Valve will attempt to combat review bombing on Steam by removing offtopic and DRM focused reviews

maczilla · Mar 17, 2019

censorship sucks, every game store sucks right now, valve is banning people left right centre on their forums censoring people, reviews will be curtailed to their liking too. Look at the artifact forums section, its being heavy censored if you keep tabs. fuck valve.

Deleted User · Mar 17, 2019

Drm affecting gameplay is a legit complaint. So are eulas that say "let us Spyware your pc"

FAST6191 · Mar 17, 2019

Hells Malice said:
Good. It's about time. Valve needs to understand their mediocre lawless review system can hurt sales and thus requires actual attention. If you actually read through negative steam reviews, 90% are retarded. Obviously savvy people just find a real way to judge the game, but there are plenty of normies who will see a shaky steam rating and take it as fact.

Except it almost never does unless the DRM is overtuned. Which accounts for maybe 4 games. All actual properly done tests have otherwise shown DRM does literally nothing to performance. Unless maybe you're on Windows 95 with a Mb of ram. The only people who thinks it affects performance are the proud owners of legendary tinfoil hats and yet nothing inside their head for it to protect.

Leaving aside overtuned is not really a term there are plenty of cases of it causing woes.

To say nothing of the likes of the Sim City reboot a few years before many of those.

Experience does not have to equal performance.

As far as reviews then other than it maybe causing lower sales for Valve how much of it is Valve's problem that they need to care about as much as you seem to think? Protecting idiots from themselves is a hard game.

the_randomizer · Mar 17, 2019

FAST6191 said:
Leaving aside overtuned is not really a term there are plenty of cases of it causing woes.

To say nothing of the likes of the Sim City reboot a few years before many of those.

Experience does not have to equal performance.

As far as reviews then other than it maybe causing lower sales for Valve how much of it is Valve's problem that they need to care about as much as you seem to think? Protecting idiots from themselves is a hard game.

We can all agree that forced online DRM is a bad idea, and that the Sim City debacle deserved at least most of the backlash that EA/Maxis received. IMO. Online DRM is just a bad idea, and since America has such a shoddy inconsistent infrastructure, ugh. I'd rather pirate and spoof the DRM if I can.

raxadian · Mar 17, 2019

Like it or not DRM affects playing a game. The reason I got Sonic Mania Plus for my Switch is not only because I like playing in bed but because it doesn't have the horrible DRM the PC version has.

the_randomizer · Mar 17, 2019

raxadian said:
Like it or not DRM affects playing a game. The reason I got Sonic Mania Plus for my Seitch is not only because I like playing in bed but because it doesn't have the horrible DRM the PC version has.

DRM has been removed if you participate in the beta updates of Sonic Mania. You can tell DRM is removed as the app size went from 113 MB to around 5 MB. Would be a real shame if it was "accidentally" uploaded

Burlsol · Mar 18, 2019

Arras said:
It has always worked like that. The problem is you can buy, write a bad review and refund it.

Which massively screws over the developer since they get charged a fee for a refund in addition to the sale being reversed.

Jonna · Mar 18, 2019

FAST6191 said:
and also lose the ability to resell games,

Wait, do you have the ability to resell your modern pc games?

Kigiru · Mar 18, 2019

Oi, "offtopic" is just vague representation of "things that we don't like", just as "hate speech" or other crap... it's not a valid thing.
And DRM is an actual, existing concern that cripples plenty of games. If something is nearly unplayable because of this tumor on the game then people should have right to write about it.

...It seems like Valve is going with the path of censorship and bullcrap. I mean, after their pathetic idea of removing from the store VN games with school setting i was feeling that this is the direction they will go, now i'm for 100% sure that i'll pirate my games and don't touch this crap with two-meter long stick. Also thank God we have Dissenter now so lol.

JennaScvl · Mar 18, 2019

kcajjones said:
If the creator of a game is a convicted criminal and I don't want his work to benefit him then I think that's entirely relevant!

It's nice to see someone who believes in second chances and promotes the reforming of criminals instead of, you know, trying to ensure that they can't achieve a legit, legal income, and thus forcing them to remain criminals by taking away any legitimate means of making ends meet. That's so sweet of you. [/sarcasm]

jt_1258 · Mar 18, 2019

KingBlank said:
DRM Debates... sure, but they better not remove complaints about DRM ruining player experiences and causing technical issues as it often does - that is a completely valid reason to review a game poorly.

*buys sonic mania
*goes to play it on a road trip to kill time
drm: "sorry, you need to connect online to prove you own this game"
user: tf, it's a single player game

DBlaze · Mar 18, 2019

Semi-good move with a terrible thing in mind; saying DRM doesn't matter.
Luckily I couldn't give 2 shits about reviews and like to form my own opinion on things.

Bladexdsl · Mar 18, 2019

migles said:
camel toes? what is this game? now i am curious

you won't have to look far steam is full of this weeb trash. just go to the front page and click most popular games and i guarantee you'll get a wall of this garbage. meanwhile the actual good games like cities skylines and civ VI get left in the dark.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

wurstpistole said:
Idiots like this should be suspended from reviewing at all.

no games like this should be suspended from appearing at all on steam. steam used to be a great place but now it's being chocked to death by weeb trash and shitty phone ports with gfx so bad they look like they were drawn by a 5 year old

Ev1l0rd · Mar 18, 2019

Stopping negative reviews about DRM from counting to the rating...? Wha?

This is bad. The idea of a review is that it describes if you did or didn't like the game. And with Denuvo having major FPS impacts on performance, giving a negative score to a game that uses it can absolutely be a deal breaker.

Saying DRM isn't part of what makes a game what it is is a flat out lie if it affects the playability of a game (ie. Single Player games with online checks)

FAST6191 · Mar 18, 2019

Jonna said:
Wait, do you have the ability to resell your modern pc games?

Depending upon where you are in the world you do have the legal ability, and have had for several years now
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...nnot-stop-you-reselling-your-downloaded-games

Prior to that there were all sorts of workarounds as well. Classic one used for expensive software was to spin off the company it belonged to (usually done when one was going bankrupt but not always) but leave the software under the "original" owner company. Company 2 then buys the original company with all its licenses and puts it as a subsidiary of company 2 and thus company 2 legally has access to the software.

There have been others over the years in other places
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=701bc0f8-bda0-4526-8eb6-a09f6e73bbf1
https://www.ebay.co.uk/gds/How-to-buy-or-sell-used-Adobe-software-on-eBay-/10000000177069854/g.html
https://www.eff.org/cases/vernor-v-autodesk (though the later circuit court stuff might trouble things here).

In any case Valve don't make it easy (if they can do things like this then they can trivially add an "other sellers" tab or dropdown) so I mostly just deem it a glorified rental service and treat it accordingly.

BORTZ · Mar 18, 2019

Steam has become a garbage heap lately. Sure people review bombing something is bad for the game and could scare off devs but at the end of the day, DENUVO and the other garbage DRM programs can render games useless. To the point where a paying customer is the only one punished for playing by the rules. Screwing over legally playing customers is bad and if your game gets review bombed because of it, maybe its time to think about your players and not your bottom line.

fadx · Mar 18, 2019

KingBlank said:
DRM Debates... sure, but they better not remove complaints about DRM ruining player experiences and causing technical issues as it often does - that is a completely valid reason to review a game poorly.

Exactly what I was thinking, if a games DRM causes issues like FPS drops and glitches then I don't see how that isn't a valid reason for a negative review.

Izual Urashima · Mar 18, 2019

This choice of Steam is both anti-consumer and pointless.

Anti-consumer because it counters people informing others of bad "protection" practices. Most of us know for the sake of actually being here that such protections are not only very short-term failsafes (especially Denuvo sometimes being cracked day 1), but also causing problems to the game they're supposed to protect (punishing legit players for "pirating" when they're clearly not, making games requiring higher CPU/GPU prerequisites, forcing always-on Internet connection, and other problems related to tracking personal data people tend to ignore since data is siphoned everywhere), yet, all this move is making is making this information throwing null and void.

Pointless because there are so many ways of relaying the information through a bad review without actually making it a review bomb. Just criticizing the problems without pointing out the cause is one. Relaying the information that this game (any many others) is listed on "Bad DRM" groups through other places is another. And well, all it'll cause is for the information to be relayed somewhere else while the game is simply criticized for its faults.

Of course, there's still the "problem" that one or another dev is criticized for a reason or another, with these reasons being often outside of the game itself, but that doesn't mean people don't have to be informed. I mean, if one day, a dev began preaching that "[Any identity you can relate to] is trash and not worthy of buying his products", would you keep buying his games ? I wouldn't, and I know many people who wouldn't either. And while this reaction is perfectly sound and logical, many people don't accept it, and are willing to consider such reactions as "review bombing".

Wait and see, but I have huge doubts on this one.

Taleweaver · Mar 18, 2019

I'm somewhat indifferent on this.

In theory, I would really applaud it. In one specific case, I was very wary of buying anno 2070 because everyone and their dog (who apparently also bought the game

) banged on about uplay being uplay. Then I bought it and played it without even the slightest hitch (small note: I had played ubisoft games before). Of course my opinion is but one, but still...this whole "I don't like this game because it has strict DRM" comes across as reviewing a car as "nobody should buy a BMW because I had to manually lock the car once!!!!". Part of the problem is also politics: I'm fairly sure that a fair number of gamers try to hit developers where it hurts (bad mouth of press -> less sales) just to get them to drop anti-piracy measures.

The thing is...I'm also fairly sure that if you really want to know whether a product is worth buying, then you can still relatively easy distinguish fake from real reviews. That guy that has 100+ hours on GTA V and downvotes it because the online community is bad is one to ignore. The random "i know how to chinese 11/10" kind of messages are also to ignore (okay: I admit they can sometimes be hilarious). The "the game is fine for reasons X, Y, Z, A, B, C and D...but I hate the developer because he won't put in a cute puppy in his holocaust simulator" reviews...same thing.
The problem: this solution won't make these clowns and their opinion go away. If their reviews get flagged and removed, they'll start a game on "why does this review gets flagged? What's the minimal amount of effort I need to do to get around this?". So in the long run, I think it'll have mainly as effect that the fake reviews will become harder to spot.

FAST6191 · Mar 18, 2019

Taleweaver said:
I'm somewhat indifferent on this.

In theory, I would really applaud it. In one specific case, I was very wary of buying anno 2070 because everyone and their dog (who apparently also bought the game ) banged on about uplay being uplay. Then I bought it and played it without even the slightest hitch (small note: I had played ubisoft games before). Of course my opinion is but one, but still...this whole "I don't like this game because it has strict DRM" comes across as reviewing a car as "nobody should buy a BMW because I had to manually lock the car once!!!!". Part of the problem is also politics: I'm fairly sure that a fair number of gamers try to hit developers where it hurts (bad mouth of press -> less sales) just to get them to drop anti-piracy measures.

The thing is...I'm also fairly sure that if you really want to know whether a product is worth buying, then you can still relatively easy distinguish fake from real reviews. That guy that has 100+ hours on GTA V and downvotes it because the online community is bad is one to ignore. The random "i know how to chinese 11/10" kind of messages are also to ignore (okay: I admit they can sometimes be hilarious). The "the game is fine for reasons X, Y, Z, A, B, C and D...but I hate the developer because he won't put in a cute puppy in his holocaust simulator" reviews...same thing.
The problem: this solution won't make these clowns and their opinion go away. If their reviews get flagged and removed, they'll start a game on "why does this review gets flagged? What's the minimal amount of effort I need to do to get around this?". So in the long run, I think it'll have mainly as effect that the fake reviews will become harder to spot.

I am not sure what to say other than I disagree with most of that, indeed only the uplay thing but that is more because it fails to distinguish between truly limiting DRM and just DRM (though possibly one that still carries more general downsides that I covered earlier as far as reselling games).

The analogy with a car I am at a complete loss for.

Why would we not want the guy with 100+ hours in on a game not making a comment? If someone has put the time in then it tends to speak to some credibility on the matter. Similarly I do have to mention that the game creates the community.

What is wrong with getting developers to change their policies with community action? How else are people supposed to do things? Firing anonymous support tickets into the wind? Firing actual bullets?

I am not sure what the puppy in the holocaust simulator is supposed to be about. Is it something the fans of such games might want to see? If I bought the ultimate car racing simulator and it turns out I was missing out on Ford, VW, Mazda, Toyota and Mercedes Benz then I would probably be a bit upset at such things being missing from the concept. Or do you mean like those joke reviews on places like Amazon where people would find £3000 professional graphics cards (as in cost that much because they were used by people that bill about that much a day, if not for a week of work and crashes represent real problems) and write things like solitaire ran slow and give it 1 star?

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