negative reviews - use metacritic NOT steam

[sir vival]

The review system is designed to help devs and Steam, not the community. You can't easily search for negative reviews, just "most helpful," and the devs and moderators can edit your review at their discretion. The review system has the appearance of a consumer advocacy system, but does not actually accomplish that. Stick to metacritic. If you see a bunch of positive reviews on Steam, it really means next to nothing when it comes to how much you will actually like the game.

[TeKraken]

I really hope people are doing more research than that before parting with their hard earned.

[sir vival]

I read some comments on negative reviews in the forums, and the tone was, Why doesn't Steam make this more easy, ie there was an assumption that the Steam review system was to actually help the consumer. I agree with you, hopefully folks are smart enough to not toss money away so quickly. But for me, the issue is the review system in place gives the false impression that positive reviews are just flowing on all these games. Which in the long run, just hurts Steam and paid patronage, inasmuch as paying for games, and then being disappointed despite glowing reviews, will encourage people to download the games in other ways.

[Lizardian_guy]

I would agree if Metacritic was reliable. Most game review sites are worthless while user reviews are even worse (Dark Souls 2 is scoring lower than Goat Simulator according to user reviews).

[sir vival]

Maybe. I think Metacritic provides a useful service, and I like the fact that Steam posts the metacritic score. Personal interest will always play a role. In folks that like simulator games, or games similar to goat simulator, maybe that is a top notch game. I don't know. I never looked at the reviews, because I would never buy such a game. Whereas the folks playing Dark Souls may be more discriminating in their assessments, and therefore give it a more cautious score. So I always take that into account. But a metacritic score of 90+, for a genre that I actually like? I'll still read the negative reviews, and then make a decision. Steam reviews? Or a system that, in the long run, makes it hard to know what folks did not like? I'll pass. It would be better if the devs left the negative feedback, and showed how they were responding to it, like what happens in most other forums or feedback systems. And it would be better if Steam made it easy for the community to find whatever reviews they are looking for. Making it hard to find the negative comments will always cause distrust and hurt business for that and other reasons in the long run.

[Black Blade]

Matric is not that good as well... and i really am not sure what you talking abut the reviews been edit..
The mods of the game hub can max mark it as spam or unrelvent.. and Valve did replay that if you see a Dev that is abusing it to report them so there going to talk abut it

I did see some games that got Many not recommend just as there were on UPlay.. i can understand.. yet...

And in the end i use the Steam reviews as well as YouTube and many more sites + random site... that most of the time helps...
and most of all i relay on my friends reviews.. as if i did not understand i can just ask them

[Shasow]

I agree. Steam reviews are not "accurate". It's either a thumbs up or thumbs down - no middle ground. Although Steam reviews are useful for picking out the really bad games. 100% negative reviews has to tell you something....

[Spawn of Totoro]

The developer nor we moderators can edit reviews. A developer can flag a review, then it will get looked at, that is it. From what I have seen, very few reviews are ever flagged and the ones that are, deserve it. "Bad" is not a review.

The review system is as accurate as you are willing to read. Sorry it doesn't simplify it by giving it an arbitrary number that holds no real merit, of which is easy to manipulate (such as on Metacritic's users' scores).

Now people have to actually the read review instead of saying "I won't buy any game under a 70% rating or 3 and a half stars" and make a judgement call. One they can't blame the results on someone else for.

At least you know people own the game here. Another big flaw in Metacritic is that anyone can make an account and rate a game, even if they never played it. I remember DOTA2 had a good rating...something like an 8 or such, then Diretide failed to show and the rating dropped. Was that due to the game being bad? No, that was due to people wanting something and not getting it when they wanted it. It was for revenge.

I do agree that there should be a neutral option. I've never been a believer in having just a thumbs up or down.

Finally, it is easy to show the negative comments. There is even a filter to only show them.

[sir vival]

The store has a filter. The community section for each game does not. I guess I should have clarified that. You mention having a neutral option. Sure. That might be helpful. Though I think forcing a thumbs up or down has its merits. Maybe you don't routinely edit the reviews, and just make a delete or not delete decision, but that is not all it is. Others have posted that the thumbs up vs down has been changed. That is such a fundamental statement about how one feels, and forms the context for the rest of the review, that everyone should definitely consider that editing the review. So, sure, a neutral might stop disagreements about what is or is not a positive review. But where does a moderator get off telling us what our final judgment of the game should be? Thumbs up vs down is a review. So is the word Bad. Maybe not particularly helpful in the grand scheme of things, but 200 thumbs down that say "Bad", if all deleted, and all that remained was 10 thumbs up that went on and on and on and on and on, would simply reward the groupies for being verbose, and punish those that probably are already sick of the game, for not wanting to spend even more time on it. Encouraging smart dialogue is good. Pretending that wordiness somehow invalidates the thumbs up or down system is not good. With a "helpful" category, there is no need to delete short reviews. You confirmed the basis of my comments, even as you tried to dismiss them. Though I would agree that reviews from game players should be required, rather than having comments from window shoppers.

[sir vival]

The moderators responding to the dev complaining that a review said Bad? Come on. How many times have they flagged a short review that said Good? Ever?

[Black Blade]

sir vival eredeti hozzászólása:

The moderators responding to the dev complaining that a review said Bad? Come on. How many times have they flagged a short review that said Good? Ever?

I seen some and some do it...
It changes from Dev to Dev... but they do it...

And in the end.. dose it really that much matter? i mean its not that number of reviews are shown

[Nejco]

Some games sucks when they come up, then devs fix things, and add more content and they get awesome. Metacritic is not always correct.

[Dark Lord Satan Visit Your Bum]

Spawn of Totoro eredeti hozzászólása:

From what I have seen, very few reviews are ever flagged and the ones that are, deserve it.

At least one developer (for the game Train Simulator 2014) has been caught flagging valid negative reviews. Accusations of flagging abuse have also been aimed at a handful of other devs and publishers.

The review system is far from perfect.

[Black Blade]

Dr. Butthole, M.D. eredeti hozzászólása:

At least one developer (for the game Train Simulator 2014) has been caught flagging valid negative reviews. Accusations of flagging abuse have also been aimed at a handful of other devs and publishers.

The review system is far from perfect.

and Valve them self replay they will have a look into that.. to talk to them abut it and take care of it

[sir vival]

I like the thought of devs responding to the negative feedback. I really like it, because it helps me to decide how much I can trust the devs in the long run. And a system that makes it hard to see that evolution, is a difficult system to trust. A solution might be to make it very obvious when a post has been flagged, or a way for the community to easily track when comments are being deleted. If the system itself is transparent, a lot of my concerns dissolve. But a community that is naive about moderators that manipulate what is being described is a community that needs the occasional post to wake them up to what is happening.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

I don't know much yet about the Steam review feature but I've noticed that Metacritic tends to give higher scores to games that are more well-known, all else being equal. Also, some bias in favor of games that look "modern", stylistically and graphics-tech-wise.