Steam should have a "mixed" option on reviews.

[AdahnGorion]

As the title says, the positive/negative extremes often leave me to never do reviews on game, that I actually want to review.

A mixed review would give us an option to be rather neutral and showcase the positive/negative sides when they are both pretty even (for us in a subjective manner ofc)

I simply can´t understand, why it has to be either positive or negative.. It also ends up with a lot of people posting one of those two extremes, while saying "I want to give a mixed, but I gave it a or


Do other people agree with me on this? or are people happy enough with all the two extremes (negative/positive)

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

引用自 Nightlight：

I don't really see how the curator system being different from the user review system is an issue. Curators can also list games on their pages without playing or buying said games, that doesn't mean users should also be able to review games they neither played nor bought.

Curators can serve different functions from user reviews. Curators are used mostly for discovering games or being told very specific things about a game. For example, a curator that lists games that have had content in them censored and tells you what that content was. Sometimes they're just a list of games of a specific genre without any consideration for the quality of said games.

Steam's user reviews serve a much narrower purpose, for users to share their experiences with a game and to tell other users whether they recommend or not recommend a game.

Now, curators can also recommend or not recommend a game, but they can be used in more ways than just telling people what they thought of a game and whether they recommend it or not (unlike user reviews,) so it makes sense why they would have an option to label something as "informational."

You can't just use "curators are different" to automatically justify the way the review system works.

First, Steam's original purpose for making a curation system was so that it would basically allow users to serve as the "curators" of Steam's vast and growing catalogue. You can have anyone from opinion-leaders to personal friends telling others what games are worth checking out. Using the curator system for "very specific things" like censored content or making a genre list is just an incidental side-effect of what the system allows.

Consider why the curator system doesn't just have one (by default de facto "informational") status -- it's meant for people to present their opinions. There's even a place where curators can link reviews. And it makes perfect sense to have positive, negative, and neutral opinions -- it's for games people like, dislike, and feel neutral about.

Curators are a feature of Steam groups, rather than individual user accounts. That's why one can post curator reviews of games one doesn't own. Reviews, meanwhile, are tied to the individual user account.

But individual users don't have to use their reviews to "share their experiences with a game" and such. Users can and have used their reviews to praise or criticize developers for doing certain things to games. They can turn themselves into "very specific things" reviewers just like they can with curator reviews. And they can and even do frequently post jokes and memes that say nothing about the game, as if those constitute reviews (even though they are basically useless as such).

The only possibly meaningful difference in what curators and reviewers offer is that user reviews are expected to be a place where a person can cover the game in-depth, while the curation reviews are meant to be part of lists and store page subheaders with short blurbs introducing the game and summarizing the information the curator feels is is relevant -- with more detail left to the linked review.

And that relates to the much lower character limit on the curation review -- not to the fact that there's an additional headline option on it. The opinions that both present are the same sorts of opinions -- positive, negative, and neutral. It's just that one system allows a meaningful distinction between all three, while the other one forces one of those categories to be mixed in amongst the other two.

[FOXDUDE69]

引用自 Nightlight：

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

What is Steam's fault is the fact that the recommended / not recommended dichotomy is interpreted as positive and negative, by Steam itself. The best idea here would for Steam to acknowledge that neutral opinions exist, and simply make an additional option for them -- which, again, would bring the user review system in line with the curator review system that they already have.

If the problem is Steam interpreting recommended as positive and not recommended as negative, then the solution I think would be the best and simplest would be for Valve to just change the wording a bit. Change "Mostly positive" to "Mostly recommended," change "Positive" to "Recommended," change "Very positive" to "Very recommended," etc.

There, problem solved, and didn't need to add a "neutral" option to do it.

The situation would still remain that we wouldn't have a way of quickly and accurately knowing how much the player base liked a game, only how many within the player base liked it or not. Without a wider rating scale, you'd have to read an extremely large sample of the reviews for one game solely to truly get accurate an idea.

In the current system, a positive review from a player who simply thinks the game is "not bad" carries the exact same positive weight as the review of someone who believes the game is "outstanding", since we don't have an overall score, only an approval rating.

As if that wasn't enough, We have steam awards further mucking up the picture. Steam Awards encourage people to rush out reviews, and if you "read the air" in the community, you might also switch that thumbs up to a thumbs down in order to maximize those awards, or vice versa. I highly suspect this is one of the factors that led to the massive success of Valheim's launch.

[crunchyfrog]

Just a heads-up OP, as this question comes up quite a lot.

You say yourself "I don't know why this can't be a thing" and that's rather the point. There IS good reason why it's a binary solution of positive or negative.

Not only does it make metrics easier to work out whether to recommend the game to others, but if you note from the majority of general reviews, there's a huge issue with most people's abilities. You see it on other platforms too - you typically get most scores at zero or 1, or at 10/10, and little in between.

I suspect Valve knew that and acted accordingly.

The point is though the question is NOT "what do you think of this game?" but "would you recommend this game to others?" That's by definition a yes or no question.

As others have pointed out there are ways to express your mixed opinions, and that's why reviews are there.

So I hope you at least understand a bit more WHY it is so now.

[FOXDUDE69]

引用自 crunchyfrog：

You see it on other platforms too - you typically get most scores at zero or 1, or at 10/10, and little in between.

This is not true for user reviews on GOG, certainly not true on IMDB, and not even on Metacritic.

Taking GOG as an example, only games that are of very high quality get showered with 5 out of 5's, and even then, you can find a healthy dose of 4's sprinkled around.
The moment you look at more average games there, you'll see that most review scores hover between 2 and 4 stars.

Of course if you go look at games like Hollow knight or Stardew Valley, you'll see an unusual amount of 5's, but that's because those games are heavily regarded as 5 out of 5 games.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

引用自 crunchyfrog：

You say yourself "I don't know why this can't be a thing" and that's rather the point. There IS good reason why it's a binary solution of positive or negative.

Not only does it make metrics easier to work out whether to recommend the game to others, but if you note from the majority of general reviews, there's a huge issue with most people's abilities. You see it on other platforms too - you typically get most scores at zero or 1, or at 10/10, and little in between.

The metrics actually don't need to change at all with the introduction of a neutral option. If you check the store page of any game, it'll say XX% of the reviews are positive, telling you the calculation doesn't depend on how whether there's a neutral choice. So the neutral choice is easily retrofittable with the current system.

引用自 crunchyfrog：

The point is though the question is NOT "what do you think of this game?" but "would you recommend this game to others?" That's by definition a yes or no question.

But forcing opinions into that question means neglecting the value of differentiating neutral from negative. There's value in such a distinction, for both reviewers and readers.

引用自 FOXDUDE：

引用自 crunchyfrog：

You see it on other platforms too - you typically get most scores at zero or 1, or at 10/10, and little in between.

This is not true for user reviews on GOG, certainly not true on IMDB, and not even on Metacritic.

Nor on basically any site or context that uses a 5-star rating system.

[Start_Running]

引用自 Nightlight：

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

That's the internet argument way of solving the problem. :P

While that would solve some logical consistency issues, the inconsistency with the curator review system would remain, as would (more importantly) the fact that people (both reviewers and readers) would still be unable to make use of a neutral review status.

Like I mentioned, while the system can force the binary question (as it already does), that doesn't mean it's the most useful way of asking for people's opinions.

I don't really see how the curator system being different from the user review system is an issue. Curators can also list games on their pages without playing or buying said games, that doesn't mean users should also be able to review games they neither played nor bought.

Yup. Curators erve a duiscovery function. They basically just create lists of games. and here's the key difference. Curators can group games based on just about any factor which is why Informational exists. Because they aren't require to own or play they games they list.

After all you don't need to play a game to know it;'s an FPS that was releast in the year 200.

This is why Curators are given a very limited character allotment.

引用自 FOXDUDE：

引用自 crunchyfrog：

You see it on other platforms too - you typically get most scores at zero or 1, or at 10/10, and little in between.

This is not true for user reviews on GOG, certainly not true on IMDB, and not even on Metacritic.

Taking GOG as an example,

Is a terrible, terrible idea. I mean you don't even have to own a game to leave a review on GoG.

only games that are of very high quality get showered with 5 out of 5's, and even then, you can find a healthy dose of 4's sprinkled around.

Not really. People just tend to drift towards the extremes.

And no quality is not what gets you showered with 5/5's on GoG. Being a Nostalgia trigger is what gets you those.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

引用自 Start_Running：

引用自 Nightlight：

I don't really see how the curator system being different from the user review system is an issue. Curators can also list games on their pages without playing or buying said games, that doesn't mean users should also be able to review games they neither played nor bought.

Yup. Curators erve a duiscovery function. They basically just create lists of games. and here's the key difference. Curators can group games based on just about any factor which is why Informational exists. Because they aren't require to own or play they games they list.

After all you don't need to play a game to know it;'s an FPS that was releast in the year 200.

This is why Curators are given a very limited character allotment.

Has the fact that curators create lists of games not somehow clued you in to why there's a 200 character limit? It's because it's meant to display as a list with blurbs, or those same blurbs on the store page.

User reviews, in contrast, are meant to be in-depth. In fact you can link them in curator reviews and that won't even count against the character limit. Which makes it particularly strange that you focus so much on forcing the up/down review rating instead of the text.

That said, user reviews can be written based on "just about any factor" the same way curator reviews can. Curators don't need to own the game they review because they're meant to be collaborative lists, managed by groups, rather than tied to individuals.

None of this changes the fact that people can have positive, neutral, and negative opinions on things, regardless of whether they're acting as a curator for their group or writing a personal review.

引用自 Start_Running：

Not really. People just tend to drift towards the extremes.

The only purported example of this was YouTube's 5-star rating system but you keep saying it like it's true everywhere.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

引用自 Toby：

I think a neutral rating would be good as well. The way I see it Recommended = Buy, Not Recommended = Never touch, I think a neutral rating would = Wait for sale.

If you want a good example of this, I suggest watching videos from ACG, his reviews are all rated as:
Buy
Wait for Sale
Never Touch

https://www.youtube.com/c/AngryCentaurGaming/videos

You might be someone that doesn't want to recommend it simply because you feel the price is not right for the game, but you don't want to not recommend it because you feel what is there is worth playing and can be fun but not at it's price at the time you reviewed it.

Yeah, even the purchase decision is not a binary decision, despite how much some people want to say it is only to support the current system against changes.

引用自 Toby：

I think to go along with that, I think a part of the review should be a spot that shows what the price was at the time the user made their review, that way if they picked the neutral option the reader can see the neutral option was done on a game that was $60 at the time, but now it is $30 so the reader can take that into consideration.

The problem with this is that it's easily possible to review the game long after it's no longer discounted. I mean, it's not unheard of for me to finally get around to playing things years after buying them.

[Nx Machina]

A mixed review: - Maybe you should, no wait, maybe you should not. Thank you for reading.

Valve decided not to have it as an option and as we all know Valve time is limitless.

[Start_Running]

引用自 Toby：

I think a neutral rating would be good as well. The way I see it Recommended = Buy, Not Recommended = Never touch, I think a neutral rating would = Wait for sale.

That's just buy.
Most people already wait for sales anyway. SO Neutral once again becomes pointless.

You might be someone that doesn't want to recommend it simply because you feel the price is not right for the game, but you don't want to not recommend it because you feel what is there is worth playing and can be fun but not at it's price at the time you reviewed it.

If only there was siome combination of words one could use in the body of the review to convey that sentiment. SOmething like: Nice game, but not worthe the price. Wait for the sales.

Shame there's no ability to do that.

I think a part of the review should be a spot that shows what the price was at the time the user made their review, that way if they picked the neutral option the reader can see the neutral option was done on a game that was $60 at the time, but now it is $30 so the reader can take that into consideration.

Teh reviewer is free to put that info in, though such data points don't really age well since the majority of games get their base price dropped over time.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

引用自 Nx Machina：

A mixed review: - Maybe you should, no wait, maybe you should not. Thank you for reading.

You missed the part where the review talks about the game.

Perhaps you don't care about that part...?

引用自 Nx Machina：

Valve decided not to have it as an option and as we all kniw Valve time is limitless.

Valve time occurs before a decision is made, by the way.

引用自 Start_Running：

引用自 Toby：

I think a neutral rating would be good as well. The way I see it Recommended = Buy, Not Recommended = Never touch, I think a neutral rating would = Wait for sale.

That's just buy.
Most people already wait for sales anyway. SO Neutral once again becomes pointless.

Buying on sale and buying immediately are very different actions. They result in different outcomes for both the player and the publisher.

Oh, there's also wishlisting.

We've discussed this before. You simply force everything into your preferred binary, even though they don't neatly fit there.

引用自 Start_Running：

If only there was siome combination of words one could use in the body of the review to convey that sentiment. SOmething like: Nice game, but not worthe the price. Wait for the sales.

Shame there's no ability to do that.

This has as much value to the system as a meme.

What would be recorded differently is a review marked using a neutral option.

[crunchyfrog]

引用自 FOXDUDE：

引用自 crunchyfrog：

You see it on other platforms too - you typically get most scores at zero or 1, or at 10/10, and little in between.

This is not true for user reviews on GOG, certainly not true on IMDB, and not even on Metacritic.

Taking GOG as an example, only games that are of very high quality get showered with 5 out of 5's, and even then, you can find a healthy dose of 4's sprinkled around.
The moment you look at more average games there, you'll see that most review scores hover between 2 and 4 stars.

Of course if you go look at games like Hollow knight or Stardew Valley, you'll see an unusual amount of 5's, but that's because those games are heavily regarded as 5 out of 5 games.

Not the point - those tend to be different markets. IMDB are films. GOG are usually older. more mature gamers. And so on.

I used to be a professional reviewer and know full well how most people absolutely suck at this. Go and look at a more similar metric - metacritic or even Amazon. Places where the REAL spread of the public applies. You will invariably find all full marks or very very little.

The problem is both that they're not good generally in expressing their thoughts and they lack empathy. It's sadly just how human nature is.

And again, even if everyone did differently, that doesn't make it applicable here. does it?

BValve obviously chose this for a reason, and it DOES give the metrics overall of nor recommended, recommended or mixed when amalgamated.

The fact remains that a middle approach in this context is meaningless. You can't get around that.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

引用自 crunchyfrog：

Not the point - those tend to be different markets. IMDB are films. GOG are usually older. more mature gamers. And so on.

It's always different? Well, by that reasoning, every site is different from every other site so every site has a reason to use its own review system.

引用自 crunchyfrog：

Go and look at a more similar metric - metacritic or even Amazon. Places where the REAL spread of the public applies. You will invariably find all full marks or very very little.

I frequently read the middle-of-the-range ratings on Amazon to find product reviews, and that's turned out to be the best way for me to get info I want to help me make purchase decisions.

And the fact that I get to frequently read them shows that they DO in fact exist, in pretty plentiful numbers.

引用自 crunchyfrog：

BValve obviously chose this for a reason, and it DOES give the metrics overall of nor recommended, recommended or mixed when amalgamated.

You can amalgamate stuff but that doesn't mean that a neutral option shouldn't be included and that also doesn't mean that not including such an option makes for better results.

Also, you do know that the metric actually only uses the recommended count and total count anyway, right?

引用自 crunchyfrog：

The fact remains that a middle approach in this context is meaningless. You can't get around that.

Only if all you care about is the aggregate score.

[Nightlight]

引用自 Start_Running：

Yup. Curators erve a duiscovery function. They basically just create lists of games. and here's the key difference. Curators can group games based on just about any factor which is why Informational exists. Because they aren't require to own or play they games they list.

After all you don't need to play a game to know it;'s an FPS that was releast in the year 200.

Pretty much my thoughts on why the "informational" category for curators exists.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

First, Steam's original purpose for making a curation system was so that it would basically allow users to serve as the "curators" of Steam's vast and growing catalogue.

All being a "curator" really means is to be a keeper and organizer of a showcased/to be showcased collection, so I don't get your point here, the people who list the things I mentioned are acting as curators of Steam's catalogue. Plus Valve, as far as I know, has yet to disapprove of those ways of using the curator system. Using the system in those ways also still serves as a way to discover the existence of games (not really with the "censored content" I mentioned, but other "very specific things/content," curators do act as a way for people to tell others "hey, this game exists,) which is one of the intended functions of the curator system.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

Consider why the curator system doesn't just have one (by default de facto "informational") status -- it's meant for people to present their opinions. There's even a place where curators can link reviews. And it makes perfect sense to have positive, negative, and neutral opinions -- it's for games people like, dislike, and feel neutral about.

I never said the curator system couldn't be used for giving opinions on games, I just said that it's not its only function. Again, not sure what your point is.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

But individual users don't have to use their reviews to "share their experiences with a game" and such. Users can and have used their reviews to praise or criticize developers for doing certain things to games. They can turn themselves into "very specific things" reviewers just like they can with curator reviews. And they can and even do frequently post jokes and memes that say nothing about the game, as if those constitute reviews (even though they are basically useless as such).

I fail to see how the first thing you mentioned doesn't have to do with someone's experience (maybe I should have used the word "thoughts" instead?) with a game. So long as they keep the topic on the content that was change and don't just start calling the developers names, talking about changes made to the game that they thought were for better or worse is a perfectly valid thing for them to do and very likely factors into why they're recommending/not recommending the game (which I believe is the far more important thing to Valve. All Valve really wants is an answer to the "do you recommend this game" question and for people to hopefully at least put down why they're recommending/not recommending a game, while keeping things on topic and not breaking any rules.)

The last thing you mentioned is reportable, I think.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

引用自 Nightlight：

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

First, Steam's original purpose for making a curation system was so that it would basically allow users to serve as the "curators" of Steam's vast and growing catalogue.

All being a "curator" really means is to be a keeper and organizer of a showcased/to be showcased collection, so I don't get your point here, the people who list the things I mentioned are acting as curators of Steam's catalogue.

Steam created the curator system as a response to people who were complaining that there tons of crap games on Steam and making it hard for them to find games they thought were worthy. It's basically "here's a way to do it yourself; now do it yourself".

引用自 Nightlight：

Plus Valve, as far as I know, has yet to disapprove of those ways of using the curator system.

They seem to tend to prefer a hands-off approach to a lot of things.

引用自 Nightlight：

I never said the curator system couldn't be used for giving opinions on games, I just said that it's not its only function. Again, not sure what your point is.

The point is that it's not just to tell people "hey this game exists". It's also used to indicate someone's positive or negative opinions on certain games.

It also demonstrates that it's possible for a system to capture a neutral opinion on games.

引用自 Nightlight：

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

But individual users don't have to use their reviews to "share their experiences with a game" and such. Users can and have used their reviews to praise or criticize developers for doing certain things to games. They can turn themselves into "very specific things" reviewers just like they can with curator reviews. And they can and even do frequently post jokes and memes that say nothing about the game, as if those constitute reviews (even though they are basically useless as such).

I fail to see how the first thing you mentioned doesn't have to do with someone's experience (maybe I should have used the word "thoughts" instead?) with a game. So long as they keep the topic on the content that was change and don't just start calling the developers names, talking about changes made to the game that they thought were for better or worse is a perfectly valid thing for them to do and very likely factors into why they're recommending/not recommending the game (which I believe is the far more important thing to Valve. All Valve really wants is an answer to the "do you recommend this game" question and for people to hopefully at least put down why they're recommending/not recommending a game, while keeping things on topic and not breaking any rules.)

The last thing you mentioned is reportable, I think.

That first thing is a response to your saying that curators are used for very specific things like saying what games are censored.

Also, I know the system currently asks people whether they recommend the game. My point is that, in addition to this being a misrepresentation of the actual meaning of the review (as I explained earlier with regards to the wording)*, it fails to capture information in a way (i.e. with a neutral option) that would make it more useful to both reviewers and readers.

(And of course, those reviewers and readers who don't want to use the option can simply...not use the option.)

* And it's also a misunderstanding of how people actually use the review system as well, considering that people DO use it to mean "positive" vs "negative" -- which is actually in line with Steam's interpretation of the reviews.