Game reviews and early access.

[ratcat]

I purchased Half-life 2 Gold in 2004 - 19 years ago. There were no reviews back then because HL2 was not even released. Half-life was Valves entry in to the gaming world long before STEAM was a glint in Gabe Newells eye. now they (Valve) sell millions if not billions of dollars worth of games each year. We who paid for Half-life and 2 got him started. I actually played HL2 before most of the world as we are 7 hours ahead in time and it (HL2) was unlocked on my PC in the Eastern states of Australia - I even emailed gabe and he replied with a thank you note. So out comes Half-life Alyx and before you know it I'm heavily invested in VR having purchased the fantastic Index.
Much has changed over the years but one hard true fact is - Valve are big, HUGE and they make a lot of money so they want to encourage folk to review a game in order to get others to buy but here lies the problem. Because they have a financial stake it doesnt matter how short or pointless the review is. IMDB (Internet movie data base) have no financial stake and yet a review must be a minimum of 600 characters before it can be posted. We should hold them (Valve) to a standard. the world is coming close to recession, money is hard to come by. Here in Oz the federal reserve have raised interest rates for a tenth time in a row. People are losing their houses.
So when I read a review I decide on the strength of that review if I am going to pay $20 -30 -40 or $80 dollars on a game and sorry but "I sh*t my pants" just aint gonna cut it. Valve should at least give us the filter option of choosing reviews with minimum 50 words or more. I received a bit of flak for my first post saying those 5 word reviews are useless or the ones with the ASCII character mean nothing. Imagine if Roger Ebert wrote a movie review like "Bomb go boom!" - he would be kicked out the front doors of the Chicago sun-times so fast his head would spin.
I would like to suggest that you be at least 18 before posting a review and Early access games - dont get me started. The one thing which I think is great is the refund feature but early access games should have a minimum amount of gameplay of 2 -3 hours and as such we should be given a definitive percentage rate of game completion. If a game has 90 minutes of gameplay and just stops I would say thats 20% complete. Come on guys I'm just trying to even up the scales here - we need a fairer system to know if a game is worth our money. I have many many games in my library and some are outright turds.
Thats money down the drain.

[Gwarsbane]

Great big huge wall of text will get your posts ignored by many... please use some paragraphs. And no I didn't bother reading all your post... because wall of text.... Just going by your title and what most people that have a title like that are upset about, that early access reviews hurt the sales of a good game or help the sales of a bad game.


Short version, early access games already get reviews that you can clearly see are early access vs after they are out of early access. No need to change things.

[ratcat]

Originally posted by Gwarsbane:

Great big huge wall of text will get your posts ignored by many... please use some paragraphs. And no I didn't bother reading all your post... because wall of text.... Just going by your title and what most people that have a title like that are upset about, that early access reviews hurt the sales of a good game or help the sales of a bad game.


Short version, early access games already get reviews that you can clearly see are early access vs after they are out of early access. No need to change things.

OK. thanks for your input.

[Tanoomba]

Originally posted by ratcat:

So when I read a review I decide on the strength of that review if I am going to pay $20 -30 -40 or $80 dollars on a game and sorry but "I sh*t my pants" just aint gonna cut it.

Steam wants the reviews to be accessible and have as many people write them as possible, as the more reviews a game has the more accurate the aggregate score is. As such, they are going to be of a wide variety of quality and usefulness.

Originally posted by ratcat:

Imagine if Roger Ebert wrote a movie review like "Bomb go boom!" - he would be kicked out the front doors of the Chicago sun-times so fast his head would spin.

He's dead, but he was also a professional critic. If you value the opinions of critics (and there are many reasons to do so), then head on over to Metacritic and see what they have to say. It's a bit silly to expect that same level of detail and professionalism from any random Steam user.

Originally posted by ratcat:

I would like to suggest that you be at least 18 before posting a review

Considering their verification system is "Are you over 18?", I doubt that would change anything.

Originally posted by ratcat:

The one thing which I think is great is the refund feature but early access games should have a minimum amount of gameplay of 2 -3 hours and as such we should be given a definitive percentage rate of game completion. If a game has 90 minutes of gameplay and just stops I would say thats 20% complete.

This doesn't work at all. There is no way to measure a game's "completion", and if there were it certainly wouldn't be time-based. Heck, I love short games. Being able to beat one in less than an hour is often a plus for me.

Originally posted by ratcat:

we need a fairer system to know if a game is worth our money.

Current system's plenty fair.

Originally posted by ratcat:

I have many many games in my library and some are outright turds.
Thats money down the drain.

Well, that's the nature of subjectively-experienced entertainment media. it's not all going to appeal to you.

[Crazy Tiger]

Those reviews you don't like are written by adults, OP. And a word limit won't do anything, people will just copy/past stuff like they already do, or haven't you seen the apple pie recipes in reviews?

And it's probably best to ignore Early Access games, as they're clearly not for you.

[Shinoskay]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Those reviews you don't like are written by adults, OP. And a word limit won't do anything, people will just copy/past stuff like they already do, or haven't you seen the apple pie recipes in reviews?

And it's probably best to ignore Early Access games, as they're clearly not for you.

I dont understand why so many people have such a problem with reviews... Reviews are important and keep things honest. If you think people are being overly critical (or wordy) or even abusive then ignore that review.

However, all these desires to censor and filter reviews are as about sensical as it is to censor or filter yelp, google, or play store reviews... (non of which, are censored or filtered)

[ratcat]

Originally posted by Tanoomba:

Originally posted by ratcat:

So wn the drain.

Well, that's the nature of subjectively-experienced entertainment media. it's not all going to appeal to you.

You make some good points but you also miss my point in some aspects. still, thanks for the tip on metacritic.

[JefitaOk]

As it is! I agree!
In my case, I do not review if I have less than 50 hours of play (I play emulators) and when giving a review I take it responsibly.
Most of the games in my country are too expensive to download without meaning.

[ratcat]

Originally posted by JefitaOk:

As it is! I agree!
In my case, I do not review if I have less than 50 hours of play (I play emulators) and when giving a review I take it responsibly.
Most of the games in my country are too expensive to download without meaning.

That sounds like the responsible thing.