Please do something to the negative reviews those are complaining solely about language support.

[negikogok]

TL;DR: Steam users from the Chinese region are trying to flood as many review sections of games as possible for the sole reason of getting as many Chinese games as possible.

"I am writing for informing about a potentially growing issue that is originated in the Chinese steam community.

There was a recent controversy about the localization issue of Football Manager 2017 in China that has generated an outrage towards the developer(http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-10-31-football-manager-trashed-on-steam-by-angry-chinese-fans). While this was technically the developer's fault, I have noticed that a part of the community are starting to use the same method on other developers' games to force the developers to localize their games for them, no matter whether the developers have promised it or not. In fact, there are already a lot of negative reviews from the Chinese region of Steam on Darkest Dungeon's user review page popping up and complaining only about the lack of Chinese support. Furthermore, as far as I know, the majority of the community consider it a right action to take and justify it by claiming that the lack of Chinese support is a sign of the developers' disrespect toward Chinese as a race. Here is a discussion regarding this topic on a Chinese website(in Chinese): https://www.zhihu.com/question/52511089/answer/131411267?from=profile_answer_card

However, as a member of the steam community in a English-speaking region, I am aware of that as the issue growing, it could probably damage the credibility of the review system, and the community as a whole, for an issue that doesn't apply to non-Chinese-speakers and multilingual Chinese. It might not look huge now, but considering the impact Chinese users have on Football Manager 2017's reception, the damage could be massive if no countermeasure will be taken."

This is the email I have sent to Steam support to explain the issue. However, I don't consider this is enough, and I need to raise the community's awareness about this issue.

I'm a Chinese currently in Canada who has been using steam for quite a while. And as some people may know, Chinese gamers are starting to use Steam because the Chinese region of Steam was officially one of the lower-price regions since the end of last year. As I have stated in the email, there is an ongoing controversy right now on this topic. I took part in the discussion because a lot of people think this is the most effective way, and there is no problem by doing this, because they deserve the rights to post reviews with whatever they want to complain about upon their purchases. I questioned the reasonability of the behavior itself by stating that it is certainly not the best way to do it, there are better ways like starting a petition, and people really should stop calling developers stupid and disrespectful by bragging about how huge the market is because it is a fact that you are paying for much lower prices than the users in other regions. Then people were bashing on me really hard...I have no words.

I hardly write reviews on Steam myself, but as I have said in a email, Steam needs to do something or we will be screwed by these people.

[Dr. Fronkensteen]

If a developer is selling games in a country without supporting their language, the customers have every right to complain about it.

Trying to exploit a large market but not doing the necessary work should get your game negative reviews.

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Barf the Mawg:

If a developer is selling games in a country without supporting their language, the customers have every right to complain about it.

Trying to exploit a large market but not doing the necessary work should get your game negative reviews.

Note steam sells globally so it's not like devs pick and choose what regions to sell in most of the time

It's also a bit much when the store page tells you what languages are supported. To write a review you have to buy it. I agree with the OP in that you can't really complain about buying something that doesn't support your language , when the store page tells you that already.

Note it would be nice if more games supported more languages

But it's a bit much to give a negative review to a game just because of that especially when you're told explicitly on the store page. You might as well complain about the lack of MP in SP games

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

the publisher (SEGA) chooses where to sell their games. valve does not force publishers to sell globally.



edit: some countries ban games like... http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-01-15-hotline-miami-2-banned-in-australia

some russian and japanese games are only sold in those countries. that was up to the publishers of those games.

[negikogok]

Originally posted by Barf the Mawg:

If a developer is selling games in a country without supporting their language, the customers have every right to complain about it.

Trying to exploit a large market but not doing the necessary work should get your game negative reviews.

Yea, a lot of people who are against my opinions use this as a counter-statement. But the point is that all Steam games available on the store are automatically available for every region, unless the developers have a specific selection of games to ban in a specific region. The Call of Duty franchise is an example for the Chinese region.

[Darren]

The tools we have on the store page allow us to see things like percentage of positive reviews in our language which would exclude these reviews anyway.

If you are just looking at the percent and not digging into why you deserve to miss out on good games even cursory research would identify where the negative reviews came from.

[Hextravert]

One review per purchase.

If Steam users want to use that opportunity to complain about something petty, then so be it.

It's not like they are lying. And even reviews that are outright untrue are left alone.

Originally posted by negikogok:

TL;DR: Please do something to the negative reviews those are complaining solely about language support.

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Hextravert:

One review per purchase.

If Steam users want to use that opportunity to complain about something petty, then so be it.

It's not like they are lying. And even reviews that are outright untrue are left alone. :DEALWITHIT:

Originally posted by negikogok:

TL;DR: Please do something to the negative reviews those are complaining solely about language support.

But again this seems as ludicrous as complaining a SP game doesn't have MP.

It also ignores the fact that quality translations are expensive. Some times it can be hard to justify a specific translation if it's going to cost more in translation costs than revenue incoming. That's the entire thing going on with FM17. The cost of translation for a text heavy game essentially exceeded the revenue inbound.

[Darren]

While it is weird and I wouldn't agree with a review saying that a SP game lacked MP (and likely downvote its helpfulness) in the end it is a legitimate review. There is nothing inaccurate about it. And in the case where the devs had initially promised multiplayer but failed to deliver would be distinctly justified as well.

Yes everything has a cost to do it and sometimes that cost isn't worth it but if you don't do something you said you would you should expect negative reviews (even if it isn't necessarily a dealbreaker for them to buy the game). Even if you haven't promised it people can and will still complain they will just be a much smaller segment.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

to be fair, the store page does not say it supports the chinese language. it supports 15 others.

you have all the information about the game and still want to complain. that's ok!

[Darzai]

I think this has more to do with the initial promise that it (FM2017) would support that language and not following up on it. It is not just some general complaining, otherwise you wouldve found the same lack of language support reviews with any popular game.

Would be kind of annoying if you preordered the game and the devs end up not adding localization for your country.
But yeah, dont preorder :p

[Smugass Braixen-Chan]

This is no different than English speaking users vomiting up their cancerous copy pasta all over the review section of every game they can get their grubby hands on.

Valve should just remove the review section entirely if not for the vitriolic backlash from "the community." The section serves no purpose other than to mislead potential customers.

[negikogok]

Originally posted by Darzai:

I think this has more to do with the initial promise that it (FM2017) would support that language and not following up on it. It is not just some general complaining, otherwise you wouldve found the same lack of language support reviews with any popular game.

Would be kind of annoying if you preordered the game and the devs end up not adding localization for your country.
But yeah, dont preorder :p

That's exactly what I have stated: if you really want to show that you are not supporting a game because of a certain aspect, don't buy it. It is not like they won't tell you there is no Chinese before you buy it. And there are better ways out there to address the issue, use them instead of the way that could affect the community as a whole.

[negikogok]

Originally posted by Darren:

The tools we have on the store page allow us to see things like percentage of positive reviews in our language which would exclude these reviews anyway.

If you are just looking at the percent and not digging into why you deserve to miss out on good games even cursory research would identify where the negative reviews came from.

It's simply confusing that I can find low reception percentage games' store page with mostly positive reviews in it, and I couldn't find the negative reviews that I am talking about until I go into the review page and check Chinese reviews specifically.
Even worse, I can understand the reviews because I am a Chinese-speaker, but for other people including the developers, they may have zero clue about where the dissatisfactions come from until they put it into Google translate then find out they are complaining solely about the language support.
And again, my opinion is that this is not the best way to complain about the issue.

[Dirty Dan]

Originally posted by Insanity Wolf-Chan:

This is no different than English speaking users vomiting up their cancerous copy pasta all over the review section of every game they can get their grubby hands on.

Valve should just remove the review section entirely if not for the vitriolic backlash from "the community." The section serves no purpose other than to mislead potential customers.

You really haven't ever found anything useful in any review ever?

[Darren]

Originally posted by negikogok:

Originally posted by Darren:

The tools we have on the store page allow us to see things like percentage of positive reviews in our language which would exclude these reviews anyway.

If you are just looking at the percent and not digging into why you deserve to miss out on good games even cursory research would identify where the negative reviews came from.

It's simply confusing that I can find low reception percentage games' store page with mostly positive reviews in it, and I couldn't find the negative reviews that I am talking about until I go into the review page and check Chinese reviews specifically.
Even worse, I can understand the reviews because I am a Chinese-speaker, but for other people including the developers, they may have zero clue about where the dissatisfactions come from until they put it into Google translate then find out they are complaining solely about the language support.
And again, my opinion is that this is not the best way to complain about the issue.

I don't even really look at the overall percentage. I look at what the people similar to me thought.

Cultural issues can cause negative reviews in other languages that just don't affect me. So while it is interesting in the abstract that Chinese players have a significantly worse opinion of the game I would just assume there were some Cultural difference causing it. I wouldn't feel the need to translate their reviews.

In the end the best measure of whether I will enjoy the game is whether people like me enjoyed it. Meaning I often have to click through reviews to see what there thoughts were of other games I have played as well as looking for issues they raise I know I don't like.