I'm usually pretty good about playing and completing my wins, but I just had to (for my sanity's sake) abandon a won game after about 20 hours of play. There was a lot to like about the game but my enjoyment waxed and waned with the game's many design flaws. The game has strongly positive reviews but I can't believe more than a very small subset of Steam gamers would like or appreciate the game tho many would be attracted to the game's cute graphics style. Had I known, I would have never put it on my wishlist (and thus never entered a GA for it).

Probably I'll just forget about it, but I got to wondering if it would be appropriate to leave a "not recommended" review on Steam of a won game. What do you think?

7 years ago

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Is it disrespectful to the GA creator to leave a negative review of a won game?

View Results
Yes
No

If you played a game you didn't like for 20 hours, that's already extremely gracious. I usually won't last an hour with a game I dislike.

7 years ago
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I'm amazed that 2 people voted "yes." I would love to hear their reasoning.

7 years ago
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They probably just wanted to be different .. can't think of anything else in this context.

7 years ago
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You showed probably the highest level of respect that you can to the giveaway creator by playing the game for long enough to have a strong opinion about it (regardless if that opinion is positive or negative). No-one in their right mind would be mad at you for expressing that opinion.

7 years ago
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Absolutely not, a bad game / gift / item / book whatever is still a bad one, regardless of being a gift. You can be still thankful that the creator made the giveaway and therefore you got the game free to play/try, but it's not forbidden to not like a won game.

7 years ago
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[Normal thinking]
All right! Thank you very much!

However, the contents of the game did not match the preferences I thought.
Thank you for providing the game.

[so crazy guy]
I got a game that is not interesting!
I will appeal! I am grudging! I hate you! Shiver trembling with waste of time!

The person who says such a thing is probably a joke. XD

7 years ago
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Others can be different, but most of the games I give away are games I don't want anyway. If you don't like them - that's totally fine! Me too, buddy! Write a review to share your viewpoint so other people with similar tastes can avoid it.

And even if I was giving away another copy of a game I really liked... I mean, even still - what you do with YOUR game now after you won it is completely up to you. It's YOURS now. I said the same thing in a thread a little while ago about people getting pissy about never playing won games - once you win a game, it's yours to do with what you want. That's what gifts are!

7 years ago
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I think the giveaway creator would be happy to know that you played 20 hours of their game and reviewed it, even if it's a bad review. That's more effort then a lot of us give to our wins and it's great that you gave it a shot. Once a game is yours you should be able to write any review you want, negative or positive :)

I've given away some crappy games or games that I didn't enjoy myself so I'm all for people writing bad reviews. I'm sure most people feel that way!

7 years ago
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Well summarized, i completely agree with this message !

7 years ago
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Steam games activated by keys are not counted on a game store page's rating.

7 years ago
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True, but still appears well-visible for friends of the reviewer, or even amongst the top reviews. , it's not a moot point to write one :)

7 years ago
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I won Call of Duty Ghosts a while ago, played both single and "multiplayer" (sometimes with bots). I enjoyed the game, but I did not recommend it because of the price of it, and the dead multiplayer besides DM with max ranked pros on pc. You can appreciate a gift, used it, but not like it and not recommend it to other people.

7 years ago
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Those poll results tho... never seen SG so united before hahaha

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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Well I wasn't proposing to write a dishonest positive review. The choice was between writing a negative review or doing nothing at all.

7 years ago
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I wasn't proposing to write a dishonest positive review. The choice was between writing a negative review or doing nothing at all.

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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The only disrespectful review is the fake one :)
Seriously, who never found a game was not what he/she expected ? It's totally fine not to enjoy something, as long as you give it a try.

7 years ago
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I review every game I play on Steam....Harshly. Half my library is indie bundle games and asset store "games", so I guess it's no surprise that most of the games I played got a negative review. I have the tendency to be incredibly critical.
I am not rating the giveaway creator, if anything the burden lies on me, since I was the one who entered to win the game I eventually didn't like.

7 years ago
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First of all, givers don't necessarily assume that the winner is going to enjoy the game. A lot of games are given precisely because the giver didn't want them; sometimes they are given for CV. A lot of crappy games are given, and the chance of people actually wanting them is low.

As a (sometimes) giver, I think it's nice that the game is won by someone who would like to play that game. If the winner plays that game, then that's great. If the winner enjoyed the game, that's certainly a bonus, but I certainly won't expect it up front, nor do I even expect the winner to play any time soon. I just hope that the winner wants the game as a more than +1 to the library.

7 years ago
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There's a game I won I really didn't like, I've considered wrting a negative review but I don't write so many so I thought it could be rude for the GA creator and just gave up. It was not a bad game, just something I didn't enjoy. I call that being polite.

7 years ago
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Exactly. That was my concern. I could just not write a review at all.

7 years ago
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I think it's the best thing to do, stay silent and move on. Unless the game really have a very limited amount of reviews. If it's the case you should write it for the community's sake.

7 years ago
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It's disrespectful to the consumer to write a biased review without pointing that out.. other than that you're good

7 years ago
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If you played 20hrs you must have some insight in the game and can write a good review. I've even seen developers taken action and improved the game because a well written review. So why not.

And you won't hurt the one giving the game away

7 years ago
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Haha, no.
I won Langoth here and think it is absolutely horrible. Same goes for Pirates Deck, which even can't be played anymore cause if you download the game, the game folder is just empty.
There's nothing disrespectful about finding out a game just doesn't match your expectations and sharing that experience. In fact, I like negative reviews that pick up some flaws of the games.

7 years ago
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Nah, absolutely not. I think it would be more disrespectful towards the people who read the reviews on steam to lie about if the game was good for you or not.

7 years ago
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Maybe the creator knows that it's a bad game so he's giving it away xD

7 years ago
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Of course not, expecting from winner to like the game just because he joined a giveaway for it is a huge logical flaw right in its fundaments.

I can't count how many times the game that looked very promising and totally my genre turned out to be very underwhelming or even complete trash and I had no freaking way of knowing it before in fact trying it. Sure, there are people that will join anything they can, even if it completely doesn't interest them, but there are also people who genuinely are interested in the title, but you can't force them to like it against their own will. In fact, as others said, just playing the game and actually writing a review is far more than you could expect from a winner, there is actually very little more that winner can do with the game he didn't enjoy.

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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What.. Sorry, but this question is not only extremely incoherent but also somewhat dumb. What the heck is wrong with your brain, dude?

7 years ago
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