The case for Neutral Reviews

[loppantorkel]

I haven't been bothered by this before, but there's a solid argument for an informational, neutral review, that isn't 'good' or 'bad'.

Status quo, with good/bad reviews, can be attempted, but I think people get more and more aware of the issue with a binary review system. 97% review game should be excellent or at least enjoyable, yes? What if it's not for you? Do you leave it a bad review just for the space to inform other players, do you leave another good review or just don't inform them?
I'd be inclined to leave a bad review in absence of a neutral option. There should be a platform to inform players without having to recommend the game, even if it's a decent-good game. Example: Citizen Sleeper, or Inscryption

Early Access games that have been enjoyed but aren't updated as fast as one would hope - a neutral review would allow the players to inform without recommending or down-voting the game. Example: Valheim

Leaving the current binary system as it is can of course be attempted, but we've seen an increase of the 'review bombing' during the years and attempts to rectify it. Why is it becoming more of an issue? Probably because it's one way to affect the score and an attempt to produce a change, and this won't go away, but it's certainly exacerbated by the binary system which forces players to either side to make their voice heard. Attempts to review bomb games won't go away, but the more level headed segment of gamers who might be disappointed may just want to inform others rather than causing more disturbance. Example: CP2077

So what about all the current review scores? Just leave them and the future ones as a Good vs Bad %, and have the neutral ones as a side feature for people interested in another perspective.

I know this isn't a new idea, but it deserves to be revisited.

[loppantorkel]

Publicado originalmente por Washell:

Publicado originalmente por loppantorkel:

The question at hand is if the current binary system is good? does it serve its purpose as well as before? have the times changed? Is the binary system distorting the perception of the games? Is it consumer friendly? Are there reasons to change it? Is a neutral option a good change?

You're thinking of the review system as a game magazine/site publication and are suggesting changes along that vein.

Valve sees the review system as a sales driver and increaser of customer engagement. The exact implementation doesn't matter that much, but given that changing it costs money that won't be earned back, it's not likely to happen.

This is a short summary but some googling will let you find entire studies:
https://www.aitoc.com/blog/how-customer-reviews-boost-online-sales/

That article uses the ordinary 5 star system as example though.

I don't think anyone is disagreeing about the sale driver argument. Adding a Neutral option wouldn't negate the positive impact of user reviews. It may change to some degree and Valve may not want to spend money on a change, but having a Neutral option, or a 5-star option wouldn't change the user review or user interaction for the worse. Not according to the linked article as far as I can see.

I've also been on the Steam platform for 12 years or so and haven't been bothered much by the binary system (I know what it is and what it's not), and it's not like I can't live with it, but things change over time. It's not impossible things change for Valve too and that they have to adapt.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Publicado originalmente por ree - may or may not be a clone:

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

It's not possible to show you a neutral review because you've already decided that they don't exist.

Maybe you could write one yourself then? I'm honestly curious as to what a neutral review would look like

You can't actually write a neutral review on Steam right now anyway, because you can't mark them as neutral. They either get counted as positive or negative.

But as far as examples of content of a review whose reviewer has a neutral opinion on the game...

Imagine a review that observes that a game is fun to play but its story drags on. So the gameplay feels very engaging from a moment-to-moment basis but doesn't feel fulfilling as something to play long-term.

Or a review of a game where lack of key rebindability combined with a very awkward default control scheme basically made it a giant pain for the reviewer to play it...but once they used some third-party tool to rebind keys they were able to have fun.

Or a review that acknowledges the high skill ceiling of a multiplayer game and states how it'd really well-designed in this regard but public servers for the game are filled with cheaters because the devs don't police their servers properly, so it's better to play the game on private servers.

You can try to force reviewers who feel meh about a game to rate the game as either positive or negative, but their actual opinion is quite qualitatively different from either.

[white but not quite]

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Publicado originalmente por ree - may or may not be a clone:

Maybe you could write one yourself then? I'm honestly curious as to what a neutral review would look like

You can't actually write a neutral review on Steam right now anyway, because you can't mark them as neutral. They either get counted as positive or negative.

But as far as examples of content of a review whose reviewer has a neutral opinion on the game...

Imagine a review that observes that a game is fun to play but its story drags on. So the gameplay feels very engaging from a moment-to-moment basis but doesn't feel fulfilling as something to play long-term.

Or a review of a game where lack of key rebindability combined with a very awkward default control scheme basically made it a giant pain for the reviewer to play it...but once they used some third-party tool to rebind keys they were able to have fun.

Or a review that acknowledges the high skill ceiling of a multiplayer game and states how it'd really well-designed in this regard but public servers for the game are filled with cheaters because the devs don't police their servers properly, so it's better to play the game on private servers.

You can try to force reviewers who feel meh about a game to rate the game as either positive or negative, but their actual opinion is quite qualitatively different from either.

Yeah I know that, but maybe you could write a short one yourself for some random game and paste it here? Just for demonstration purposes

[Black Blade]

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

It doesn't need to be "balanced on a needle pin". It's just a general feeling. Not everything is "I like this" or "I dislike this". Many things are neither liked nor disliked. And it's easily possible for an opinion -- particularly for a complex work of art such as a videogame -- to end up in that third category.

Trying to try to make that exact calculation about how the good and the bad stack up against each other is a waste of time, in my opinion. But hey, even if a neutral option is available, the positive and negative options are still available, for anyone who wants to do that. So they would continue to be free to do so.

Ok first as that point keeps coming up, the option being available does not mean it's going to be
The main reason I am against the natural option is that it gives an option that is harder to filter and overall gives less, not more
Its harder to filter and fit into a group of options
And if its there and its an option I do believe you will get some that will choose it because they just don't want to give there or there, even if it leans to one side above the other taking away from clarity and filtering of the reviews over all

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

I normally don't look at just one review of any sort. I look at a lot. I skim them to get a sense of what the good and bad things there probably are in a game -- topics/issues/opinions that come up more often are somewhat more likely to be accurate, assuming they're specific enough. And for reviews of the same length (which for me are longer reviews since they contain more actual content), it takes longer to skim twice as many (say, 20) positive and negative reviews put together compared to (say, 10) neutral reviews.

That said, if you prefer to have positives and negatives, I think there ought to be a filter to exclude neutrals from what you see. That way, other people can have the option to leave neutral reviews and you can have the option to filter them out if you find them useless to you.

The part where you assume you will need to take half the amount on natural is where I assume we are really disagreeing on this
I honestly think that with a "natural" review you will need to read twice the amount of reviews to get the benefit of binery system
As you said your self someone that recommends will normally show more why you should, someone that does not recommend showing why you should not, you get to both sides of that when it's binary
On a natural in that case you will have some of that, so its a matter of "Jack of all trades, master of none" may need to do more, as they may be able to fit this and that but likely miss more things, when two Masters of there options having there opioest views on the same thing will likely give a much clear and easier to see picture about it, because each focus on why they like or dislike it, over trying to give you a middle ground of all of it

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

No, I mean reviews in store website. Go to Amazon for example and you'll see a ton of three-star reviews. And yes, there are multiple such reviews on multiple products, written by many users.

Ok so first of all lets see how Amazon dose it

compere to


I am not sure about you, but that always seems to me like a system showing more positive then any negative options, I mean you got minimal of and max of

but beside that lets look at a random 3 star review collected from Amazon
Not going to post all the review here its nicely written has pros and cons (just taken the first that show up in 3 star reviews on a random picked product, second one first one seem to show no 3 star reviews)
So the end of this nice review is

Publicado originalmente por T.C.:

Disappointing HOTAS, especially for the price.

Such a bummer. I really tried to like it, but I'm sending it back and will have to save up for a different make or model.

source: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RFPMQU3SF6JN9/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B07QYQVQFS
Yap.. that sounds like an absolute 3-star review
let's check some more

Publicado originalmente por JRich:

Nice but not great

I bought if for MS Flight Sim 2020 because I wanted a separate throttle and joystick. It's all nice but not very precise. I ended up returning it and buying an NXT Gladiator. Honestly, night and day difference but I miss having a separate throttle. The NXT stick is soooo much more precise for only a little more money.

source: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1M0Q9F9SAIYNH/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B07QYQVQFS

and last

Big let down!

Worked great for about 4 days then started drifting left already.

source: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2OBPWZHZ6ZD7I/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B07QYQVQFS

Yap, all of them seem like real middle ground reviews, there are more there, and I took this to mostly show the idea if you had this in a game, will you still pick to take it?

The products for this review:
https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-X52-Flight-Control-System/dp/B07QYQVQFS
picked randomly from what amazon recommended for me

Overall I don't think 3-star reviews there are really meaning as much middle ground
But I do think it may be different as Amazon sells physical goods, that can be affected by shipping, just a rare one out of place, hardware getting older, and so on
The 5-star reviews overall is an "Everything was as expected" and a 1 star is "This thing come broken/services was terrible" or "the product has never arrived"
I don't think Amazon is a great example for a starred review

And that is beside the point that, as I think I said elsewhere, you can find also reviews posting "Product worked great, top-notch" 3-stars
Or "Horrible broken in the first 5 days" - 4-stars
They may be mistakes but I saw a nice amount of them that I got no idea by now what is going on there

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

You're right that that's not necessarily the case, but that tends to be the case -- positive reviews will generally highlight more positives than negatives (if it even includes the latter); negative reviews will generally highlight more negatives than positives (if it even includes the latter). Because, naturally, why else would you expect those people to have those overall opinions on the game?

Reviews from the middle of the rating range tend to have the most useful mix of the two, in my experience.

Well, experience from where? because it's not on Steam because we don't have it here, and each community will have its own pro and cons and the type of products can affect it as well
Also, you are right, if you look at a single review a middle ground one is most likely to give the most info
But if you are looking at at least 2, two sides of the cons, each highlighting their side is going to give you more info than a middle ground one

[[N]ebsun]

Publicado originalmente por RiO:

Publicado originalmente por Start_Running:

As for the stars not being reflected in the score. Well Neutral counts neither for or against so why should it have an impact hmm?

Let's say negative;neutral;positive is represented as a scale of [-1..1] so neutral is 0.

Computing averages:
2 positive : (1 + 1) / 2 = 1
2 positive, 1 neutral : (1 + 1 + 0) / 3 = 0.66

There's your impact.


And it makes sense. Because a neutral rating should pull the average away from the extreme outliers that are 'overwhelmingly positive' and 'overwhelmingly negative'.

10 positive, 10 neutral: (10 + 0) / 20 = 0.5 ???
A 0.5 for something that has only positive and neutral scores ? are you insane ?
A 0.5 is basically a no-go.. 50% is a failure, not a pass - would you trust a surgeon with a 50% success rate ?

All this would serve to do is to bring every game into the "middle zone" ranging from a 0.4 to 0.6, making them ultimately non-comparable, rendering all the scores useless.

[Black Blade]

Publicado originalmente por loppantorkel:

No one is trying to take away the recommendations or non-recommendations. The question at hand is if the current binary system is good? does it serve its purpose as well as before? have the times changed? Is the binary system distorting the perception of the games? Is it consumer friendly? Are there reasons to change it? Is a neutral option a good change?

I'm not all that fond of some analogies. Does a coin have two sides (figuratively)? Yes. Are one positive review + one negative generally better than two neutral ones? Yes, I'd wager I'd pick two different opinions in general.
Having 50 000 reviews - Do I need another 20 - YES GET IT, or 10 - GAEM SUCKS REFUNDED? No, recommendations or non-recommendations aren't inherently good just because the are opinionated.

As a bad counter analogy as payback - We can look at the left and right side of an elephant and be happy, or we could add the front too for a different perspective. It's obvious that reviews are left unwritten partly due to the binary system. For the consumer, there's no gain by not adding more opinions that are balanced for whatever reason.


As for some other arguments, I can't say I have the patience of Snapper to answer people that have shown little interest to engage in honest debate.
A. "A Neutral option holds no value in the score and is thus useless. "
B. "It can be given value"
A. "Then Valve won't do it, therefor it a bad idea"

C. "I propose this change"
D. "It hasn't been changed before, therefor it won't be changed, thus - bad idea"

Does the current system have to change? Not at all. ..but if one can't acknowledge some flaws in the how it's currently used and obsessively points out that there are workarounds, then what's the point to argue the drawbacks of the current system? We all know the current system works - the question is can and should it be changed/improved? We all know there are workarounds - Does it negate the possibility or indication for a change? No, the system may still be a bad one.

Feel free to debate and offer counterarguments. I'd avoid those with bad intent, and argue the good ones.

Well if you prefer something different then a coin its fine, just trying to give all the sides
As there are positive and negative there are two sides
As there is a question on adding a 3rd option from a person standing in the middle you also include the 3rd side the thin line that separates both sides, that both sides can see, but to a degree

I am mostly picturing it in my head as if there is a camera that is a view, none of them will be completely on X or completely on Y
A natural review is trying to stand between and give both that as said before to me at least I believe gives much less useful information as there is always a limit, be the text limit or more likely the user energy and time to write this review, I mean without limit the review simply never comes out
So as there is a limit there is a max ability of someone to cover the subject and giving an option that is called middle ground is not there or there, it's trying to give everything and that is just less overall than more views from opposite directions

I am not saying at all that "recommendations or non-recommendations aren't inherently good just because they are opinionated." they're are not, but the ability to filter and separate them is good, as it gives you the option to try and see more to this and more to that view and get the max with the least amount of time and effort spend on it

"As a bad counter analogy as payback - We can look at the left and right side of an elephant and be happy, or we could add the front too for a different perspective. It's obvious that reviews are left unwritten partly due to the binary system. For the consumer, there's no gain by not adding more opinions that are balanced for whatever reason."
I agree seeing more of the elephant is great, and more reviews will give you more, the middle ground one how ever will be showing you something in the same area as the back left and back right as if that is all the others show it likely all there is, I mean they all review the same thing
The difference is if I pick the photo to look at I can pick to see right or left, middle I don't know what I will really see.. more of the left? more of the right? more of an unrelated tiger photo because it's some spammer? who knows, but you hit more chance to see the same thing over and over without anything new complete to looking at both sides that sure have spam as well, but you at least know when it's legit what side you most likely to see

I am all into trying to think if what we got now is good or not, I just don't think any of the ideas suggested are much of an improvement, and not something that makes the system worst to be overall, and explained why I do not think they over all benefit and not harm over all more

Also, that reminded me, what did change since the last system update that may count to see any benefit on this compared to what there is now?
Overall I don't think much has changed in the review community or in the games to make any difference on what is better or worst in games
So what is it I am missing?

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Publicado originalmente por Black Blade:

Ok first as that point keeps coming up, the option being available does not mean it's going to be

Not sure what you mean here.

Publicado originalmente por Black Blade:

The main reason I am against the natural option is that it gives an option that is harder to filter and overall gives less, not more
Its harder to filter and fit into a group of options
And if its there and its an option I do believe you will get some that will choose it because they just don't want to give there or there, even if it leans to one side above the other taking away from clarity and filtering of the reviews over all

Oh, I'm totally on board with an option for people to filter out neutral reviews if they don't want to see them. So if you only want to see positives and negatives, that should be possible.

Publicado originalmente por Black Blade:

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

I normally don't look at just one review of any sort. I look at a lot. I skim them to get a sense of what the good and bad things there probably are in a game -- topics/issues/opinions that come up more often are somewhat more likely to be accurate, assuming they're specific enough. And for reviews of the same length (which for me are longer reviews since they contain more actual content), it takes longer to skim twice as many (say, 20) positive and negative reviews put together compared to (say, 10) neutral reviews.

That said, if you prefer to have positives and negatives, I think there ought to be a filter to exclude neutrals from what you see. That way, other people can have the option to leave neutral reviews and you can have the option to filter them out if you find them useless to you.

The part where you assume you will need to take half the amount on natural is where I assume we are really disagreeing on this
I honestly think that with a "natural" review you will need to read twice the amount of reviews to get the benefit of binery system
As you said your self someone that recommends will normally show more why you should, someone that does not recommend showing why you should not, you get to both sides of that when it's binary
On a natural in that case you will have some of that, so its a matter of "Jack of all trades, master of none" may need to do more, as they may be able to fit this and that but likely miss more things, when two Masters of there options having there opioest views on the same thing will likely give a much clear and easier to see picture about it, because each focus on why they like or dislike it, over trying to give you a middle ground of all of it

Any single review will miss some things, no matter what the reviewer's opinion is. Not all aspects of a game are equally salient to all reviewers. But I'm reading multiple reviews anyway.
Besides, the most extreme views are not necessarily the clearest. Imagine a negative review where the user just cusses out the game while also occasionally talking about its flaws in unnecessarily flowery language. So to get information from that, a reader would have to read between all the insults to pick out the actual meaningful bits.

The middle ground isn't for the reviewer to "give all of it". Rather, it's that by aggregating many middle-ground reviews, the reader can get a broader overall picture that includes both positives and negatives -- and then decide on their own how much those positives and negatives matter to them, in order to make a purchase decision.

Publicado originalmente por Black Blade:

Ok so first of all lets see how Amazon dose it
:al_star::al_star::al_star:
compere to
:al_star::al_star::al_star::al_star::al_star:

I am not sure about you, but that always seems to me like a system showing more positive then any negative options, I mean you got minimal of :al_star: and max of :al_star::al_star::al_star::al_star::al_star:

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here.

Publicado originalmente por Black Blade:

The products for this review:
https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-X52-Flight-Control-System/dp/B07QYQVQFS
picked randomly from what amazon recommended for me

So I went and looked for the three reviews you used as examples:

That first example isn't just one line. It says quite a bit more, which makes it clear what the product's benefits and drawbacks are:

Disappointing HOTAS, especially for the price.

Between COVID and MS Flight Simulator, HOTAS prices are through the roof. However, my T16000 has a broken twist axis, and I'd rather upgrade to a combo that has more switches rather than disable yaw on the stick and buy pedals. The x56 is going well over $400, so the X52 looked like a decent compromise. As I've spent a day working on mappings for Elite: Dangerous, I've found myself more and more disappointed despite a strong desire to look past flaws and just be happy with what I was able to afford.

PROS:
-Decent fit and finish. Yes, the throttle is a little bit creaky, and the stick feels light, but if it weren't for the cons below I wouldn't be bothered.
-Two hats on the stick, and better T1-6 switches compared to the T16000.
-Throttle feels good in the hand and it's not too much of a stretch to hit the buttons, though folks with smaller hands would probably disagree. I'd say my hands are average size for an adult male.

CONS:
- Throttle tension doesn't actually adjust. At its lowest setting it is still quite firm. I could get used to it, but there are also detents at 25% and 75% that I find bothersome. Also, it tends to move just a tiny bit from where you leave it. Say you set it at 60% throttle, it scootches back to about 58% when you let off the pressure. A minor annoyance.
- Wheels and sliders that should be hat switches! Personally I find no practical use for wheels or sliders in Elite. The three hat switches on the T16000 were great, just poorly positioned. I miss the hats.
- Mouse nubbin (don't know what else to call it) on the throttle is useless. It's very sensitive, and the axes are difficult to maneuver precisely. If it worked as well as the ol' eraser mouse on a laptop then it could be pretty neat, but this is a poor implementation of that type of input.
- Digital thruster hat on the throttle rather than analog. Also a minor annoyance, but I really prefer the finesse of an analogue stick instead of on 0% or 100% thrust in any direction.
- USB connection is on the throttle, so there's no practical way to use the X52 stick with a different throttle. Each component should have its own USB. The serial connection between the two is just clutter on my desk.
- Obnoxiously bright blue LEDs. Didn't matter though, they all quit lighting up after about a day. This was on a powered USB 3 hub.
- Stick movement is pretty smooth in combat where your movements are big and fast. Takes a light touch, which I think is nice since there's no lifting of the base as you move around. However, slow and small movements reveal a little stickiness makes those more precise motions jerky and frustrating.
- Pinky switch appears to not work at all.

Such a bummer. I really tried to like it, but I'm sending it back and will have to save up for a different make or model.

You can see here how the reviewer reports the product to be decently good but not serve his use case well for various very specific reasons -- which he/she explains in detail. Heck, one of the cons even praise one of the features, but just points out how it doesn't work well for her/him.

If you're only looking at the last line to try to "read" the reviewer's overall opinion, you're missing most of the actual meat of the review.

Anyhow, I read not just this but all the 3-star reviews for this product, and while I'm not in the market for a flight stick right now, the general impression that I've gotten is that this is probably a decent entry-level product but for more specific applications one might be better served with other products. Which is probably useful information if I were looking to purchase a flight stick.

Publicado originalmente por Black Blade:

Overall I don't think 3-star reviews there are really meaning as much middle ground
But I do think it may be different as Amazon sells physical goods, that can be affected by shipping, just a rare one out of place, hardware getting older, and so on
The 5-star reviews overall is an "Everything was as expected" and a 1 star is "This thing come broken/services was terrible" or "the product has never arrived"
I don't think Amazon is a great example for a starred review

And that is beside the point that, as I think I said elsewhere, you can find also reviews posting "Product worked great, top-notch" 3-stars
Or "Horrible broken in the first 5 days" - 4-stars
They may be mistakes but I saw a nice amount of them that I got no idea by now what is going on there

You get all sorts of stupid jokes and other nonsense in Steam reviews already, not to mention that I've seen reviews flaming the developer use a positive rating on Steam.
And people can give negative ratings on Steam for things that aren't really the product's fault either -- e.g. they buy a game without knowing its needs far exceed their system's capabilities and then give it a negative review because it runs choppily.

Publicado originalmente por Black Blade:

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Reviews from the middle of the rating range tend to have the most useful mix of the two, in my experience.

Well, experience from where? because it's not on Steam because we don't have it here, and each community will have its own pro and cons and the type of products can affect it as well

Experience from using multiple stores with rating systems that have a middle option.

Publicado originalmente por Black Blade:

Also, you are right, if you look at a single review a middle ground one is most likely to give the most info
But if you are looking at at least 2, two sides of the cons, each highlighting their side is going to give you more info than a middle ground one

But I'm looking at well more than 1 or 2. I'm skimming like 10+ reviews to get an idea of what common issues are (and also pick up any information praising things I might not have otherwise been aware of.

[loppantorkel]

Publicado originalmente por ree - may or may not be a clone:

Yeah I know that, but maybe you could write a short one yourself for some random game and paste it here? Just for demonstration purposes

I’d love to hear what the point of this exercise would be. I wouldn’t mind seeing an example, but since he’s given several abstract examples, I wonder what the purpose of a specific one would be. Would it prove a point? In such a case - what would it take for it to be a counterproof? It would be interesting if you stated some sort of bar for him to succeed. Otherwise it will just be a curiosity or something to affirm the biases already there among us.

[Thermal Lance]

Oh great, another thread about confusing a simple recommendation question with a full on review system which is what the box over it is for.

[Black Blade]

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Not sure what you mean here.

Well if you really refer to that alone I will not be surprised
I am referring to the part of "But hey, even if a neutral option is available, the positive and negative options are still available, for anyone who wants to do that. So they would continue to be free to do so."
For the most part, as if saying that having the natural dose does not take away from the positive-negative system, it will most likely have a big effect on it

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Oh, I'm totally on board with an option for people to filter out neutral reviews if they don't want to see them. So if you only want to see positives and negatives, that should be possible.

Ya filter out to not see and not exist making them useless for all these users, and taking away options and options to view
But you cant really filter too well between the middle ground one that was what I said there, not filtering completely the review out

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Any single review will miss some things, no matter what the reviewer's opinion is. Not all aspects of a game are equally salient to all reviewers. But I'm reading multiple reviews anyway.
Besides, the most extreme views are not necessarily the clearest. Imagine a negative review where the user just cusses out the game while also occasionally talking about its flaws in unnecessarily flowery language. So to get information from that, a reader would have to read between all the insults to pick out the actual meaningful bits.

The middle ground isn't for the reviewer to "give all of it". Rather, it's that by aggregating many middle-ground reviews, the reader can get a broader overall picture that includes both positives and negatives -- and then decide on their own how much those positives and negatives matter to them, in order to make a purchase decision.

A review that is "a negative review where the user just cusses out the game while also occasionally talking about its flaws in unnecessarily flowery language." is a terrible review regardless of positive/negative/middle-ground
Beside that it's not even what I said at all, as your referring to the content of the review that is not what we talking about, but the idea over the overall vote, the content is filtered by voting on the review itself, that is simply not relevant here and does not really show anything about it being any less clear or not, as I was referring to the filtering and seeing from there not each review spatially

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here.

I was trying to show how a star system looks like on Amazon, you don't have an option to say its not deserve any stars, I mean lets say in case the product never come, or you order a car and got a dead cat both get a star even if most likely they don't deserve a thing at all
3 Stars don't look in amazon like a middle ground honestly, it looks like a "Not too bad" because its star system go from "not good" to "works as described" there is no real horrible option to put on it if its completely broken, its kind of maybe beside but I am trying to say that I don't think most to all users on Amazon see the 3 stars as middle ground but as something else, as its more a of a "start from the top and lower the points for any issue" then lets say smile faces case where you got "Sad" "slightly sad" "natural" "happy" "Over happy" or satisfied and so on
The amazon star system is build in a way that is more "search for the issue" then a 1-5 points

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

You can see here how the reviewer reports the product to be decently good but not serve his use case well for various very specific reasons -- which he/she explains in detail. Heck, one of the cons even praise one of the features, but just points out how it doesn't work well for her/him.

If you're only looking at the last line to try to "read" the reviewer's overall opinion, you're missing most of the actual meat of the review.

Anyhow, I read not just this but all the 3-star reviews for this product, and while I'm not in the market for a flight stick right now, the general impression that I've gotten is that this is probably a decent entry-level product but for more specific applications one might be better served with other products. Which is probably useful information if I were looking to purchase a flight stick.

"If you're only looking at the last line to try to "read" the reviewer's overall opinion, you're missing most of the actual meat of the review."
This line spasficlly really kind of wanted me to not reply to you at all on this post honestly mate
As it sounds like you taken the time to read their review but skim my own post mostly this part
"Not going to post all the review here its nicely written has pros and cons (just taken the first that show up in 3 star reviews on a random picked product, second one first one seem to show no 3 star reviews)
So the end of this nice review is"
I read all the reviews taken the end to point out what was his result of it, he return it, the overall review reads much more as something that I will not call a middle ground for highlights (And yes read all of it)
inside pros: "Yes, the throttle is a little bit creaky, and the stick feels light" not mention in the con by the way
"Obnoxiously bright blue LEDs. Didn't matter though, they all quit lighting up after about a day."
"Pinky switch appears to not work at all."

The bottom line he returned the product, and part of the buttons not working, LEDs stop functioning after a day, and all that doesn't seem to me like a private issue of the user

I mostly give the reviews to point out, that 3 stars are not middle ground reviews, the star system on Amazon is making the review system very very diffrent

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

You get all sorts of stupid jokes and other nonsense in Steam reviews already, not to mention that I've seen reviews flaming the developer use a positive rating on Steam.
And people can give negative ratings on Steam for things that aren't really the product's fault either -- e.g. they buy a game without knowing its needs far exceed their system's capabilities and then give it a negative review because it runs choppily.

True that

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Experience from using multiple stores with rating systems that have a middle option.

Well, the thing is was it really a middle option? or as said above its something like the amazing system that honestly I don't think works as a middle ground at all

Publicado originalmente por Quint the Alligator Snapper:

But I'm looking at well more than 1 or 2. I'm skimming like 10+ reviews to get an idea of what common issues are (and also pick up any information praising things I might not have otherwise been aware of.

Great, so what does the middle ground that may be all around the middle ground give you over two reviews showing opposing sides?
As you said you read more than one review, so you want to see more than one view, and having two unfiltered reviews that can show you the exact same point can mean you're completely missing a different point that may be important
Where is it more likely you see that point? a group of reviews showing options.. of this or that type mixed in a pile
Or do reviews separate two groups of overall views?
I will say you get more from seeing two separate views from two sides that are opposites than 2 that try to fill everything and have a higher chance to show the same points missing the other stuff

[white but not quite]

Publicado originalmente por loppantorkel:

Publicado originalmente por ree - may or may not be a clone:

Yeah I know that, but maybe you could write a short one yourself for some random game and paste it here? Just for demonstration purposes

I’d love to hear what the point of this exercise would be. I wouldn’t mind seeing an example, but since he’s given several abstract examples, I wonder what the purpose of a specific one would be. Would it prove a point? In such a case - what would it take for it to be a counterproof? It would be interesting if you stated some sort of bar for him to succeed. Otherwise it will just be a curiosity or something to affirm the biases already there among us.

I just wanna understand his line of thinking better. It's one thing to be able to recognize something when interpreting it, but to construct something new to try and articulate your idea is a different process, that might even transform the key elements as you develop your thoughts, when you put pen to paper so to speak. So I'm just curious as to what he'd personally write in a review of a game that he feels neutral about.

[loppantorkel]

Publicado originalmente por ree - may or may not be a clone:

I just wanna understand his line of thinking better. It's one thing to be able to recognize something when interpreting it, but to construct something new to try and articulate your idea is a different process, that might even transform the key elements as you develop your thoughts, when you put pen to paper so to speak. So I'm just curious as to what he'd personally write in a review of a game that he feels neutral about.

Okay fair enough :)

One reason I started this thread was because I kind of wanted to write a review for Citizen Sleeper, but not recommend it, nor vote it down. For me personally it doesn't belong in either of those categories. I know I could write a not-recommended review, it's easy to understand, but it doesn't make this solution a good one.

As things are, I do what most users do - not write these reviews at all. Everyone wins!

[Washell]

Publicado originalmente por loppantorkel:

I kind of wanted to write a review for Citizen Sleeper, but not recommend it, nor vote it down.

Do you want someone you care about spending money on that game? Would you buy this game as a gift for someone?

[loppantorkel]

Publicado originalmente por Washell:

Publicado originalmente por loppantorkel:

I kind of wanted to write a review for Citizen Sleeper, but not recommend it, nor vote it down.

Do you want someone you care about spending money on that game? Would you buy this game as a gift for someone?

Are you asking me if I recommend the game, in a roundabout way?

[Washell]

Publicado originalmente por loppantorkel:

Publicado originalmente por Washell:

Do you want someone you care about spending money on that game? Would you buy this game as a gift for someone?

Are you asking me if I recommend the game, in a roundabout way?

Nope, I'm asking if you'd recommend the game in a more direct way. The most likely people to see and read your review are your friends on the activity feed. And if the answer to those questions is no, why do you want a neutral option? I have a suspicion, but I might be reading too much between the lines.