The vast majority of buyers don't even leave reviews. I highly doubt there's a significant contingent of people who would buy a game specifically on Steam (rather than a key bundle or whatever) just to make sure their rating is counted.
Hmm, good point. I do think there has to be a better way to represent middle-ground feedback aside from just the written portion though. I'd also like to see better details on what constitutes a "recent" review.Fulbert said:Metacritic allows users to rate games on the scale of 0 to 10, but they seem to use zeroes and tens almost exclusively. So why bother, I suppose?
I prefer the yes/no of it. When I read User Reviews, I read first the top positives, and then the top negatives, and try to figure out what influenced who and why. Also if there are any glaring technical issues.Ender910 said:Maybe we'd have some better accuracy if Steam (and others) would stop relying on such a simplistic binary +/- system to score a game/product?
Although admittedly, this change does appear to be having a more significant impact on game scores than I expected. Finding far fewer randomly mixed scores every which way.
Technical issues can usually be patched and fixed, and who knows how many of those negative reviews will remain negatives with outdated information. Hell, even AC: Unity is perfectly playable these days yet it carries the stigma with it (Though the "women are hard to animate" comment did not help them).Saelune said:I prefer the yes/no of it. When I read User Reviews, I read first the top positives, and then the top negatives, and try to figure out what influenced who and why. Also if there are any glaring technical issues.Ender910 said:Maybe we'd have some better accuracy if Steam (and others) would stop relying on such a simplistic binary +/- system to score a game/product?
Although admittedly, this change does appear to be having a more significant impact on game scores than I expected. Finding far fewer randomly mixed scores every which way.
There seems to be a lot of confusion around here (not just from the quoted post). Nothing is deleted from anywhere, and anyone who owns a game, no matter how they got it, can still write all the reviews they like. The only thing that is changing is which reviews are used to calculate the average score for the game. This won't make any difference at all to any sane person - anyone who buys a game based only on a percentage score without bothering to actually read the reviews is an idiot. That said, there is one clear benefit:Zydrate said:Does it just like... delete reviews right out of my profile or something?
All too many reviews have nothing to do with the actual game, but are instead people venting their anger at something else. Kickstarted games are a big problem for this, when people spend their whole review complaining about the handling of funding and communication, complaining that it's not the game they dreamed of back when it was first announced, and so on. Things that may be worth complaining about somewhere, but not on store reviews where the point is supposed to be to let prospective buyers know if the game is actually any good or not. The fact that a promised stretch goal was cut, for example, might be annoying to someone who paid with the expectation it would be there, but is completely irrelevant to someone looking to buy the game now. Things like gifted games can have similar issues - I see plenty of reviews essentially complaining that a game just isn't a genre they like, which is irrelevant to anyone who knows what genre it actually is and can make that decision for themselves. Obviously someone who doesn't like a particular genre is far less likely to have bought such a game themselves, but may well have been gifted it and then decided to complain about it in a review.Gennadios said:Aaaaand,
Right with this announcement, Torment: Tides of Numenera's review aggregate went from mixed to mostly positive.
I guess the shafted kickstarters will have to find a new avenue for their rage.
It's a lot easier to overlook flaws when playing a game for free for a couple of days over paying $60 for it and hoping to get a month or more of enjoyment out of it.Zydrate said:That still doesn't make sense to me, personally. If someone plays 20 hours during a 3-day free trial, why is their opinion rendered invalid?