Review after a refund

[Inferno]

Imagine that someone released a game on Steam. Everyone who enters the internet with his own stuff will get haters. Pretty normal to this point. But here on Steam I spotted a problem.

A hater decides to buy the game. He's playing it for 5 minutes and after that he is writing a bad review just because he loves to hate. After that he asked for a refund (and gets it, of course). But the bad review stays on the shop. A potential new customer just sees the red thumb down and he probably will think twice about buying the game. This is probably a big problem for devs, who have to struggle with haters all day.

This has nothing to do with players who actually doesn't like the game very much. An objectivly review helps the dev and probably even improves the game (if the dev decides to change the "wrong" things with the game). But guys who played a game for (acording to Steam-Stats) 0.3 hours and then reviews like: "This game is crap. The dev is crap. Everything is crap" does not help anyone and it distorts the review stats in general.

My suggestion is to either remove the review after the hater got his refund OR (and I think this would be the better way) the player has to play at least one hour of the game to review.

What do guys you think about that issue?

[animalmagic]

yeh there is something to what you say
but some games are crap from the moment you start playing and you know you dont like it

you cant remove reviews of people who get a refund cos then your streaming out unfavourable reviews
if i dont like a game im gonna get a refund thats obvious, i still gotta right to say i didnt like the game
else the review system becomes less useful and biased

[Washell]

Originally posted by Inferno:

What do guys you think about that issue?

That it isn't an issue. Refunds costs Valve money. Those who do frequent refunds get a warning to slow down, or their right to refunds revoked immediately if they spot the negative/hate reviews that go along with it. People have reported getting that message as early as 5 or 6 refunds spread over 6 months. There's very little potential for abuse.

On the other side of the coin, removing the reviews of the people who requested a refund for a legitimate reason, would destroy valuable information for the rest of us.

[Spawn of Totoro]

On the other side of the coin, you have "fanboys" who downvote negitive reviews and upvote positive.

These things have a way of balancing out. Both sides demand the other gets removed, giving them the advantage.

If Valve (with all their metrics and data) found an issue, one way or the other, then they would take steps to fix the issue and rebalance the system.

[animalmagic]

Originally posted by Washell:

Originally posted by Inferno:

What do guys you think about that issue?

That it isn't an issue. Refunds costs Valve money. Those who do frequent refunds get a warning to slow down, or their right to refunds revoked immediately if they spot the negative/hate reviews that go along with it. People have reported getting that message as early as 5 or 6 refunds spread over 6 months. There's very little potential for abuse.

On the other side of the coin, removing the reviews of the people who requested a refund for a legitimate reason, would destroy valuable information for the rest of us.

thats interesting i didnt now that
more demos would help

other thing is games change, updates and so on

[Start_Running]

Now why would you remove the review of someone who clearly disliked the game to the point they asked for their money back. That's basically a clear case of the user's opinion and actions painting a very clear picture.

And why is it threads like this always seem to concern negative reviews,. COme on OP we know it hursts when a game you love gets a negative review but seriously... suck it up mang.

I mean did you ever consider that the scenario you describe can be applied to positive reviews?

[Inferno]

Originally posted by Washell:

Originally posted by Inferno:

What do guys you think about that issue?

That it isn't an issue. Refunds costs Valve money. Those who do frequent refunds get a warning to slow down, or their right to refunds revoked immediately if they spot the negative/hate reviews that go along with it. People have reported getting that message as early as 5 or 6 refunds spread over 6 months. There's very little potential for abuse.

On the other side of the coin, removing the reviews of the people who requested a refund for a legitimate reason, would destroy valuable information for the rest of us.

That is pretty interesting. I did not now that.

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

On the other side of the coin, you have "fanboys" who downvote negitive reviews and upvote positive.

These things have a way of balancing out. Both sides demand the other gets removed, giving them the advantage.

If Valve (with all their metrics and data) found an issue, one way or the other, then they would take steps to fix the issue and rebalance the system.

Good point. Did not thought about that...

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Now why would you remove the review of someone who clearly disliked the game to the point they asked for their money back. That's basically a clear case of the user's opinion and actions painting a very clear picture.

And why is it threads like this always seem to concern negative reviews,. COme on OP we know it hursts when a game you love gets a negative review but seriously... suck it up mang.

I mean did you ever consider that the scenario you describe can be applied to positive reviews?

I should have made that clearer: This obviously should go for refund fanboys too. It is "unfair" to buy a game, praise or hate it for no reason than the praise or hate itself, and then asking for getting the money back. Don't get me wrong: A customer should have the right to get his money back if he is not satisfied. But Washell already teached me that the "system" recognizeds that. Thats's why you should totally forget the last 3 sentences. :D Maybe a function to report inappropriate reviews (positive OR negative) could be a thing? I mean come on: "THIS GAME IS ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥", played 0.1 hours, or "ITS GOOD", played 1,500 hours. These are not reviews. It is just flaming/fooling around.

In the end: What do I even try to achieve? :D This is the internet. There are haters, trolls and fanboys everywhere. Inplying a "report feature" would probably destroy the whole Steam support team, as everyone who feels pissed would report any kind of negative/positive review.

But thank you guys anyway. All of your replies were very informing and helpful.

[Aahzmandias]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Now why would you remove the review of someone who clearly disliked the game to the point they asked for their money back. That's basically a clear case of the user's opinion and actions painting a very clear picture.

And why is it threads like this always seem to concern negative reviews,. COme on OP we know it hursts when a game you love gets a negative review but seriously... suck it up mang.

I mean did you ever consider that the scenario you describe can be applied to positive reviews?

Right. I am more concerned about the glowing reviews of people with pink glasses. Like "Best game EVAAAR!!!"

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by Inferno:

:D Maybe a function to report inappropriate reviews (positive OR negative) could be a thing? I mean come on: "THIS GAME IS ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥", played 0.1 hours, or "ITS GOOD", played 1,500 hours. These are not reviews. It is just flaming/fooling around.

That function already exists. If you go to each review page, there is a flag on it that you can use to report the review, just as there is on every profile, workshop item, store page and forum post.

[Inferno]

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

That function already exists. If you go to each review page, there is a flag on it that you can use to report the review, just as there is on every profile, workshop item, store page and forum post.

Wow... Now I actually fell dumb as ♥♥♥♥. xD

[BossGalaga]

Originally posted by Washell:

Originally posted by Inferno:

What do guys you think about that issue?

That it isn't an issue. Refunds costs Valve money. Those who do frequent refunds get a warning to slow down, or their right to refunds revoked immediately if they spot the negative/hate reviews that go along with it. People have reported getting that message as early as 5 or 6 refunds spread over 6 months. There's very little potential for abuse.

On the other side of the coin, removing the reviews of the people who requested a refund for a legitimate reason, would destroy valuable information for the rest of us.

What he said. ^^ The refund system has built-in limits.

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

On the other side of the coin, you have "fanboys" who downvote negitive reviews and upvote positive.

These things have a way of balancing out. Both sides demand the other gets removed, giving them the advantage.

If Valve (with all their metrics and data) found an issue, one way or the other, then they would take steps to fix the issue and rebalance the system.

Yeah, I see exponentially more crappy and worthless "positive" reviews. I mean, sometimes you really have to go to the negative reviews to find a decent review. And not all the "negative" reviews are negative either. A lot of them are along the lines of "It's okay but..." and have a lot of valid points but you're limited to either an up or a down.

The few people leaving a review and then refunding are a drop in the bucket compared to those who don't.

[suksas]

As mentioned by others. Trolls are unable to do this as Valve will spot them after several refunds and will the end it.
Haters don't appear out of nowhere,so they don't seem like a problem.

There are two kinds of reviews. The actual reviews and opinions.
The ''Wow,cool game'' and ''The game is garbage'' are more opinion based but have the right to exist.
They just shouldn't be the first thing a person sees when they ask steam for negative or positive review.