important aspect is their APM? Really? What is the "strategy" part then: how many hours you practise a day clicking fast?
(Okay, one thing I have to give them: they managed to popularise the tower defense genre, that funny enough spread among motly the casual gaming scene. WarCraft 3 may have had one good thing going for it besides that—that is was not C&C: Generals—but it was a good thing for the gaming industry.)
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You have such a problem with Blizz zealots, yet you are clearly simply a Bluizz hater. You don't like their games - your right, but who are you to tell others what they can and cannot like? I actually see what they did to RTS as a brilliant change. Strategy is still important, but it's no longer the only important thing. You yourself counter your own arguments. First you say you never innovate, then you complain how you hate how they inovated on RTS genre ;p For me the fact that SC requires so much micro is what for example makes it so exciting to watch as an e-sport.
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WarCraft and StarCraft didn't innovate the RTS genre, they turned it into a clicking contest. Ground Control innovated the RTS genre, but then again, most any, if not all StarCraft players wouldn't be able to finish even the campaign mode there (it starts by you getting a fixed amount of squads… for the entire game). The first few Total Wars innovated the genre by bringing the large-scale battles of TBSs to the RTS scene. Age of Empires innovated the RTS scene by showing that you can balance more than 3 factions (and its sequel showing you can balance more than two dozen too… something no other RTS managed to get even remotely close).
Total Annihilation innovated the RTS scene by essentially redefining it from the ground-up, with a control scheme and GUI that is still among the very best, 18 years after its release. (A unit is doing exactly what you want it to do not because you are clicking on it 5 times a seconds, but because the commands adapt to the player needs and you can queue up hundreds of individual actions for each and every unit, if you want.)
WarCraft reskinned Dune 2, WarCraft 2 added inbalanced campaign scenarios on it, StarCraft ramped up the AI cheating (to levels I still haven't seen since then, not even in Total Annihilation, where the AI literally has infinite resources) and introduced a speed element, often by limiting the available space to build a lot.
The only dumber RTS franchise is Command & Conquer, but it is designed to be as simple as humanly possible, to be mindless fun.
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Like I said - you are an hater. If innovation is something you don't like it's not innovation, if innovation is something you like it is. Both big scale battles and micromanagement are different parts of innovation. You may not like one and it's constructive personal opinion. But saying that something you don't like cannot be innovation is just essence of a hater ;)
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Yes, I learnt to hate them. I played all Blizzard games up to WC3, which was so aggravating as a strategy game that it was my first AAA title where I just gave up on any hope of ever finishing it. It also didn't help that I played Diablo after Baldur's Gate, because it was "also an RPG". It was like expecting to go to the movies to watch an award-winning drama and see a summer teen horror flick instead. Has its merits, but way too far from even the minimal expectations of what makes the product enjoyable.
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I'm not going to get deeper in the discussion because I'm nowwhere as passionate about RTS games as you but Starcraft and Warcraft 3 spawned MOBAS (the original DotA) and Tower Defense, 2 things that started out as mods and became entire new genres. They might not be my cup of tea but they are apparently extremely popular.
Granted those were created by the modding community so you can't really give Blizzard credit for them (other than apparently making their games modding friendly) but they became so popular that I'd definitly say they changed the gaming world.
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I recall TD being an original game mode in WC3, at least I am almost sure I played it, and the only RTS I ever modded was TA. (And AoE2, but the "mod" there is now sold as an official expansion.)
I… like to forget that it was the reason MOBAs exist. I never got MOBAs, but it can be just my problem. (I don't get what's so interesting about CS either, I always preferred UT over CS and QL, so I pretty much stay far away from most popular eSports events because it really doesn't interest me the least bit.)
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It's been so long ago you're probably right about TD being official part of the game. I like coop multiplayer better in general because the community is usually not as toxic.
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Maybe a better solution is to stop from getting bad games on Steam. This is a key racism.
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But that would require quality control. A rather alien concept. Not to mention that it would require new employees who do it. Which costs money. You seriously want Valve to have a year where they cannot meet the half billion dollar profit after taxes goal?
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So in my opinion Steam is slowly dying most updates that they make is a hell for users. Or they could use a blacklist so if the game was give for free in thousands of copies, review will be blocked if game was activated by a key.
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I wish they would change from the vary black/white polarizing: YES/NO reviews.
We need a score system, cause even shitty games are voted as YES for like, one redeeming feature, fuck that, if I find something wrong with a game, me personally would always say no, now if it was a point system, i may give it a 70/100 or whatever, but thats me. Which is better then 0/100, right?
And way to fuck over actual retrail purchases of AAA game buyers (that allmost always are steam codes now anyways).
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I don't think a 1-2-3-4...7-8-9-10 score would really help much. But yes, it's about high time we got neutral. So many games I would count under that that I know have to upvote or downvote.
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No its not I got a CoD Ghosts in box when it came out for full price and I cant make a legit review because its a key.
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lul wut? A bit of overkill don't you think?
I think this isn't their brightest idea, good bye to 90% of the reviews.
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https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s_T4WYWf-tBtA8Oqg79J7fDe3ulOc6DgJl6ByhYMnD0/edit#gid=0
Especially scroll at the end... such high quality games now having 90% unvotes.
Darn those Indiegala gamers downvoting a classic like Elves Adventure pukes
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Interesting list. Good thing at least they didn't implement it to affect reviews after a certain time range, otherwise I wonder how many millions of reviews would have been put behind a wall.
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What exactly were the criteria for a game to be part of that list? At first I thought something like "more than 50% reviews lost" but there are a few 20%s in there so it doesn't seem to be that.
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Oh well, I'll keep reviewing games.
Wait is steam back?
Eeer... sorry given the fact that steam was down, I'm seeing windows popping up with people in game.
Anyway, I'm also buying from the store and activating keys and I'm still being read (by friends or by people in a group I'm belonging and encouraging people to review).
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Apparently the updates to the review system have blocked ANY new reviews from being published. Instead you get a message, "You must own this product to review it."
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http://store.steampowered.com/news/24155/
Second update:
http://store.steampowered.com/news/24331/
What do you think?
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