gifted game reviews need to count towards a games overall score after a certain amount of hours played

[CapNKirkland]

i just reviewed a game that i love and i am passionate about it's success. but i just found out my review apparently doesn't count because my friend gifted the game to me? i have almost 350 hours logged into the game and as such, believe my opinion of the game counts just as equally as anyone else who bought it themselves.

this is the BS message they use to justify taking away the validity of my voice: "this review is not counted in the overall review score because this user activated the product via a Steam key, received it as a gift, or via a temporary free license"

if an account has a certain number of hours locked into the game, say 100 or 200 hours into it, their review should count just the same as anyone elses regardless of how they got it.

[potato]

this is intended to curb paid reviews

[CapNKirkland]

Originally posted by potato:

this is intended to curb paid reviews

irrelevant. after a certain number of hours played, the review should count. a "paid reviewer" would never pump 300 hours into a game before they review it. anyone is foolish to claim otherwise

[potato]

Originally posted by CapNKirkland:

irrelevant.

the entire reason it works this way is "irrelevant?"

your hours are the irrelevant part here, i can use sam to rack up thousands of hours in any game without playing it

[CapNKirkland]

Originally posted by potato:

Originally posted by CapNKirkland:

irrelevant.

the entire reason it works this way is "irrelevant?"

finish reading the comment.

[potato]

Originally posted by CapNKirkland:

finish reading the comment.

i did, your hours mean nothing

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by CapNKirkland:

Originally posted by potato:

this is intended to curb paid reviews

irrelevant. after a certain number of hours played, the review should count. a "paid reviewer" would never pump 300 hours into a game before they review it. anyone is foolish to claim otherwise

Seems relevant. Anyone can idle a game. People abusing features is why more restrictions or alterations tend to happen.

[Nx Machina]

2016 announcement:
https://store.steampowered.com/oldnews/24155

2017 change: https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/563352991934009789

"With the changes we are making now, the review score (shown at the top of store pages and in various places throughout the store such as search results) will no longer include reviews by users that received the game for free, such as via a gift, or during a free weekend. Reviews can still be written by customers that obtained the game in any of these ways, but the review will not count toward the overall review score."

[IFIYGD]

Originally posted by CapNKirkland:

if an account has a certain number of hours locked into the game, say 100 or 200 hours into it, their review should count just the same as anyone elses regardless of how they got it.

So, what you are saying is that everyone who reviewed Senua's Saga should *not* have their reviews counted? Because none of them, regardless of how they got the game, hit those marks- not a single review showing with even 50 hours, because the total length of the game from start to finish seems to range between 6-15 hours. But if someone idles the game for 100 hours, but never plays it *should* have their review counted?

You do understand that there are quite a few games that have very short start > finish expected playtimes (the amount of time it takes to actually play the game from start to finish). Some as short as 30 minutes for solo dev experimental indie games. Not every game has an expected playtime of 100- over 200 hours. Are you going to go through the entire collection of games available on Steam and tell Valve which ones have to follow your rules, and which ones don't? And then convince every developer and publisher to be okay with that?
Because I can pretty much guarantee that Valve isn't going to pay anyone to do that- they aren't going to willingly risk driving away their main source of income by seriously annoying devs and publishers and having them pulling their games from Steam and taking their games to Epic or GoG or any other digital games distribution stores and platforms.

[William Shakesman]

Originally posted by potato:

this is intended to curb paid reviews

For key reviews I could see that, but paid gifts are sent directly through Steam and handled by Steam's own purchasing mechanisms. This should be a cost prohibitive attack vector not even counting the limits already in place for rampant gifting. If someone buys X hundred copies of the game for gifts, the abuse vector there is going to be of a different nature than review abuse.

[M4TERIAL]

I am against it since you c an play a game for 20 hours and the still say its trash. Also what about there is a update ind a "Game as a Service" title? and then people start review bombing it and they are veterans in this game? then the system is broken and it will give some people more power to make a game look like trash eventho its good.

I am sure it can be abused even more

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by CapNKirkland:

Originally posted by potato:

this is intended to curb paid reviews

irrelevant. after a certain number of hours played, the review should count. a "paid reviewer" would never pump 300 hours into a game before they review it. anyone is foolish to claim otherwise

There are many ways to idle a game.

[BJWyler]

Fun fact. The review does count in one of the three aggregates, and for the main one where it isn't automatically included, a simple setting allows the user to have it included.

Another fun fact, been this way for 7 odd years.

[BJWyler]

Originally posted by CapNKirkland:

Originally posted by potato:

this is intended to curb paid reviews

irrelevant. after a certain number of hours played, the review should count. a "paid reviewer" would never pump 300 hours into a game before they review it. anyone is foolish to claim otherwise

I've got over a thousand hours of idle time in one game and hundreds in each of several more.

Originally posted by William Shakesman:

Originally posted by potato:

this is intended to curb paid reviews

For key reviews I could see that, but paid gifts are sent directly through Steam and handled by Steam's own purchasing mechanisms. This should be a cost prohibitive attack vector not even counting the limits already in place for rampant gifting. If someone buys X hundred copies of the game for gifts, the abuse vector there is going to be of a different nature than review abuse.

Mainly it's to prevent devs and publishers from gifting in exchange for positive reviews.