Are spoilers allowed in reviews?

[Cerberus]

I saw nothing about whether spoilers are allowed in reviews. On sites like Goodreads, I believe they are not (someone will make sure the spoiling parts get marked as such, and collapsed). Especially for adventure games, a single sentence could spoil the plot of a game big time, possibly even rendering part of the gameplay obsolete. Are spoilers allowed?

[Vashh]

if they have this black bar
then yes

[MalikQayum]

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4045-USHJ-3810
these are the guidelines for reviews as well, as you can see, spoilers are not mentioned so you should be free to spoil whatever ever you want in a review.

[cinedine]

Originally posted by MalikQayum:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4045-USHJ-3810
these are the guidelines for reviews as well, as you can see, spoilers are not mentioned so you should be free to spoil whatever ever you want in a review.

Uhm, no? Even if not outright mentioned, that falls under the standard netiquette.

[Edifier]

Originally posted by G:

if they have this black bar
then yes

You don't need that in reviews of a game. Those tags are generally for normal discussion on the discussion board.

Review is a review of the game. That includes all part of the game.

[Levi]

Originally posted by Cerberus:

I saw nothing about whether spoilers are allowed in reviews. On sites like Goodreads, I believe they are not (someone will make sure the spoiling parts get marked as such, and collapsed). Especially for adventure games, a single sentence could spoil the plot of a game big time, possibly even rendering part of the gameplay obsolete. Are spoilers allowed?

It's not grounds to get a review "banned" per se.

Netiquette is all fine and dandy, however.

[Zekiran]

Not being a jerk should be of pretty high importance on reviews or commentary about any product.

I would say: if your 'review' goes into such detail on things that would absolutely ruin a game for someone due to spoiling it? Put spoiler tags VERY PROMINENTLY on the top of the review. Don't 'retell the story' in a review, be vague for details, basically.

Anything else should be considered 'comments' and kept in the forum for such discussions.

[TheCount]

Steam wont allow spoilers if someone reports your review. I reported a review because it contained spoilers about the ending of a game. 2 days after my report the review was gone.

[Duckilous]

Originally posted by TheCount:

Steam wont allow spoilers if someone reports your review. I reported a review because it contained spoilers about the ending of a game. 2 days after my report the review was gone.

Was it because the review failed to use spoiler tags?

[IFIYGD]

Originally posted by TheCount:

Steam wont allow spoilers if someone reports your review. I reported a review because it contained spoilers about the ending of a game. 2 days after my report the review was gone.

And you have no way to know if Valve stepped in and took the review down, or the reviewer took their own review down, voluntarily, for any number of possible reasons. You are simply assuming that it was removed by a Valve Mod because you chose to report it.

[Zekiran]

Yeah it's not necessarily causation unless you were doing it yourself. It may have been reported numerous times (perhaps even for the same reason) but it might not have been taken down for that reason.

[MalikQayum]

5 hours and 10 posts later, people saying the word netiquette as if that should mean something, whilst not linking to a single article, response from valve or even a steam mod stating that spoilers is not allowed.

throwing words around as some sort of scare tactic like netiquette (like oh.. you don't know what standard netiquette is??)

but do link me to valves netiquette then, if the kb article doesn't mention it, i presume it is mentioned in this hidden document (lets call it hidden netiquette).

but it has become an occuring theme to just post stuff as if that means that person is right just because they said so.

also just because you don't like "spoilers" does not mean everyone on steam has the same subjective opinion about it as you do, so don't impose your opinions onto others as if you represent the entire community.

I could very well be wrong in thinking it is allowed as nothing has ever indicated otherwise to me but if such statements from either valve or the moderator staff were to present themselves, i guess i would be that much wiser.

but all i got from this so far is, and let me put into an example for you:
can i watch a horror movie while playing barbies dream house? no, because it is not standard netiquette.

[Drakensson]

If it's not explicitly mentioned in the rules then I couldnt care less.
Luckily for the moderators, they have the ability to delete reviews.
So then they can sleep well at night x)

[Zekiran]

We all mention it because we're decent people who want to NOT spoil an experience or game, movie, or story to people who are interested in playing/experiencing that thing.

If you consider that to be too much for you, perhaps you shouldn't be reviewing games, and maybe want to review how good you are at being human. because ... my impression is that you're pretty crap at it.

[MalikQayum]

interesting.. if you don't want to exposed to "spoilers" perhaps you should go off the grid.
put on a tinfoil hat and hide under your bed until you can buy the game yourself.

keep in mind, nobody is forcing you to read the reviews. The OP did not ask whether or not you were a decent person or a jerk, and why you bring both things up is beyond my comprehension as the question the OP asked was whether or not it was allowed.

not whether or not you think the people that do add "spoilers" in reviews are decent or bad people.

but do link the OP something that can confirm it is not allowed, which would be an actual contribution to this topic, rather than your opinions about it.

[Zekiran]

Um, no, I'm just capable of actually writing a spoiler-free review of a game. Because I loathe spoilers for most entertainment, and avoid them where I can, but also enjoy educating myself by the use of reviews.

Since they clearly say "there's nothing in the rules specific about it" one might infer that there is no hard and fast rule.

But socially, the rule is, don't. Because spoilers are a ♥♥♥♥ move.