Valve is launching a crowd-sourced review system on Steam, and it’ll let you give ratings to any game in your library on the PC distribution network. The beta goes live today.
You’ll also be able to rate other peoples’ reviews, like you can on networks like Amazon. Presumably this will work better than the infamously abusable user-review system on Metacritic, as Steam users can only review games that they’ve played. The system will also display each reviewer’s playtime in parentheses next to their review.
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12 responses to “Valve Announces Steam Reviews”
GAEM HAS LAG 2 GLITCHY 1/10
So they’re giving the denizens of the Steam forums a voice on store pages?
Oh god.
This is different then metacritic how?
– It should eliminate most of the “0/10 dis game SUX!!! COD better” crowd because you have to own the game before you can review it.
– assuming the rating a review, you’ll get the top rated review (most helpful) at the top too.
It should be better compared to Metacritic…. If it actually works as stated.
(not to mention you get rid of the ‘professional’ (paid) reviews)
It may not get rid of the paid reviews, because all you have to do is own the game. Buying tens/hundreds of copies of a game to get paid reviews out for it is peanuts in most marketing budgets.
You’ll also be able to rate other peoples’ reviews, like you can on networks like Amazon. Presumably this will work better than the infamously abusable user-review system on Metacritic, as Steam users can only review games that they’ve played. The system will also display each reviewer’s playtime in parentheses next to their review.
It’s a 2 paragraph article, I don’t know how you missed it:
Unlike Metacritic, you can’t review a game if you haven’t played it. Metacritic is notorious for having troll reviewers rate games 1/10 as a way of voicing their disapproval of some announced feature or lack thereof.
Usefully, unlike Metacritic, it will also list a players playtime next to their review, so it’ll be easy to disregard the person who gives a game 10/10 but has only played the game for 8 minutes.
Unlike Metacritic (and like Amazon) you can rate other peoples reviews, so that reviews that are highly regarded will float to the top, and troll reviews will hopefully be hidden behind a “too many negative votes” tag.
Yep should be helpful the way they are doing it.
Good idea releasing this after the Diretide Dota 2 community meltdown, it could have gotten bad for them if they had this out when that happened…
In my opinion, this is just Valve’s attempt at controlling more of the video game market and its consumers. Once again, this will all be happening within the constraints of Steam.
Very tired of the griphold Valve has on the industry, in particular the PC and digital distribution market. Honestly happy EA, Ubi, Bliz and the likes of GOG are now fighting back with their own exclusive services.
Will be interested to see the reception Valve’s own games get on the service.
Disagree with you entirely on how EA, Ubi, et al, are creating their own services. I don’t want to, nay, be required to join a new damned ‘steam-like’ gaming service every bloody time I buy a game! Personally, Steam’s been alright with me and the couple hundred games I have, but having to use an entire steam-like browser for the occasional Ubi or Blizzard buy is just pants. It was bad enough having to register just to be able to login to play certain games, but hey, different strokes for different folks I guess.
Expected reponse to be honest. People are always so loyal and defensive of Valve.
Just because Steam was first doesn’t mean it has special privalages. Just because it has an extensive library doesn’t mean it’s more entitled than other digital platforms.
Valve has done exactly what EA, Ubi et al have all done recently. If I want to play a Valve developed game, I need Steam, it’s that simple. Valve enforce this. EA and co are entitled to do the same. So when I see complaints about having to use new exclusive services, why is Valve an exception? Oh, because they were first to do it, people just accept it.
EA has far more games in its own library than Valve ever has. If EA starts branching out and offering more and more games (even from other developers outside of EA), maybe it’ll eventually surpass Steam. Afterall, Valve do little to nothing in terms of exclusives, let alone games nowadays. We’ve got about 6 exclusive games from them in the past 20 years. EA does that amount of exclusives in 6 months.
People can’t resist either with the likes of BF, The Sims, FIFA, NFS and other titles. Even if EA enforce Origin, they’re only playing by the exact rules Valve set years ago when it made its games Steam complusory and exclusive.
I tell you, the digital age is here. Valve had the market to themselves for years. They were very fortunate. Other developers and publishers stayed out of it, but now the time has come – it’s a huge market now. That’s where our gaming future lies, and they all deserve to be a part of it.
I personally wouldn’t want Valve to have a monopoly or be some sort of horrible digital overlord where everything goes through them. Otherwise it’s a one-way bandwagon. Competition and rivalry is healthy, embrace it.
Swing and a miss on the Valve fanboi thing, in fact, very big assumption on your part. It’s much, much lazier than that. I was merely pointing out that I feel it to be a distinct pain in the arse having, say, 4 different types of gaming service (yuplay, Blizz, Steam, Origin) and/or, having to create accounts in order to play (for example, Bad Company 2 and others). I’ll go Steam pretty much only because of the pure convenience since I’ve had it longer and the majority games from I want from developers like EA, I already have via Steam. If what I want is only available from another service, I’ll definitely grab it from another service if I have to. I do agree with you on the monopoly aspect, the competition will make for better services all round, especially with pricing. I have noticed the bundles EA were giving away earlier were a steal!
That said though, I also use Blizzard (only for Starcraft) and Uplay, but I’ve had no end of issues with both of them and they’re not really selling me on their services outside being required to use it for the couple (quite literally 2) games I use them for. I’ll definitely recant that first sentence, because EA can compete with Steam and they’ve done a good job so far, plus it was a bit of a generalisation. But the others have only really been a pain in my arse, so it makes it difficult for me to see what advantages there are for me to necessitate using their respective services, and if it’s merely to ensure the functionality of their product, ie, a caveat in order to play, then they need to do a lot more to win me over.
The important question: does it have a GO AWAY AND NEVER SHOW UP EVER AGAIN setting?