Steam reviews need a five star rating scale.

[FOXDUDE69]

The simplistic thumbs up or thumbs down thing can be very misleading. Games aren't just good or bad, there's a gradient there and I know you can explain your rating in the text but when you go to a store page and you see an "overwhelmingly positive" rating of 98%, you might think it's the hottest thing since Jessica Alba, only to buy the game and realize it's just a 4 out of 5 game.

But that's not the biggest problem, the biggest problem is when you have a game that is overall good but has some serious issues. Or a game that's just "good enough" for the price. The reviewer is forced to pick from positive or negative rating and since the experience was overall positive, they pick positive which usually results in games having a "very positive" rating, sitting around 85% when in reality it's a 2.5 or 3 out of 5 game.

The absolute worst scenario is one like Fallout 3's which is left in an abysmal state because of steam's lack of standards and Bethesda's let-the-fans-fix-it attitude resulting in a game that doesn't even launch without being modded by the paying costumer and requires further work to run well. Every new player needs to go through this process but the game is real good after you you spend a good amount of time fixing it, so they leave positive reviews... on a game that doesn't even launch. And it's sitting right now with a "mostly positive" rank on steam.

A simple five star rating scale would help a lot and provide a much more honest and accurate average rating.

Thank you for reading.

[ReBoot]

Fallout 3 in fact launches very fine without modding. I tried it recently on my Windows 10 rig, without any modding, it works.
I personally disagree with it's overall good rating (i think it's a serviceable RPG at best and a menial open world exploration game at worst) but just like your opinion of it being simply broken, that's an opinion of mine and I have to accept that not everyone shares that opinion.

Plus, stars don't reflect certain ASPECTS of a game either. What if a game is an actual trainwreck on a technical level but a great game when fan-patched? Why not give it 5 stars then, because it's a fantastic game?

That "overwhelmingly positive"-rated game would, on a stars scale, end up with 5 stars, then you'd buy it and wonder why it's 5 when it should be a 4 by your opinion. Your proposed stars system wouldn't solve the two problems you mention. Hell, when reading video game ratings on Metacritic (they got scores there) or Amazon (stars), I frequently encounter the same: a game that's, by ratings, the best what happened to mankind since Hitler's death is mediocre at best and a waste of money at worst.

You have to understand that taste is relative. Don't rely on ratings, rely on content of reviews. Good reviews have content. If you believe that more nuanced ratings would meet your taste unanimously, you're very very wrong.

[Nx Machina]

Originally posted by Foxdude:

The absolute worst scenario is one like Fallout 3's which is left in an abysmal state because of steam's lack of standards and Bethesda's let-the-fans-fix-it attitude resulting in a game that doesn't even launch without being modded by the paying costumer and requires further work to run well. Every new player needs to go through this process but the game is real good after you you spend a good amount of time fixing it, so they leave positive reviews... on a game that doesn't even launch. And it's sitting right now with a "mostly positive" rank on steam.

So your are using a review star system to disguise your usual attack on Steam and Fallout 3.

FACT: - Steam has nothing to do with Fallout 3 beyond been a storefront and host for Bethesda's game.

I previously stated on another of your threads I have a working version of Fallout 3 including Xbox live without using any patching whatsoever or the dll trick. Video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyupHUuCx2Y

When did you become the arbiter of when a review needs to only contain information you think appropriate or that any review should fit a criteria you set?

Your definition of a game has no relevance to another's experience of a game or whether they are immersed in a game or not. Reviews are after all only the opinion of another who may be both wrong and right or neither and a star rating system would not alter that.

I personally never read nor watch reviews I always form my own opinion of game.

[Crazy Tiger]

When I read your OP, I mostly see an issue with wrong expectations. The Steam rating system doesn't tell you whether a game is good, but whether it's recommended. Those are two different things.

Steam "reviews" are opinions, based on experiences. Many people don't mind that they might have to do a tweak or two to get a game running perfectly. So if they then enjoy the game, it's a positive experience for them and they recommend the game.

[DiceDsx]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

When I read your OP, I mostly see an issue with wrong expectations. The Steam rating system doesn't tell you whether a game is good, but whether it's recommended. Those are two different things.

I get the impression that some people can't comprehend the system and try to change it into a more familiar one with votes, stars, stuff like that.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Foxdude:

The simplistic thumbs up or thumbs down thing can be very misleading. Games aren't just good or bad, there's a gradient there and I know you can explain your rating in the text but when you go to a store page and you see an "overwhelmingly positive" rating of 98%, you might think it's the hottest thing since Jessica Alba, only to buy the game and realize it's just a 4 out of 5 game.

That just means that you fell outside the 98% . Remember, reviews and recommendatuions are just peoples subjecttive opinions based on their subjecttive experience. Just because a 100 people like something doesn't mean you'll like it, whuich is why it helps to read why people like it.

The question is 'Would you recommend this game?' not 'Is this game good?', or 'Do you like this game?'. The questions are very different. You can have a gradient in your head but at some point in that gradiet there's a point which determines whether or not you wouuld recommend the game. Where that point falls is going to be different per game and per gamer and may defy even a gradient. It is possible to recommend a game you personally dislike, and decline to recommend a game you love.

So just asking if you think the game is worth recommendation is a cleaner solution. WHether your recommendation is 2 strars or 5 stars the game meets your threshold (or doesn't)

But that's not the biggest problem, the biggest problem is when you have a game that is overall good but has some serious issues.

None of that changes anything. Is the game good enough in your opinion to warrant recommendation, or do the issues make it impossible for you to recommend? It's not rocket science.

Or a game that's just "good enough" for the price.

Whjich is has more layers of subjectivity than most. Since its based on the reviewers personal experience and biases, plus the users concept of money. There are people who consider $20 to be cheap,, and otyhers who consider it to be expensive.

The reviewer is forced to pick from positive or negative rating and since the experience was overall positive, they pick positive which usually results in games having a "very positive" rating, sitting around 85% when in reality it's a 2.5 or 3 out of 5 game.

Yes because the game's sttrengths outweighed the game's flaws. That's not to say they hink the game is flawlless.

The absolute worst scenario is one like Fallout 3's which is left in an abysmal state because of steam's lack of standards and Bethesda's let-the-fans-fix-it attitude resulting in a game that doesn't even launch without being modded by the paying costumer and requires further work to run well.

Er...no it doesn't...I can run it out of the box just fine. On windows 7 even. Sure I add mods but hey Who doesn't want a few extra radio stations while trudging the irradiated hellscape.

Every new player needs to go through this process but the game is real good after you you spend a good amount of time fixing it, so they leave positive reviews... on a game that doesn't even launch. And it's sitting right now with a "mostly positive" rank on steam.

Again. Not true. But even in that regard steam has you overed because you may not have realize d that STeam shows two aggregates. One Overall, and the other 'Recent'. The recent one shows the opinion of the most recent reviews, where as the overal shows the life ime. That way you can easily tell .

High overall , low recent, the game probably has compat issues, on modern systems. Low Overall, but High recent. Game has apparentlly uundergone a recent round of bug fixes and content additions.

A simple five star rating scale would help a lot and provide a much more honest and accurate average rating.

Thank you for reading.

Not in the example you've given.

Heck Meta critic has a 1-10 system and the game still scores a 7.8. TGhe Meta score is 91 out of 100.

[cinedine]

Steam doesn't have rating at all. It has recommendations.
A game having 98 % recommendations being a perceived 4/5 is perfectly fine. It just means that 98 % of reviewers think it's worth the money which a 4/5 suggests.
Also, seriously "just"?

As I explained in an earlier thread:
Vanilla Icecream - somewhat bland, nothing special. A solid 6/10. On the other hand ten out of ten people will recommend you buying it because you can do nothing wrong and it's still icecream.

Scale ratings will inevitably end up with a J-distribution. One of the ends getting the majority of the votes while the other gets a little and the ones in between are rather neglectable.

Also how would a scale help you with Fallout 3? People evidentally like the game, so it will get a high rating. And some people will still not be able to start it.

[FOXDUDE69]

Originally posted by Shogun Blade:

FACT: - Steam has nothing to do with Fallout 3 beyond been a storefront and host for Bethesda's game.

Steam has nothing to do with a game sold in it's store? Nice logic there. I guess Sony pulled Cyberpunk from their store for no reason! Or could it be that other stores have minimum standards of quality that must be met and Steam doesn't bother with that because of it's position in the market? Food for thought. Also google the difference between fact and opinion.

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

I agree with the OP. Everything from social research, to Tripadvisor ratings, to Amazon reviews uses the five point scale. There are always extremists but for most people a five point scale is going to allow far more nuanced scoring than a simple binary.

For me Fallout 3 didn't load straight away and I needed to download GFWL to get it working,

Steam has reviews. Reviews would probably be improved by a five point scale rather than a simple binary. Virtually every other product retailer uses the five point scale for reviews.

S.x.

[tmwfte]

Originally posted by Foxdude:

Steam has nothing to do with a game sold in it's store? Nice logic there. I guess Sony pulled Cyberpunk from their store for no reason! Or could it be that other stores have minimum standards of quality that must be met and Steam doesn't bother with that because of it's position in the market? Food for thought. Also google the difference between fact and opinion.

If a game works on a majority of systems, as Fallout 3 does, there's no reason for Valve to pull it simply because there are setups that may still have issues.

[FOXDUDE69]

Originally posted by Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder:

I agree with the OP. Everything from social research, to Tripadvisor ratings, to Amazon reviews uses the five point scale. There are always extremists but for most people a five point scale is going to allow far more nuanced scoring than a simple binary.

For me Fallout 3 didn't load straight away and I needed to download GFWL to get it working,

Steam has reviews. Reviews would probably be improved by a five point scale rather than a simple binary. Virtually every other product retailer uses the five point scale for reviews.

S.x.

Yep, there's a reason why the five start system is the preferred rating scale for most platforms! Unlike Bethesda games; It just works!

However, Fallout 3 is not the only game on Steam that is left in a broken state forcing the vast majority of players to fix it. There are many other games but I used fallout 3 as an example because it's arguably the biggest game and the case I'm most familiar with. Steam really needs better quality control.

[FOXDUDE69]

Originally posted by tmwfte:

Originally posted by Foxdude:

Steam has nothing to do with a game sold in it's store? Nice logic there. I guess Sony pulled Cyberpunk from their store for no reason! Or could it be that other stores have minimum standards of quality that must be met and Steam doesn't bother with that because of it's position in the market? Food for thought. Also google the difference between fact and opinion.

If a game works on a majority of systems, as Fallout 3 does, there's no reason for Valve to pull it simply because there are setups that may still have issues.

Does it though? The people who can launch it without issues actually look like they are the minority. Even the majority of positive reviews mention they had to fix it. And on GOG the opposite is true.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by Foxdude:

Originally posted by tmwfte:

If a game works on a majority of systems, as Fallout 3 does, there's no reason for Valve to pull it simply because there are setups that may still have issues.

Does it though? The people who can launch it without issues actually look like they are the minority. Even the majority of positive reviews mention they had to fix it. And on GOG the opposite is true.

GoG purchases the rights to modify things, different business model in that regard.

If the majority of people have no issue with having to do a tweak or two, there is little reason for Valve to pull a game.

[Nx Machina]

Originally posted by Foxdude:

Steam has nothing to do with a game sold in it's store? Nice logic there. I guess Sony pulled Cyberpunk from their store for no reason! Or could it be that other stores have minimum standards of quality that must be met and Steam doesn't bother with that because of it's position in the market? Food for thought. Also google the difference between fact and opinion.

And your logic been Steam a program created Fallout 3?

FACT: Steam is a program.

FACT: Bethesda created Fallout 3.

FACT: Bethesda are responsible for their software and they set the standard.

FACT: Fallout 3 runs on Windows 10 without tweaks or with tweaks - it does run.

FACT: Cyberpunk was pulled from Playstation Store after consultation with CDPR.

OPINON: Yours - I shall take another dig at Steam (a program) and blame the wrong party because my logic is flawed and I would not know a fact if I tripped over it. More importantly I should disregard all those reviews in favour of Fallout 3 and propose another system to disguise the real purpose of the thread. I know it runs on Windows 10 with tweaks or without but I have shall champion a cause no one is interested in.

A confirmation of it working from yourself on this other thread you created:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/22370/discussions/0/2995422276380979266/

Originally posted by Foxdude:

Originally posted by RaidenPSX:

I installed GFWL and the game ran no problem...

I'm happy for you.

So yes it does work so and your five star rating system is a ruse.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

A five star rating scale would be both a common standard rating scale, also used in various other places, including stores like Amazon, Best Buy, eBay, GameStop, GOG, Target, and conventional systems for rating things from hotels to movies.

Would be an improvement over the current system. I'd personally recommend going for a three-point scale, i.e. just adding a neutral/no-recommendation option, as it'd be the easiest to implement. But a five-point scale would allow the 5- and 1-star ratings to be used to indicate extremes, so I'd be fine with that too.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Foxdude:

Originally posted by Shogun Blade:

FACT: - Steam has nothing to do with Fallout 3 beyond been a storefront and host for Bethesda's game.

Steam has nothing to do with a game sold in it's store? Nice logic there. I guess Sony pulled Cyberpunk from their store for no reason!

Reason being the game was a buggy mess and they didn't want to deal with more refunds.

Or could it be that other stores have minimum standards of quality that must be met and Steam doesn't bother with that because of it's position in the market?

Steam in fact does. Kinda funny that CP2077 performs significantlty better for PC users han it does for console users and yet i still got sold on tthose Consoles. So... who has the lower quality standard?

Originally posted by Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder:

I agree with the OP. Everything from social research, to Tripadvisor ratings, to Amazon reviews uses the five point scale. There are always extremists but for most people a five point scale is going to allow far more nuanced scoring than a simple binary.

For me Fallout 3 didn't load straight away and I needed to download GFWL to get it working,

Steam has reviews. Reviews would probably be improved by a five point scale rather than a simple binary. Virtually every other product retailer uses the five point scale for reviews.

S.x.

Yes and at a point in History leeches were the most widely used medical tool. At one point in history your bread was likely to contain as much plaster of paris as it did flour. The question steam asks is simply an improvement, and like all improvements it takes time to catch on.

Plus. You are just considering that they do it, but not really whether or not it works or is effective. I mean millions of people pray, yet prayer does nothing butt give the person doing it the illusion that they've actualy done something. Amazon sellls mostly physical products, ie products that can be objectively verified on some level. A faulty toner cartidge is going to be faulty no matter who's printer its put in and the fault it generates will be the same.

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Originally posted by Foxdude:

Does it though? The people who can launch it without issues actually look like they are the minority. Even the majority of positive reviews mention they had to fix it. And on GOG the opposite is true.

GoG purchases the rights to modify things, different business model in that regard.

If the majority of people have no issue with having to do a tweak or two, there is little reason for Valve to pull a game.

There's also the matter that the game only has to be able to run on the listed system specifications. Whether or not the majority of users meet that spec is irrelevant.