Does a friends-only review still count towards the game's rating?

[Hoppimike]

Maybe a silly question!

I assume it does and is added to the total review count, but is just invisible unless the person is on your friends list?

Thanks!

[Define Brackish Water]

I am wondering this exact same question. I know this thread is old but it's the only thing I found after searching for a while. I can't seem to find the answer.

[Judgmental Amaterasu]

The positive or negative part likely counts towards the statistics but the review itself won't be viewable to non-friends.

[Anonymous Helper]

Yes they do. I've seen games with barely any public reviews but review score said there was over 100.

Do note that review counts towards the rating only if the game was purchased from Steam. Key activated reviews (and other non steam purchases) don't count. If you want to see rating that includes all reviews, you need to go down to user reviews and set it to include all in all categories, purchase type being the one that excludes key activations.

For example for Raft the store page shows:
RECENT REVIEWS: Very Positive (3,181)
ALL REVIEWS: Very Positive (144,288)

but the real rating including all reviews is:
169,138 reviews ( Very Positive )

As you can see, almost 25,000 reviews are excluded from store rating.

[Hoppimike]

Originally posted by Anonymous Helper:

Yes they do. I've seen games with barely any public reviews but review score said there was over 100.

Do note that review counts towards the rating only if the game was purchased from Steam. Key activated reviews (and other non steam purchases) don't count. If you want to see rating that includes all reviews, you need to go down to user reviews and set it to include all in all categories, purchase type being the one that excludes key activations.

For example for Raft the store page shows:
RECENT REVIEWS: Very Positive (3,181)
ALL REVIEWS: Very Positive (144,288)

but the real rating including all reviews is:
169,138 reviews ( Very Positive )

As you can see, almost 25,000 reviews are excluded from store rating.

Huh, I had no idea about that.

That's strange because I can't see how it makes any difference to a rating/review.

Also thank you for the answer about friends-only reviews :)

[ElvisDeadly]

Originally posted by Hoppimike:

That's strange because I can't see how it makes any difference to a rating/review.

It's to prevent devs from gaming the review system by giving away free keys in exchange for positive reviews.

[Count_Dandyman]

Originally posted by ElvisDeadly:

Originally posted by Hoppimike:

That's strange because I can't see how it makes any difference to a rating/review.

It's to prevent devs from gaming the review system by giving away free keys in exchange for positive reviews.

also because its a lot easier to convince someone your game is worth a good review if they got it for free in a giveaway or for a very low price in a bundle

[Hoppimike]

Originally posted by Count_Dandyman:

Originally posted by ElvisDeadly:

It's to prevent devs from gaming the review system by giving away free keys in exchange for positive reviews.

also because its a lot easier to convince someone your game is worth a good review if they got it for free in a giveaway or for a very low price in a bundle

Both true.

Shame though because it means lots of my reviews don't count, lol