Reviews being displayed front-and-center in the library to everyone who already owns the game is utterly pointless

[starship]

The redesign of Steam does *look good*, but you've really f'd with the user experience in the process.

For example, partially b/c I was sick of seeing the "Do you like this game?" box, I reviewed the game I've been playing. Immediately, what do I see? My stupid review, front and center, on the library page of that game. Guess what all my friends who also play that game see? The same review. Above a bunch of useless "so-and-so achieved this-or-that achievement" BS. (I'm assuming my friends see this, to be honest, I haven't checked. :) But they see my stupid f'ing achievements, just like I do, on this utterly useless new library page.)

Guess who doesn't need to read my review? Me and all of my friends that *already play the game*. I didn't write that review for them, to annoy everyone who opens the game, especially myself. I wrote it for people looking to buy the game! Duh!

I mean you've made Steam far more narcissist. It's like you're attempting to be facebook with this redesign. And honestly, it pisses me off. You made the library *look* better but turned it into this serial annoyance.

And I'm serious about using the word, "narcissism" for this. You're really just encouraging it. And it doesn't improve the experience whatsoever.

I mean just re: reviews, I write reviews for people who are thinking of buying the game. I assume not many will see it unless there's a fluke and I write good prose or something. Who knows. It's mostly an act of service, b/c I really like reading others' steam reviews of games before I purchase them. And seeing my friends' reviews is pretty useful too. BUT NOT on the "home page" of the game *after* I bought it!! It makes zero sense, unless your aim is to just encourage us to be narcissists and geek out over the achievements.

It's not just about the reviews, but it's a pretty good example of how silly this redesign is. You're forcing all kinds of behavior that you could easily allow us to opt out of (both for ourselves and seeing others'). And it seems like half of the changes you made are just trying to create a new level of social interactivity that IMO is extremely hollow. It just taints the entire experience.

Honestly, this annoyed me the very first minute I ran the new version and it hasn't stopped annoying me. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the negative feedback you were getting was related to this general issue. A lot of it was for technical problems you fixed, which is great. But not all gamers on steam are into the broadcast-your-entire-life-shtick and be narcissist-as-f*-shtick online. Honestly, that's a big reason why people leave facebook! Your goal at steam should not be "Let's redesign our GUI in order to drive adults away b/c we encourage and highlight narcissism, just like facebook did!"

A big difference between steam and facebook is that personally, and this will go for nearly every single user of Steam, I've probably given you hundreds of dollars. Facebook only gets value from my data, and I try real hard not to give them anything useful. But when they change stuff, it's a free service, so my complaints mean pretty much nothing.

For Steam? I can think of one other software company I've given more money to, and no, it's not Microsoft. Well, OK, Steam is at least #3 on that list, if not #2. Point being, I'm a loyal customer and have been for a decade. I think nearly everyone I know on Steam is the same: been around for a decade at least, spent a ton of money on games, for which you're getting a cut every single time. You should respect us. You should give us options. You should not redesign the GUI so that it feels like a f'ing teenage social media clusterf* that just boils down to being a narcissist.

I mean was your goal to annoy a certain segment of your userbase *every single time* they use your software? That seems like a dumb goal. :) Did you make the assumption that somehow everyone would enjoy seeing all of their friends' achievements, reviews, etc.? If so, you really ought to examine why and how you made that assumption, because I really do not think it's representative of the entire userbase. A bunch, for sure. And if that was done to try to get new users, surely you gotta consider whether driving away old users that have historically paid your rent... is a good idea.

The thing is, you could solve a lot of this by just giving us options to turn this crap off. Both for ourselves and others'. But circle back around to the reviews... in what possible way does it make sense for me and others who already play the game to see this review? The only reason I can think of to do that is if you think being a narcissist is the way to go. And a lot of the other recent changes point in the same direction.

And frankly, that's kinda f'd up.

Cheers.

[Crazy Tiger]

While I totally agree that the UI needs options, there will always be a segment of the userbase that'll be annoyed about something. Steam has grown too big for that and you simply can't please everyone.

[Tito Shivan]

Do you have community content disabled ny any change?
Because I have to scroll down below the 'Friends who play', 'Achievements', 'Trading Cards', 'DLC' , 'Workshop', 'Screenshots' to finally see 'My Review' on the game library page.

[Crazy Tiger]

Tito, if you just written your review, it's also shown in the Activity part in the library page, right on top. Community content has no influence on that.

[Vandread]

And to add to that - Friend Activity Settings have *zero* impact on the contents of the Activity Stream part of the Library page either. Don't expect that to get fixed either, a bug report I made on that's been ignored for 1.5 months.

Honestly, some frank advice: You want to fix your library page? Make a skin, and just CSS the nasty away. Take matters into your own hands, it's far, far less frustrating than trying to reach out to Valve.

[Tito Shivan]

Crazy Tiger lähetti viestin:

Tito, if you just written your review, it's also shown in the Activity part in the library page, right on top. Community content has no influence on that.

That might be it. It happens only for recent reviews. That's why it doesn't show on any of my reviewed games (As they're older reviews)

[starship]

Hmm.. I appreciate the feedback mostly. I mean... I was just talking to a friend on here who plays the same game I reviewed, he just reviewed it, and I'm looking at his review but do NOT need to see his review because I already own the damn game, etc. He thought this dynamic was pretty stupid too.

So OK, I could skin this away with some .css. :)

I really, seriously, not at all kidding, think it's f'ing retardedly stupid that this is the direction Steam is going. I get that whole "some people will complain about anything new" shtick. I get that I'm a gamer and in a class of people known for taking ♥♥♥♥ out of context and getting mad over nothing. ;) :)

But come on... it's straight up narcissism. It's trying to copy facebook, instagram, etc. Just from a marketing POV, did they at all consider how so many people have fled stuff like that, like actual adults, because of the general narcissistic navel-gazing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ trend?

Or from a psychological POV? Or just a basic user-interface dev POV... why in the hell would displaying reviews, not to mention the other crap, be at all useful for the reviewers and their friends that already play the game?

Wouldn't it make sense to somehow highlight those reviews to my friends when they go to the store page? When they're like, "Hmm, I see starship playing this game all the time, I wonder what's up with that?" THAT'S WHEN YOU SHOW MY F'ING REVIEW.

Not to me every time I go to launch the game, not to my friends that own the game, not to my friends that despite Steam's BS buy the game and voila, the first thing they see is a review for the damn thing now that they have the game. I.e. it's completely f'ing useless. It's straight-up narcissistic.

And it's just one facet of my general annoyance here with these changes. It's a good example of a number of things that are basically doing the same BS. The pretty graphics stuff, maybe that was the right direction. All this other ♥♥♥♥, WTF?

You hear me, Valve?

I mean for starters, without altering how this works, I'm far less likely to ever review a game again. This behavior is directly discouraging me from doing that. I mean is that representative of a bunch of steam users? Maybe it is, Valve. Maybe it is.

[kustoz]

Good Idea

[Gambit-3k]

Vandread lähetti viestin:

And to add to that - Friend Activity Settings have *zero* impact on the contents of the Activity Stream part of the Library page either.

This is the main thing I think needs to be done, the game detail page should use the same settings as the activity page settings, or it's own separate settings.

If you turn off friends achievements or other things on the Activity page, they should also not show up on the game detail activity section. Better even still, make separate activity settings for the games detail page that has most of the same options. I would keep screenshots, but I don't care about friend achievements, or when they add the game to their wishlist. Everyone could set it up to show the things they care about just like the activity page settings.

[Darren]

So something to note although it *seems* like your review is taking preference to all of the other information about the game it's not. It's just that your review is the most recent bit of news for you (and your friends).

I reviewed Stellaris on the 27th of November, because they've done 3 Dev Diaries since then I can see that my review is the fourth thing on the activity feed for the game (3 Dev Diaries then my review).

Give it a bit of time and more recent news from the game will push your review down the page as you'd expect.

[Gambit-3k]

Darren lähetti viestin:

So something to note although it *seems* like your review is taking preference to all of the other information about the game it's not. It's just that your review is the most recent bit of news for you (and your friends).

I reviewed Stellaris on the 27th of November, because they've done 3 Dev Diaries since then I can see that my review is the fourth thing on the activity feed for the game (3 Dev Diaries then my review).

Give it a bit of time and more recent news from the game will push your review down the page as you'd expect.

That's true, but say you review one of your many games that gets almost no activity, especially if nobody on your friends list owns or plays it. Your review will be sitting their a very long time. I'm not sure what the cut off date for the activity feed is, probably at least a few months.

Some people might want to see their review because they want to see comments on it, but I think having the same options as the main activity page does would be very useful. That way, everyone could be satisfied.

[Darren]

Gambit-3 lähetti viestin:

Darren lähetti viestin:

So something to note although it *seems* like your review is taking preference to all of the other information about the game it's not. It's just that your review is the most recent bit of news for you (and your friends).

I reviewed Stellaris on the 27th of November, because they've done 3 Dev Diaries since then I can see that my review is the fourth thing on the activity feed for the game (3 Dev Diaries then my review).

Give it a bit of time and more recent news from the game will push your review down the page as you'd expect.

That's true, but say you review one of your many games that gets almost no activity, especially if nobody on your friends list owns or plays it. Your review will be sitting their a very long time, I'm not sure what the cut off date for the activity feed is, probably at least a few months.

Appears to be about 3-4 months. I can see news from October at the earliest and a lot of games saying "There is no recent activity on this from the developers of this title or your friends" for those games that don't have anything in that time range.

Edit: Actually make that about 6 months. Celestial Command shows news back the the 3rd of August.

[Crazy Tiger]

starship lähetti viestin:

But come on... it's straight up narcissism. It's trying to copy facebook, instagram, etc. Just from a marketing POV, did they at all consider how so many people have fled stuff like that, like actual adults, because of the general narcissistic navel-gazing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ trend?

Aye, I hate social media and I dislike Steam turning into it.

starship lähetti viestin:

Wouldn't it make sense to somehow highlight those reviews to my friends when they go to the store page? When they're like, "Hmm, I see starship playing this game all the time, I wonder what's up with that?" THAT'S WHEN YOU SHOW MY F'ING REVIEW.

It does that. Store pages of games that friends have reviewed usually have a couple of them highlighted at the top.

Gambit-3 lähetti viestin:

Vandread lähetti viestin:

And to add to that - Friend Activity Settings have *zero* impact on the contents of the Activity Stream part of the Library page either.

This is the main thing I think needs to be done, the game detail page should use the same settings as the activity page settings, or it's own separate settings.

If you turn off friends achievements or other things on the Activity page, they should also not show up on the game detail activity section. Better even still, make separate activity settings for the games detail page that has most of the same options. I would keep screenshots, but I don't care about friend achievements, or when they add the game to their wishlist. Everyone could set it up to show the things they care about just like the activity page settings.

Actually, there should be an option to turn off the activity on the library pages as you can do with the community content. If I want to see such things, I visit the activity part of Steam. Heck, I want options so I can move stuff around to get the things that I find important up top and can get rid/minimize the rest.

Though I have stated before that I expect Valve to get rid of the seperate activity and community tabs in the future, as they've incorporated it into the library. Do remember that Valve is gradually overhauling Steam.

[Gambit-3k]

Crazy Tiger lähetti viestin:

Gambit-3 lähetti viestin:

This is the main thing I think needs to be done, the game detail page should use the same settings as the activity page settings, or it's own separate settings.

If you turn off friends achievements or other things on the Activity page, they should also not show up on the game detail activity section. Better even still, make separate activity settings for the games detail page that has most of the same options. I would keep screenshots, but I don't care about friend achievements, or when they add the game to their wishlist. Everyone could set it up to show the things they care about just like the activity page settings.

Actually, there should be an option to turn off the activity on the library pages as you can do with the community content. If I want to see such things, I visit the activity part of Steam. Heck, I want options so I can move stuff around to get the things that I find important up top and can get rid/minimize the rest.

I agree that an option to disable it would be good, but I still think the ability to customize it like the Activity page is important. If it was all or nothing, I might turn it off. But if I could customize it, I might just leave Recent News and Announcements. I think many people would want to keep what the devs post on the Activity section, but might not care for certain other things; each person is different.

I also agree it would be nice to customize where things are because some people for instance might want there achievements front and center like the old page, but this idea is slightly off topic for this thread.

[Crazy Tiger]

Gambit-3 lähetti viestin:

Crazy Tiger lähetti viestin:

Actually, there should be an option to turn off the activity on the library pages as you can do with the community content. If I want to see such things, I visit the activity part of Steam. Heck, I want options so I can move stuff around to get the things that I find important up top and can get rid/minimize the rest.

I agree that an option to disable it would be good, but I still think the ability to customize it like the Activity page is important. If it was all or nothing, I might turn it off. But if I could customize it, I might just leave Recent News and Announcements. I think many people would want to keep what the devs post on the Activity section, but might not care for certain other things (each person is different). From the beginning I have said it would be nice to customize where things are because some people for instance might want there achievements front and center like the old page, but this idea is slightly off topic for this thread.

That wouldn't be bad either, yes.

[🔫 BOTaL0g1cal 📡]

If it's in my library then I've already bought it and don't need to see reviews for it, especially my review. So 100% agree.

And yes, I do find the review a game dialogue to be annoying and this is coming from someone who has reviewed 140+ games. Put a quiet little link, don't harass me about it. The current system is way over the top. Unless a game is really bad then I typically will want to play it for several hours before reviewing it, some games seem great at first but get boring fast. I generally don't trust positive reviews that have been played under 1hour, something I see a lot of.