Replying to devs on game reviews with comments disabled?

[Mechanos]

So here's the situation. When you review a game, most people now disable comments to prevent opposing opinions/trolls from getting out of hand. It isn't always the case, but it's definitely a thing. However, Developers still get to respond, which is fine.

Now here's the problem. Developers can sorta abuse this in their favor, by skewing information in favor of their game (purposely targeting key points of the review), to make it seem like your review is suddenly invalid. But the reviewer cannot reply to the dev to counter this strategy, without enabling comments or editing the review and wiping it's current votes.

This is a pretty big issue that undermines the entire point of reviews. The reviewer should be able to respond to the dev in these situations, without resetting the review or enabling comments and suddenly being pressured to be censored.

Thoughts? (Also yes, I'm aware this suggestion won't be taken seriously by Valve without enough people behind it, since ultimately this tactic helps suppress negative reviews that might prevent a purchase.)

[Brian9824]

Publicado originalmente por Mechanos:

Publicado originalmente por brian9824:

Yeah i'd just make an edit suggestion below the review and put the comments in to respond to the claims.

This deletes all existing votes. It's not a good option, if you actually care about your review being seen, and don't want to waste the time of everyone that's voted already.

You sure? Just updated my review and it didn't seem to delete any existing votes and still shows who found it helpful https://steamcommunity.com/id/Brian9824/recommended/1245620/

[Mechanos]

Publicado originalmente por brian9824:

Publicado originalmente por Mechanos:

This deletes all existing votes. It's not a good option, if you actually care about your review being seen, and don't want to waste the time of everyone that's voted already.

You sure? Just updated my review and it didn't seem to delete any existing votes and still shows who found it helpful https://steamcommunity.com/id/Brian9824/recommended/1245620/

o.O

That's really interesting. They must've changed something. I had a review in a game that got a handful of helpful votes immediately, only for a dev to respond and.. totally stomp on me. So I felt the need to edit the review to reply, and it reset all my votes, and it didn't get anymore after. Not even the typical funny spam, when a review makes the fans riled up.

Thanks for sharing that. I guess my suggestion isn't really needed, if we can edit reviews without resetting them now. When you edited yours, did you actually add any text to it? Just in case there's some algorithm that checks if a review has been changed.

[[?]legit]

The fact that the review is marked as "edited" will already devalue the review a bit, so unfortunately that's not an option.

Then you would have to change part of your review, which will not look great. A review is meant to be a review, and not half of a discussion. That looks terrible.

Also keep in mind that reviews only allow a certain amount of characters. A thorough reply may not fit in the review.

[Mechanos]

Publicado originalmente por legit:

The fact that the review is marked as "edited" will already devalue the review a bit, so unfortunately that's not an option.

Then you would have to change part of your review, which will not look great. A review is meant to be a review, and not half of a discussion. That looks terrible.

Also keep in mind that reviews only allow a certain amount of characters. A thorough reply may not fit in the review.

That's a good point...

[1 - LEstil]

w in the world would a Dev ever do what you claim.
Huh?

Unless you are claiming the Dev is going to flat out lie about something the reviewer said, they can't do what you claim they can.

[Brian9824]

Publicado originalmente por Mechanos:

Publicado originalmente por brian9824:

You sure? Just updated my review and it didn't seem to delete any existing votes and still shows who found it helpful https://steamcommunity.com/id/Brian9824/recommended/1245620/

o.O

That's really interesting. They must've changed something. I had a review in a game that got a handful of helpful votes immediately, only for a dev to respond and.. totally stomp on me. So I felt the need to edit the review to reply, and it reset all my votes, and it didn't get anymore after. Not even the typical funny spam, when a review makes the fans riled up.

Thanks for sharing that. I guess my suggestion isn't really needed, if we can edit reviews without resetting them now. When you edited yours, did you actually add any text to it? Just in case there's some algorithm that checks if a review has been changed.

Yep, added and modified some text.

Publicado originalmente por legit:

The fact that the review is marked as "edited" will already devalue the review a bit, so unfortunately that's not an option.

Says who? I can't think of ANY rational person whose going to go, oh they took the time to update their review so it MUST be horrible.....

I mean the fact that its updated would make me value a review MORE.

Publicado originalmente por legit:

Then you would have to change part of your review, which will not look great. A review is meant to be a review, and not half of a discussion. That looks terrible.

Hence why you do it at the bottom and clearly label it. It's not like this is happening very often, i've still yet to see a single example of this hypothetical scenario ever occur.

Publicado originalmente por fenix:

w in the world would a Dev ever do what you claim.
Huh?

Unless you are claiming the Dev is going to flat out lie about something the reviewer said, they can't do what you claim they can.

Yeah i'm still waiting to see an example. It seems like this is a 1 in a million type scenario if it ever does occur...

[Mechanos]

Publicado originalmente por fenix:

Unless you are claiming the Dev is going to flat out lie about something the reviewer said, they can't do what you claim they can.

Please read the entire thread. They can and do. They don't have to lie, they only have to put a spin on the truth while leaving out details, to make your review seem questionable. Sometimes it may not even be an intentional misdirect, and they honestly just disagree, but you're unable to argue your point without editing the review or enabling comments.

Publicado originalmente por brian9824:

Says who? I can't think of ANY rational person whose going to go, oh they took the time to update their review so it MUST be horrible.....

I mean the fact that its updated would make me value a review MORE.

This might count towards the algorithm deciding if your review gets displayed to people or not. Particularly, if previous votes stay now, and someone were to 180 their review, there's now a bunch Helpful votes on something that might be inaccurate.

Publicado originalmente por brian9824:

Yeah i'm still waiting to see an example. It seems like this is a 1 in a million type scenario if it ever does occur...

Because linking exact examples, is inviting trolls to just derail and talk about the review. Like.. what exactly seems so improbable that a dev would try to smooth over a negative review, if it gets them more sales? What makes you think I would make this suggestion for absolutely no reason? Or more importantly, do you see anything actually wrong with the suggestion? Like, how is having a little reply box to interact with the dev, when they chose to interact with you first.. how is that bad?

[davidb11]

Sorry, but without evidence you cannot claim you are correct here.
LOL.

It's literally destroying your credibility by not proving it's true.

We cannot take your word on it.
You are a complete no one.
No one has heard of you before this thread.

You can't be this lazy. I'm sorry.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Publicado originalmente por Mechanos:

So here's the situation. When you review a game, most people now disable comments to prevent opposing opinions/trolls from getting out of hand. It isn't always the case, but it's definitely a thing. However, Developers still get to respond, which is fine.

FYI it's not that most people disable comments.

Comments disabled is nowadays the default. And people have to purposely go and enable them for them to be enabled. For every single time they post a review (unless a changeable personal default has become a feature since I last talked about this). So a lot of people just leave the comments disabled, even through indifference or by accident. And they wouldn't even notice it until someone else points it out to them!

[Brian9824]

What's wrong with a dev posting their take? That's not abuse at all

[Tito Shivan]

Publicado originalmente por fluxtorrent:

huh, you are right, wonder when they added that, pretty sure it used to leave them.

Probably to avoid people from doctoring the replies. If you don't want replies, you don't want them.

Publicado originalmente por fluxtorrent:

well, you can still edit the review

I really don't see the point in replying to your own review when you can just update it.