Add a filter for review playtime as % versus average playtime

[Harmonica]

Generally I want to read reviews from players who've put in a good amount of hours into the game, and less hot-takes from players who haven't put in the time with a game. If I'm looking at a game where I could realistically see myself putting in hundreds of hours, maybe the current filter of excluding reviews below 30 hours makes sense.

However, some games are only short and will be played for only a few hours, or a dozen hours at most, so excluding reviews based on them being less than an hour or ten hours makes no sense. However, what I really want is to see reviews that are at least the average playtime, be it long or short.

Based on this I've never chosen to filter reviews by playtime, even though a lot of the time I want to see the reviews from the players who've put in the most amount of time - so say, the top 10th or 5th percentile in terms of time played.

Ideally on a games store page (in addition to the current hourly filters) we would have a filter option that let us see reviews that were:

• about the average playtime:
  a good one-size fits all option. If the average playtime is 10 hours, maybe we can see anything between 8-12 hours. If the average is one hour, that margin is scaled appropriately, so you'd see reviews between ~45 mins and 1hr 15 mins, etc.
  
• at least (>=) the average playtime:
  as above with an average playtime of 10 hours, only see reviews that were around 10hrs+; average of one hour, only see reviews with at least 45 mins playtime, etc.
  
• less than 1/2 average playtime:
  probably going to be more negative reviews or hot takes in this filter, which is useful, but more useful when specifically filtered for and not piled into all the other reviews.

and the option I would like the most:

• top % of playtime/'much greater than average playtime':
  players who've played this game a lot longer than most others. They're invested and they know a good amount about the game. They're probably fans of the game, but they might not necessarily give a positive review - or they regularly update their review score depending on changes. These are some of the most useful reviews on Steam!
  
  Currently if a game is played for hundreds or even thousands of hours by these players, it's not so difficult to find the reviews, but when the average play length is short, maybe a few dozen hours at most, the current filters are not good enough for finding these reviews (besides, we don't know before buying what the average is, even if we can guess).

You might also add a filter option for the developers suggested play lengths, be it an hour or 50 hours, or more.

* When I say average I mostly refer to the bulk of the playtimes distributed around the median, or however more skilled statisticians want to calculate it :)

[Radene]

If you are looking for "a game to put hundreds of hours into", you're not in the market for short games, though.

[Supafly]

If it's an option fine. Not like I'd use it anyway. Reasons below

If I dislike a game that I could have put in 100+ hours into it doesn't matter if I've played an hour or 10 or 50. My dislikes will have been why I stopped playing. Sure other could overlook, accept or not mind those issues hence they exceed 100 hours in playtime.

However, you trying to avoid seeing my review pointing out all the bad to only view the reviews from those that ignored/didn't mind those issues may not be as helpful as you think. You to may dislike the same things as me. You may even dislike them even more. So much so you wouldn't even buy the game had you read bad reviews or reviews of users with low hours.

Plenty of games have things that don't happen until after the 2 hour refund time. I'd have refunded a few had I known in advance the things that only occur after the 2 hour mark.

There is also reviews that point out issues on specific hardware. Hardware you may have and won't know about the issues if you filter out low playtime.

[Mailer]

It would be difficult to base reviews off of an average play length as there are users that can just farm hours in some games without even playing them, which would completely skew the results.
Hours are a global known that is already as recognisable as possible and I really don't see why this statistic has to be based on percentages at all. Maybe as an alternative option for those short term games you are referring to, but even then there are also sites you can visit that tell you the time to beat a game if you really need some kind of relevant data-point to work off of.

[Crazy Tiger]

Average playtime will be skewed by:
- People idling;
- People playing in offline mode;
- People replaying games;

I've never seen playtime on Steam as "worth" something other than the refund policy. If you want an average of how long a game lasts, youcan check HLTB for that. Yes, even the Grand strategy, 4x and RTS games are listed there. Though I'm curious how people calculate their "Main+extra's" playthrough.

I ever only check negative reviews, to see what issues come up. I filter them by recent and I pick the ones that have a medium length. I'm not interested in one-liners, nor in essays.

I'm not against options (even if I don't use them, like this one), but it does sound like a complicated overhaul that only fits a niche group.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Average playtime will be skewed by:
- People idling;
- People playing in offline mode;
- People replaying games;

I've never seen playtime on Steam as "worth" something other than the refund policy. If you want an average of how long a game lasts, youcan check HLTB for that. Yes, even the Grand strategy, 4x and RTS games are listed there. Though I'm curious how people calculate their "Main+extra's" playthrough.

I ever only check negative reviews, to see what issues come up. I filter them by recent and I pick the ones that have a medium length. I'm not interested in one-liners, nor in essays.

I'm not against options (even if I don't use them, like this one), but it does sound like a complicated overhaul that only fits a niche group.

Not to mention people playing for 2 hours to get cards, etc. You can always use www.howlongtobeat.com to check which is more accurate as people tell it how long the game actually takes rather then steam guessing and taking playtime into account.

I mean imagine if 10 people played a game for 100 hour - that's 100 hours average.

Now if 10 people idle that game for 2 hours for cards that 100 hour average becomes 51 hours average.

[Harmonica]

Originally posted by Radene:

If you are looking for "a game to put hundreds of hours into", you're not in the market for short games, though.

I play games of all kinds of lengths. Some are short where pretty much everyone plays it for 1-5 hours and never again, others for thousands of hours over the course of a decade. That's really why I think a way to see reviews that match the expected play time is useful, rather than fixed durations.

However, I do tend to play most games longer than most, even the linear games where people say there's 20 hours of content I'll be playing them for over 50 hours and not even be finished. I just tend to play at a slower pace or spend more time exploring and investigating. So on top of the 'average play length' filter, the 'much longer than average play length' would be personally very useful to me, since that's how I play games.

Likewise, I'm sure the opposite would be true for those who tend to speed through their play through.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by Harmonica:

the 'much longer than average play length' would be personally very useful to me, since that's how I play games.

Keep in mind that this length also encompasses people who replayed the game.

[Harmonica]

Originally posted by Dead Monkey:

However, you trying to avoid seeing my review pointing out all the bad to only view the reviews from those that ignored/didn't mind those issues may not be as helpful as you think. You to may dislike the same things as me. You may even dislike them even more. So much so you wouldn't even buy the game had you read bad reviews or reviews of users with low hours.

It's not really about avoiding reviews, it's about adding extra filters to check different groups of reviews/players, basically to get a better picture of how people feel about a game depending on how much time they put in.

If a vast majority of people drop out of the game after only a few hours, then that would lower the average playtime such that the 'average playtime' filter would include all those reviews. That's kind of the value of such a filter.

[Harmonica]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Originally posted by Harmonica:

the 'much longer than average play length' would be personally very useful to me, since that's how I play games.

Keep in mind that this length also encompasses people who replayed the game.

It does, but again if enough people were doing that it would be a valid bump to the average. If not, then it probably wouldn't factor into it.

And for procedural non-linear games, restarting them or having very long running saves is often fundamental to them, so for those games, if most people are only playing them for a dozen hours or something, that's very useful to know about. Even more if you read the reviews and still say it's a good game, despite lacking the desire to replay them.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by Harmonica:

Originally posted by Dead Monkey:

However, you trying to avoid seeing my review pointing out all the bad to only view the reviews from those that ignored/didn't mind those issues may not be as helpful as you think. You to may dislike the same things as me. You may even dislike them even more. So much so you wouldn't even buy the game had you read bad reviews or reviews of users with low hours.

It's not really about avoiding reviews, it's about adding extra filters to check different groups of reviews/players, basically to get a better picture of how people feel about a game depending on how much time they put in.

If a vast majority of people drop out of the game after only a few hours, then that would lower the average playtime such that the 'average playtime' filter would include all those reviews. That's kind of the value of such a filter.

Except you'd have no way to tell apart people who drop out after a few hours, versus people who idle for a few hours for cards. Or people who just tried it and are busy, and don't have time to play.

That's why sites like www.howlongtobeat.com is better because people quantify the time

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by Harmonica:

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Keep in mind that this length also encompasses people who replayed the game.

It does, but again if enough people were doing that it would be a valid bump to the average. If not, then it probably wouldn't factor into it.

And for procedural non-linear games, restarting them or having very long running saves is often fundamental to them, so for those games, if most people are only playing them for a dozen hours or something, that's very useful to know about. Even more if you read the reviews and still say it's a good game, despite lacking the desire to replay them.

How do you factor out that people are playing in offline mode? Quite some games I have, have less playtime on Steam because I play in offline mode regularly, for example.

I also ask this because I have friends who have about 0,1-1 hours on all reviews because they mostly play them in offline mode.

[Harmonica]

Originally posted by brian9824:

Originally posted by Harmonica:

If a vast majority of people drop out of the game after only a few hours, then that would lower the average playtime such that the 'average playtime' filter would include all those reviews. That's kind of the value of such a filter.

Except you'd have no way to tell apart people who drop out after a few hours, versus people who idle for a few hours for cards. Or people who just tried it and are busy, and don't have time to play.

That's why sites like www.howlongtobeat.com is better because people quantify the time

A lot of that behaviour is likely not significant statistically, but Steam already classify players on those kind of metrics, so they can filter it as they like in order to get cleaner stats.

People find time to play games that they're massively hooked and invested in, even those with busy schedules. So if enough people are in the camp of not being able to find time to play a game that it affects the stats, that's notable. It's no longer skewing the stats, it's part of the picture.

[Harmonica]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

How do you factor out that people are playing in offline mode? Quite some games I have, have less playtime on Steam because I play in offline mode regularly, for example.

I also ask this because I have friends who have about 0,1-1 hours on all reviews because they mostly play them in offline mode.

That's mostly a question of whether Steam still knows their true hour count or not, and whether they want to use it to display their review in one of these filters.

Seems important whether they are playing offline so that they have 0 hours - in which case, it's pretty difficult for Steam to show their review if someone is filtering for a certain play length (privacy issue) - or whether they don't mind if their true hour count is shown on their review (if Steam actually allowed that). They could of course add a checkbox when posting the review to show their true hour count, in order for it to show up within these kind of filters.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by Harmonica:

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

How do you factor out that people are playing in offline mode? Quite some games I have, have less playtime on Steam because I play in offline mode regularly, for example.

I also ask this because I have friends who have about 0,1-1 hours on all reviews because they mostly play them in offline mode.

That's mostly a question of whether Steam still knows their true hour count or not, and whether they want to use it to display their review in one of these filters.

Seems important whether they are playing offline so that they have 0 hours - in which case, it's pretty difficult for Steam to show their review if someone is filtering for a certain play length (privacy issue) - or whether they don't mind if their true hour count is shown on their review (if Steam actually allowed that). They could of course add a checkbox when posting the review to show their true hour count, in order for it to show up within these kind of filters.

Steam Support knows the true count, as it's factored in when people make refund requests to curb abuse.

It's not shown in the playtime on your profile, though. I don't know why it's not included.