How to write good reviews on Steam Store pages

This guide will help you with writing reviews.

What are Steam customer reviews?

In November 2013, Valve introduced customer reviews on all Store pages for games, software and videos. This allowed anyone with at least 5 minutes of gameplay to write their own review, which would help other customers deciding whether to buy the game or not.
This was probably one of Valve's best moves as Steam is getting flooded with new games every day, so it can be hard for a customer to decide if the game is worth buying. User reviews can be rated by anyone who is logged in to his Steam account and this helps Steam to put the most helpful review on the top and help as many customers as possible.

Why should I write a review?

People write reviews for different reasons. Here, I'm going to list the most common ones:

• If you really enjoyed the game, and you want to tell other people who are considering buying that this game deserves their money, it's a good idea to write a helpful review to convince more people at once.
  
• If the game is bad, you will want to write a review to warn others that this game is better left alone. This also applies if the developer is practicing shady techniques to draw money from people (promising but abandoned Early Access games, not willing to update game-breaking bugs etc.)
  
• Someone can be writing reviews purely for enjoyment that writing brings him (and knowing that other people read it).
  
• Certain people also tend to write more unhelpful, but funny reviews, that make fun of a noticeable feature or a part of the gameplay. These can still influence game's sales positively or negatively.

No matter what your reason is, continue reading this guide as I'm certain that you'll find something useful for yourself.

What types of reviews exist?

There are many types of reviews and you should choose your preferred one depending on what are you trying to achieve with it.
Be aware that there is not single type of reviewing that would please all people. Some people like it short, some people like it long. Personally, I love long reviews, but only if I have time to read them. If I have to make a quick decision whether to buy a game or not, I tend to look at the average rating and read a few short and most helpful reviews (as decided by the community).

Enough with the introduction, here are the types:

• Short reviews | These reviews are short, but tend to be helpful. They are mostly written by people who really want to express their opinion, but don't want to spend too much time writing. They are extremely helpful with last-minute purchasing decisions.
  
• Long reviews | There are usually written by people, who have enough time and willpower to write for a long time. They are very detailed and usually explain the writer's view on the game. They can be divided into Pros and Cons section or are just a big block of text (usually really hard to read if you're not concentrated). They are very helpful, if some game looks appealing to you, but you just can't decide if it's worth it or not, so details matter.
  
• Humorous reviews | They tend to be short and contain a very small amount of data, but they can be helpful as well. Even if they're not, they should probably make you laugh. This is a perfect example of such reviews.

What type of reviewing should I choose?

You should always choose what suits you best! But in case you don't know what suits you, here are a few factors that you should base your decision on:

• Time, available for writing | If you have a lot of free time and you're willing to spend it on writing reviews, it's probably a smart idea to write long reviews. If you're short on time, your reviews should be short as well, but focused on helpfulness.
  
• Writing talent | If you don't have one, don't bother, you can help people with deciding just as good. Just write a few sentences about your gameplay experience, what were the best/worst moments and why do you (not) recommend the game you're talking about.
  
• Importance of details | Some people find the small details very important and such people should write long reviews. They're not always read, but people who care about the details will appreciate the review.

The decision is still up to you, of course. If you're not sure, try writing a short review and another long one. Ask yourself what made you felt better and when did you enjoy more. You should probably also ask other people which review is better in their opinion. You might be a talent for one type and you don't even know it!

What should I ask myself when writing?

While writing a short review, you should ask yourself a few questions:

• Did I like the game? Why?
  
• What were the most noticable things in the game?
  
• Is the game worth buying? Is it overpriced/underpriced?
  
• Is the game replayable? How many hours of gameplay are possible?
  
• What does this game offer in comparison to other similar games?
  
• Would I recommend purchasing the game to others? Should they wait for a discount?

These are some of the most important questions to which you should have answers when you're writing. For example, even if you like the game, but it's heavily overpriced or doesn't offer anything new, you should mention it in your review to ensure that a possible buyer is aware of this.

How long should a review be?

If you're writing a short review, I recommend you to limit yourself to 100-115 words. This is the approximate length at which Steam will start cutting the review and putting the "Read more" link on the bottom.

If you're writing a long review, the length should be about 300-1000 words. All of my reviews are long and they all fit in this range. If you're doing a pros/cons review, you should write more words. Visibility is decreased a lot if your review is text-only, so you should limit yourself to less words.

If you're writing a humorous review, the length doesn't usually matter, but such reviews tend to be short, sometimes even as short as a sentence or two. As long as the review is actually funny, it doesn't really matter.

How should my review be structured?

You should structure your review to make it as understandable as possible to as many people as possible. I made some basic rules you should follow:

• Write your review like you would write an essay: start with an introduction, continue with what you're trying to achieve with your review and end it with a conclusion that sums up your review.
  
• Use Steam formatting. It makes your review much easier to read. If possible, divide your review in a few parts and use headers to name those parts. In case you need some help with formatting: click here. However, don't overuse formatting, even though Steam will support a lot of things you may throw at it.
  
• Using paragraphs is another important thing. Sometimes you see a review that is basically just a big block of text and that (sadly) results in some people instantly clicking the downvote button.
  
• Make sure to write in good English. Every time you make a mistake, people who care about this will like your review a bit less, which is not something you would want.

What should my review include?

Well, that is a very simple question: you should include everything you feel is important to you or might be important to somebody.
That pretty much means that you should include most important upsides and downsides of the game, together with reasons why somebody should or should not buy the game. It's a simple as that!

What software/websites should I use?

You can of course just write into the Steam Store page of the game you want to review, but this is only reasonable if you're writing a short review. If you're doing a review that takes more than five minutes to write, you should use a tool which can save your text for later.
You should of course also make sure that your grammar is good in your reviews, which I will cover here as well.

So, withouth further ado, here is the list of tools you should consider using:

• SpellCheckPlus[spellcheckplus.com] - a nice tool for checking your grammar structures and misspelled words. However, free version only supports up to 2000 characters at once, so you will most likely have to check your review by parts.
  
• GrammarCheck[www.grammarcheck.net] - another nice tool (this one with no character limit) which usually detects some spelling mistakes that SpellCheckPlus doesn't. However, it's mostly useless for other things.
  
• Nimble Writer - A very nice lightweight piece of software, which is (in my opinion) one of the best tools for writing reviews. I mean, you can also use Notepad, but if you're looking for something a bit more serious, Nimble Writer is the way to go. I use this myself for all of my reviews.

I would also be very glad if someone sends me some other suggestions.

How should I promote my work?

If you think you're doing good reviews, you should consider contacting some of the curator groups here on Steam. Some will provide you with keys for reviewing, some will just publish your work. If you want to join a curator group, you should note the following:

• Have at least decent Steam level - nobody wants a level 3 person among their crew
  
• Have a nice looking profile - you should have a background, a decent profile picture and a normal nickname. This last one is especially important, since people named like "[MLG]HaX00rS - CSGOBETS.CO.CC" don't really give the feeling of being mature.
  
• Have at least 10 good reviews published already. This way, you can prove that you're capable of writing good reviews. Good English is, again, very important.
  
• Behave. Don't insult other people and ignore other people insulting you. Always assume that you're wrong before assuming others are wrong. These are things you should be doing in real life anyway, but some people don't seem to get it, sadly.

Other than that, there is really no way of promoting your reviews.

Conclusion

I think I covered most important points of reviewing. If you feel like something is missing, let me know in the comments and I'll do my best to improve this guide.

*shameless selfpromotion incoming* Here, you can see my reviews: http://steamcommunity.com/id/BirdCute/recommended/
Just in case you need something for inspiraiton ;)

So, that would be it! Thanks for reading this guide and I really really hope it helped you at list a bit with writing reviews.

Goodbye and lots of luck with writing!
BirdCute

[BirdCute]

Private profile is almost neccesary for a reviewer, but it looks like someone is targeting you. There isn't much you can do apart from identifying the person who is doing this. Again, people on your friendlist are the most likely suspects.

[Space Coward]

It's my fault for not having a private profile, but I'm thinking people can just click on your review then back to "Kill-Cam Celebrity's reveiws" and go down the list. You don't even have to click on each review anymore, you can just go down a list.

[BirdCute]

If someone is constantly disliking your reviews, he's most likely on your friendlist. Barely any people would actually check your profile just to downvote your work without being on your friendlist. About repairing your reputation, there really isn't any way except continuously writing good reviews that people will like.
I hope that answered your questions.

[Space Coward]

Is there any way to save your rep as a reviewer? There was a short time I was actually getting my reviews out there, after Dizzel, but then I dared to downvote Fallout 4 for its technical problems and my reviews' ratings reflected it almost immediately.

[CMYKoi]

Very thorough, as a fan of writing long reviews, I'm very impressed, Bird! Great formatting, too.

[Jet]

Nice review BirdCute!👌🏼
You're writing continues to inspire me.