This is a good change, they have had the unhelpful/helpful/funny review system for years now, but I always found it weird it didn’t do anything aside from boost on “helpful” rating. something that is majority unhelpful rated shouldn’t be shown on the review page or arguably in the score in the first place.
“unhelpful” review aka reviews that could make them earn less money.
What? You think they should run the platform out of the kindness of their hearts?
Why not? Don’t people play games because they want to have fun?
The instance and platform you are using to comment isn’t a corporation grinding billions.
Good. I’m sick of seeing the “pet this cat” reviews at the top of the list. Hopefully this changes some of that stuff.
5,000 Steam awards on the “review” too.
To be fair, what else are those points for other than blowing on awards to dump on reviews and guides?
Please just give us a “maybe”
You can now review reviews
Always could
You could only not mark a review as helpful. You couldn’t provide context if the reviewer didn’t allow comments.
Slashdot nailed this decades ago.
has it really been decades 😭
Yo dawg…
Does this mean “reviews that negatively affect profits” or does in mean genuinely removing irrelevant content?
It probably works based on whether users marking reviews as helpful or unhelpful and then uses some formula to remove the unhelpful ones. So it can be neither, but the key takeaway is that the users decide what ends up filtered out.
Thanks. That’s actually not too bad an idea. However, I’ll offer that it could lead to critics being silenced. Not necessarily out of nefarious purposes, but people love the downvote train sometimes.
For the same reasons that the YT algorithm is deliberately mysterious, Valve shouldn’t be letting people know how to game systems like this.
Yeah, that’s why I said it’s neither because people can be unpredictable. It might not filter out irrelevant content because people love to upvote memes and it might filter out criticism because sometimes people downvote criticism.
Overall like with some other Steam features the value of the feature is dependent on the community, and generally that value has been a net positive.
All good points.
You can mark a review as helpful. If it’s that, then users decide about it.
Asking the real questions.
I would hope that it’s removing that one review about being a 40 year old dad that plays the game with his son that’s on every single game in the Steam store. And also hopefully that copy pasted one with the check boxes
Surprised steam would do something like this. Must of snuck it past Lord GabeN
What do you mean to imply?
A system to filter out copy-pasted meme reviews seems useful.
Which is why I said it’s surprising that it’s been implemented.
This is the kind of issue Steam either buries its head in the sand over (which it kinda have) or just pushing into the customers (which it also kinda has)
It would also likely affect GabeN bottom line so there’s that too.
Who will review the reviewer?
Reviews being a message board for grievances and memes really sucks. It reflects badly on gamers. Makes everything look trashy.
Memes? yes!
Grievances? That’s exactly what a review is for! Telling other people what you do and don’t like about a thing.
I wonder how many real reviews are going to get filtered as “unhelpful” because the developer or other people don’t like what the review says, even if what is said is factually true.
Or fanboys going through all reviews and downvoting any negative reactions. I’m willing to bet folding money that Hollow Knight’s user score is going to go up because of this because their fanbase is toxic af
One problem steam doesn’t have is with fake accounts. They can be reasonably sure which accounts are legit and ignore votes from the more questionable ones
I do enjoy a sprinkling of meme and unhinged reviews - especially as part of Northernlion Reads Hentai Game Steam Reviews segments - but overall this is probably a change for the better.
Are ya winning, son?
I wish they would also let us filter out unuseful guides.
PROS
- I can write a list
- It will be a few lines
- I can fluff it up a bit
- Keep going
- Almost there
- It’s an okay game
CONS
- I’ll write 200 of these
- Most will be nitpicky
- I still played over 1000 hours
- I clearly have never written a line of code yet somehow know how they could have done it better
- I should be paid as a game journalist
3/10
Eh. I mark people complaining about core elements of the genre or similar stuff that’s a clear valid design choice as “not helpful” if it’s whiney enough sometimes, but at least they’re talking about the actual game.
at least these reviews are more informative about a game than the “just leaving this cat here” for thr billionth time
For every like I will eat a spoonful of salt
