gangsta

ok

No. Just no. I understand keys but why would you exclude gifts? This is dumb in my opinion

Because some developers can "gift" their games in exchange for reviews @MilkGames. I think the changes are fair to this extent.

pay to review, new steam dlc

@CleanWater, Thanks for your comment. I understand this, but this will affect way too many legit costumers. This is basically saying:

"Oh no! My friend gifted it to me before I could buy it! Well f you and we don't care about your review."

Free weekend copies I can understand being discounted from the score tally, as those can be easily abused with new accounts. Gift copies, though? Removing those from the average is a heavy handed approach that will only harm smaller devs that have some very passionate fans. Can gift copies of games be generated by the developer at will to flood the economy like keys? That's would be a major difference, which is why I feel excluding gift copies from counting towards the score average is several major steps backwards for developers, while providing only a slight obstruction from less reputable devs who attempt to game the system. If developers can currently pull actual gift copies out of thin air, I'd recommend making those specific copies contain flags that discredits them from the average, as opposed to every gift.

Is there any plan to add a new icon or any way to identify the reviews that aren't counting anymore ?

I agree with the new system , a user that invested his money and time to play the game has the right for a valid review. (meaning that this way in the future most of the reviews will be game focused and not paid by developers like game gifts, keys, and passes.)

I tend to buy my games to my inventory first and decide afterwards whether I gift to friends or activate them myself. Does this mean my activating my own gift purchases invalidates my reviews I write? That doesn't sound fair.

*affects

ive never heard of the developers being able to make gifts before.
keys yes ive known of that, but can they really make giftables?
if not i dont see why gift reviews would be lower value.

i also know they can make cards and icons for free of there own game.
yet none tradeable, none marketable.

So first Key activations (AKA Every single legitimate and honest Kickstarter backer has no say, for whatever reason) and now gift copies too?

Man, Valve really likes arbitrarily dropping the ball and making things worse without our consent don't they..
The fact of the matter is that I haven't really 'bought' from steam in years, and I'll continue to do so - or not do so as the case may be - so long as the prices here remain uncompetetive compared to trades/alternate key distributors. I fail to see how my method of acquisition ought to determine whether my opinions and viewpoints for any particular title has merit or not, being that most games aren't inherently tied to or a direct work of Valve (Which would be the only reason I could see them having a leg to stand on in this decision).

This doesn't even begin to address the problem of straight up gifts between family and friends now beling silenced and ignored again for some inexplicable reason.

Much like the key thing, it sounds like the case of burning an orphanage for the sake of pest controlling a handful of rats within; taking far too extreme measures that catch far too many innocent and legitimate users in the crossfire just to weed out a minority of bad apple devs/inflated reviews.

That Valve are unable to see how much collateral damage this is doing in the meantime is incredible..
At the very least, can't the storepage overall review system just default to the way things were before the Key/Gift changes, and there be a toggle option on screen to *Give the user choice* as to what we want to have displayed? You know, that thing *Choice* whereby we can customise and mold the end user experience to our individual liking?

I mean, that would be a win-win for all involved instead of mandatorily enforcing change upon everyone when it is clearly obvious that this is divisive.

(Jeez, this character limit is another gripe as a sidebar.. let people talk properly please)

How much longer for the word on Steam Direct? :D