Multiple game creators describe ineffective moderation on the platform, resulting in unchecked hatred in forums and targeted campaigns of negative ‘anti-woke’ reviews
This solves the current problem but reintroduces the one that steam reviews exist to solve: giving the game’s developers control over the most visible discussion channels for the game allows for removal of negative reviews or user backlash. Think about how bad subreddits can be about “removing toxicity” after a GAAS cranks the monetization dial up when the devs are on the mod team.
At some point, the responsibility is gonna end up landing on the consumer to actually read some negative reviews and dismiss the game’s “negative reception” entirely if all the thumbs-downs are yammering on about “woke devs” or “DEI” or “the chinese translation is bad”.
It could allow to hide the content of the review, but still count it in the total (recommended / not recommended).
Personally I am not in favour, and I see negative bigoted reviews as legitimate reviews. I wouldn’t hold on the same level professional reviews, but it’s only random players we are discussing here. Let’s not pretend that the positive reviews are always constructive, either.
Yeah, but if you can remove negative reviews text but not the contribution to “mostly positive” or whatever, the audience has to take it on faith that you “only censored the racists don’t worry. We’re getting brigaded”
Without the ability for devs to delete text, the customer can always… Read the reviews. If the good ones are all “lol cute dog” and the bad ones are actual criticisim, skip the game. If the good ones are actual reviews and the bad ones are “waaaah there’s a black guy in my medieval pseudo-euro fantasy waaaah”, you can be certain the game’s actual reception among non-idiots is higher than “mostly positive”.
Reviewers that aren’t the developer’s friends or mouthpieces are the main useful feature of Steam Reviews at all. Seeing “chuds are mad about this” next to the “buy now” button should be a selling point for some people, but actual bad videogames (including predatory games, ai asset flips, early access abandonware) should have a bunch of paragraphs that might hurt the game’s sales right there.
This solves the current problem but reintroduces the one that steam reviews exist to solve: giving the game’s developers control over the most visible discussion channels for the game allows for removal of negative reviews or user backlash. Think about how bad subreddits can be about “removing toxicity” after a GAAS cranks the monetization dial up when the devs are on the mod team.
At some point, the responsibility is gonna end up landing on the consumer to actually read some negative reviews and dismiss the game’s “negative reception” entirely if all the thumbs-downs are yammering on about “woke devs” or “DEI” or “the chinese translation is bad”.
It could allow to hide the content of the review, but still count it in the total (recommended / not recommended).
Personally I am not in favour, and I see negative bigoted reviews as legitimate reviews. I wouldn’t hold on the same level professional reviews, but it’s only random players we are discussing here. Let’s not pretend that the positive reviews are always constructive, either.
Yeah, but if you can remove negative reviews text but not the contribution to “mostly positive” or whatever, the audience has to take it on faith that you “only censored the racists don’t worry. We’re getting brigaded”
Without the ability for devs to delete text, the customer can always… Read the reviews. If the good ones are all “lol cute dog” and the bad ones are actual criticisim, skip the game. If the good ones are actual reviews and the bad ones are “waaaah there’s a black guy in my medieval pseudo-euro fantasy waaaah”, you can be certain the game’s actual reception among non-idiots is higher than “mostly positive”.
Reviewers that aren’t the developer’s friends or mouthpieces are the main useful feature of Steam Reviews at all. Seeing “chuds are mad about this” next to the “buy now” button should be a selling point for some people, but actual bad videogames (including predatory games, ai asset flips, early access abandonware) should have a bunch of paragraphs that might hurt the game’s sales right there.