Neutral Feedback

[binxiegirl]

There are a lot of games that I would like to give a review for, but a few of those games I have felt neutral on instead of a positive or negative. I wish that Steam would add that option and I don’t understand why they haven’t. The more I leave game reviews the more I don’t want to leave a review for any game unless I thought a strong positive or negative for a particular game.

[Shinoskay]

I feel this, like... it wasnt good... it also wasnt bad... 3 out of 5 instead of 1 or 5 out of 5.

[[N]ebsun]

The question to answer when making a review is about recommending a game or not - the paragraph of text is to explain why, or to give positive / negative feedback, (ie. the review portion)

If you don't feel strongly enough to recommend someone to buy the game, then it's a not-recommended.
There is no category that exists in between - either you do recommend it, or by default you do not.

The neutral category is the default: not recommended.

Not making a recommendation is, by definition, neutral.

[Nx Machina]

You are asked a "personal" question.

Would you "recommended" this game to other players. (Recommend: To endorse).

The answer is yes or no because you either play a game and continue to play it, or you do not because you lost the motivation to do so. In the text box you tell others why.

Neutral is non-committal and someone reading your review wants to know if it is worthy of being played or not.

And finally Valve has the system they want and developers, publishers can see at a glance how their game is received without reading numerous reviews.

[Tanoomba]

The only truly neutral opinion of a game is "I don't care", which is not useful for a review. Other than that, there is no opinion someone can have that wouldn't fall under "recommend" or "don't recommend".

[Start_Running]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Tanoomba:

The only truly neutral opinion of a game is "I don't care", which is not useful for a review. Other than that, there is no opinion someone can have that wouldn't fall under "recommend" or "don't recommend".

And if one doesn't care, one has no drive to write a review.

[Large Tomatoes]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Start_Running:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Tanoomba:

The only truly neutral opinion of a game is "I don't care", which is not useful for a review. Other than that, there is no opinion someone can have that wouldn't fall under "recommend" or "don't recommend".

And if one doesn't care, one has no drive to write a review.

That is an extrapolation of a flawed opinion.

There are several ways to look at this:

1. If you are unsure if you could recommend it, then you cannot recommend it. Thus, the yes/no system is fine.

2. You think of the recommendation much like the stars in a famous global monopolistic website. In which case you want to assign stars, grading the content if you will.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both, for example, when a game has mostly negative reviews is that game bad or is it just not finished yet so people cannot recommend it. Much like political ideology, it is easier to group everything into two nicely squared off camps, but that doesn't reflect reality all that well. Maybe adding a simple rating system would help, no I do not recommend this game (yet) but it is bloody good.

Suggestions for the suggestion forum

[Start_Running]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Mozah Deserved It:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Start_Running:

And if one doesn't care, one has no drive to write a review.

That is an extrapolation of a flawed opinion.

There are several ways to look at this:

1. If you are unsure if you could recommend it, then you cannot recommend it. Thus, the yes/no system is fine.

2. You think of the recommendation much like the stars in a famous global monopolistic website. In which case you want to assign stars, grading the content if you will.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both, for example, when a game has mostly negative reviews is that game bad or is it just not finished yet so people cannot recommend it. Much like political ideology, it is easier to group everything into two nicely squared off camps, but that doesn't reflect reality all that well. Maybe adding a simple rating system would help, no I do not recommend this game (yet) but it is bloody good.

Suggestions for the suggestion forum

You can assign stars as well as answer yes or no. You do this in the actual content of the review.

[Nx Machina]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Mozah Deserved It:

2. You think of the recommendation much like the stars in a famous global monopolistic website. In which case you want to assign stars, grading the content if you will.

If you are referring to Metacritic, you can leave a review without having the game, hence why it is easy to review bomb.

[Large Tomatoes]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Start_Running:

You can assign stars as well as answer yes or no. You do this in the actual content of the review.

Sure but you can't perform any kind of analytics or even filtering on this. As a user you would need to read through each review. If we had a score as a formalised value in the review then we could get a mean average score.

it is still not great I admit, I just don't think a binary 'would you recommend' is enough to give adequate feedback at a glance.

[rawWwRrr]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Mozah Deserved It:

I just don't think a binary 'would you recommend' is enough to give adequate feedback at a glance.

It's not. That's why there is a text box to add feedback. But the original decision is still applicable.

[Large Tomatoes]

Początkowo opublikowane przez rawWwRrr:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Mozah Deserved It:

I just don't think a binary 'would you recommend' is enough to give adequate feedback at a glance.

It's not. That's why there is a text box to add feedback. But the original decision is still applicable.

Indeed, but as mentioned previously, plain text is not suitable for analytics or filtering.

[Start_Running]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Tears in the rain:

Początkowo opublikowane przez rawWwRrr:

It's not. That's why there is a text box to add feedback. But the original decision is still applicable.

Indeed, but as mentioned previously, plain text is not suitable for analytics or filtering.

You're over-thinking things. .
WHat's the point of analytics using a meaningless scale.
There's no consistently applied meaning to any star rating on a scale. It means different things to different people so if you're assuming that someone using 3 starts means the same thing you understand 3 stars to mean, then you're basically just ignoring what is said and projecting your biases onto the review.

That's kinda why valve just boiled it down to a simple yes or no. Yes, means the same thing fior everyone. No means the same thing for everyone.

So if someone says Yes they recommend it, it means the game is worthy of their personal recommendation., If they say no, then the game isn't. And that tyes or no will cover just about any position one can honestly express.

[Large Tomatoes]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Start_Running:

You're over-thinking things. .

...

Początkowo opublikowane przez Start_Running:

There's no consistently applied meaning to any star rating on a scale. It means different things to different people so if you're assuming that someone using 3 starts means the same thing you understand 3 stars to mean, then you're basically just ignoring what is said and projecting your biases onto the review.

I'm not sure I can answer that

Początkowo opublikowane przez Start_Running:

WHat's the point of analytics using a meaningless scale.

For the same reason we use these scales on other sites such as Amazon.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Start_Running:

So if someone says Yes they recommend it, it means the game is worthy of their personal recommendation., If they say no, then the game isn't. And that tyes or no will cover just about any position one can honestly express.

I absolutely disagree. There is a reason why every other site which contains reviews has a bare minimum of a scale i.e. 1-5 stars.

An example, you might think a game is absolutely excellent but cannot recommend it due to it being janky and in EA. Marking it as not recommended is perceived as 'bad'. You cannot in good faith recommend a janky game, but it is a good game if you have patience.

Anyway, this is my opinion and it has been made known, I'm out.

[rawWwRrr]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Tears in the rain:

Początkowo opublikowane przez rawWwRrr:

It's not. That's why there is a text box to add feedback. But the original decision is still applicable.

Indeed, but as mentioned previously, plain text is not suitable for analytics or filtering.

Correct. But that's not what's being asked for in the OP.

[Large Tomatoes]

Początkowo opublikowane przez rawWwRrr:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Tears in the rain:

Indeed, but as mentioned previously, plain text is not suitable for analytics or filtering.

Correct. But that's not what's being asked for in the OP.

Right, and I never said it was. Further up the comment chain I said "Maybe adding a simple rating system would help,". This was said in response to the conversation moving forward with several parties all speaking.