The Steam review award system has destroyed what little worth reviews used to have. Thanks.

[Overwatch]

User reviews are bad. They always have been.
They are so full of junk that SteamLabs had to make a filter tool to TRY to let us find the occasional helpful review in the stinking bog.

Adding the "funny" review tag made reviews even worse. Now people post things where REVIEWS go so they can get a tiny moment of internet attention. Great. Like I didn't have enough things to skip over.

But awards have made it SO much worse.

Before awards the reviews section looked something like:

• 70% - Garbage
  
  • Single line reviews like "LOL. GitGud" or "0/10 great would buy for my friends as joke"
    
  • 0.1 hours of playtime - "Can no start run on tostar ovn bad and return cant get monee"
    
  • People who think it's funny to post non-reviews like "Turtles are my favorite pocket fish"
    
• 25% - Sponsored reviews trying to pass as non-sponsored ones. Oh? You have 375 games huh? And you have reviewed 324 of them? You gave 6 of them negative reviews huh? How many of those games were you given keys for? 320 of them? Uh huh. Totally trustworthy...
  
• 5% - Actual attempts at a review. Which DOESN'T mean they are useful. Just that they are actual reviews. A review isn't useful at all unless you understand the tastes of the reviewer, and that relationship/understanding can help you evaluate how YOU might like the game. This is why user reviews aren't useful to begin with. A game could have 95% of people saying it's "too hard". But it might be JUST RIGHT for you. You won't know without a review from someone who you already understand their tastes, or you play it yourself. But I digress...

But now that awards are here, there has been a LARGE increase in people posting garbage/meme reviews to fish for awards. The system reinforces their bad behavior. Not just with internet points like before but with internet currency (that is used to buy things that get you internet points...)

And there isn't even a way to filter out these ♥♥♥♥♥♥ reviews.

Plenty of people play games for 10, 50, or even 100 hours before coming to post a meme. So that doesn't work.

Why can't I block "short" reviews?

Less than 100 words? Nope. GTFO.


But we'll never see a change. Because the awards system was added to make Steam money.

Sigh...

[Charlie5L]

I just don't like the fact that awards can be given in general.

I don't like seeing a stupid badge telling me people think I'm doing good in the community, and that it won't even move when new badges are made while leveling up.

[76561198021901124]

There should be an option to just give thumbs up/down without writing any review. Not everyone is a tryhard gaming journalist wannabe or hilarious and original comedian desperate for recognition and validation on the internet. Some people like me just want to express my satisfaction towards the games I like with simple thumbs up and then go on with my life. But with the current system, I'd just get flagged for spamming short one liner "great game" reviews because of elitist snobs with their "muh kwality kontent deserve moar attenshun and awerds amirite gamers" on a report spree; lumping people like me together with their arch nemesis, le epic funi memers.

[Psychedelic Adventurer]

Messaggio originale di Fancy Pants:

But with the current system, I'd just get flagged for spamming short one liner "great game" reviews because of elitist snobs with their "muh kwality kontent deserve moar attenshun and awerds amirite gamers" on a report spree; lumping people like me together with their arch nemesis, le epic funi memers.

Honestly, I don't think people would do that. I dislike people who just spam "great game" because if you choose to write something, I want it to be substantive. However, this is a problem with the system rather than with you, since you have to write something for the review to be published. Just push the 'Just rated' ones to the bottom, and have the 'reviews' at the top for people to see. Everyone is happy.

[Overwatch]

Messaggio originale di Fancy Pants:

Some people like me just want to express my satisfaction towards the games I like with simple thumbs up and then go on with my life. But with the current system, I'd just get flagged for spamming short one liner "great game" reviews because of elitist snobs with their "muh kwality kontent deserve moar attenshun and awerds amirite gamers" on a report spree; lumping people like me together with their arch nemesis, le epic funi memers.

Sooo, you want to put a non-review in the review section. But you don't want to be lumped in with the OTHER non-reviews by people who are being elitist because they expect people to write reviews in the section that is for reviews?

I think, maybe, that one of us doesn't understand what a review is.

Maybe it's me? Hold on. I'll go check...

...Yup. That's what I thought it meant.

review: noun. a critical appraisal of a book, play, movie, exhibition, etc., published in a newspaper or magazine.
See also: critique, Write-up, Evaluation, Commentary, Article, Column.

Hrm...Seems like maybe it DOES mean a detailed write up about something. But let's check one of those 'See also' to be sure.

Critique: noun. a detailed analysis and assessment of something, especially a literary, philosophical, or political theory.

So, what do we get when we put all this together? A review needs to be detailed. And it needs to be in the form of something that might be fit for publishing. Because that is LITERALLY what the word means.

Me: Hey Bob. What did you think of [game]?
Bob: It was pretty good. I had fun with it. But it was a little short for my liking.

Is that a review? No it is not.

Me: Hey Bob. What did you think of [game]?
Bob: *Thumbs-up

Is that a review? No it is not.

Now that I got all that ELITISM out of my system...

WHY is a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down not useful? Because people have already shown that they will use it improperly.

Does a 91% positive rating mean a game is good? No. It could mean ANY NUMBER of things.
Do people like the publisher? The developer? A voice actor?

78% negative rating? Is the game not fun? Does it crash for everyone during a required quest and there has been no developer response? Did someone at the publisher say something racist on Twitter? Is a conservative/liberal group review bombing it because they feel it is too favorable/negative towards [group]?

I'm sorry to tell you that your heartfelt thumb-sup or thumbs-down with little/no description is just as disruptive as Jimmy-the-Meme-LORD's "11/10 would pet the dog again."

You are just adding noise. You are making the ACTUAL reviews harder to find.

[xwize]

Gonna necro this because forest 2 launched into early access and I swear 90pct of the reviews are meme liners.

[Start_Running]

Messaggio originale di xwize:

Gonna necro this because forest 2 launched into early access and I swear 90pct of the reviews are meme liners.

Yeah. So you focus on the 10% that aren't. If you're feeling sassy you can downvote those memes you find particularly cringey.

[loppantorkel]

Messaggio originale di Start_Running:

Messaggio originale di xwize:

Gonna necro this because forest 2 launched into early access and I swear 90pct of the reviews are meme liners.

Yeah. So you focus on the 10% that aren't. If you're feeling sassy you can downvote those memes you find particularly cringey.

Yea, we can't expect Valve to do anything to improve something that can't be improved...

[Overwatch]

Messaggio originale di Start_Running:

Messaggio originale di xwize:

Gonna necro this because forest 2 launched into early access and I swear 90pct of the reviews are meme liners.

Yeah. So you focus on the 10% that aren't. If you're feeling sassy you can downvote those memes you find particularly cringey.

That doesn't FIX the problem. It just means you MIGHT be able to eventually get some useful information if you are willing to spend 5x the time.

The problem is the system itself actively encourages bad behavior by REWARDING it.

Messaggio originale di loppantorkel:

Yea, we can't expect Valve to do anything to improve something that can't be improved...

The only thing they need to do to fix the problem is STOP encouraging the people writing ♥♥♥♥♥♥ reviews.

They don't need to actively police it.

If it's less than 500 words, it can't be given an award.
If it's less than 100 words it can't be posted.

That won't stop the ASCII art nonsense, but it WOULD stop giving the class clown a a cookie and a better grade for making fart noises in class.

[( ( < < <🤖> > > ) )]

not really... it would just mean people
would start working out how to do 500 word count
reviews and take up even more scrolling room than now

[Crazy Tiger]

Yeah, such arbitrary measures would be circumvented and in the mean time genuine users would be the actual victim.

Word counts to even post a review are a no-go anyway.

[76561199418627359]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.