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blotunga: I agree with those who say that only people who own the games should be able to write reviews. I understand that GOG's userbase used to be small so any kinds of reviews were welcome, but I hope this has changed.
The only snag with this is that those of us who choose to use a different profile for posting to the one we use to buy our games on, will never be able to post reviews then. That said, I've only ever posted one official review and am probably unlikely to post more.

I'm exclusively a single-player though, so I have no need to make my real profile public. And if I did play multi-player games, I'd probably resort to having to create seperate profiles for each one.

As for the need to have a seperate profile for posting? In my case, off the top: privacy, freedom of speech and no preconceptions of bias. In other words, I am what I post.

Of course, most of these reasons can be attacked. Starting with "privacy", this is probably an illusion on my part. Data miners most likely already have my real profile downloaded when GOG switched profiles to public by default. And like others, I only became aware of this a couple of days after it had happened.

"Freedom of speech": this is probably the more important one. I'm free to say whatever I want on an "anonymous" profile. If it was my real profile, I'd have to censor everything I say in case it could be used against me... and since everything seems to stay on the web forever, that means you could be presented in 10 years time with something you said when you were in e.g. a bad mood at the time.

"No preconceptions of bias": people would definitely judge me by the types of games I'd bought, which means if I predominently bought shooters, I'd be seen as shallow, or if I'd predominently bought... whoops, now I'm doing it ;)
Honestly i don't get it. Your public profile is what matters to the community. What you post. I don't see how having your games on a different profile would protect you.
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Rakarr: I can understand the desire to keep reviews relevant, but "relevant" is going to differ from person to person. Furthermore, censoring reviews is a dangerous game because where, really, do you draw the line?
This.

I find the argument that a review doesn't touch on the game at all to be on the border of removing a review but to, imo, arbitrarily remove reviews because they don't 'own' the game? Either limit reviews to owners of the game or leave the reviews then.

In this particular case, the game is politically loaded, that's the whole point of the game, politics was going to be mentioned.

@Linko90 I guess it doesn't help that initially in your overview you made a distinction between reviews that were exclusively contained political views and fake reviews (1) and 2)) and are now saying 2) are such (fake) because of 1)
Post edited August 19, 2018 by Pheace
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blotunga: Honestly i don't get it. Your public profile is what matters to the community. What you post. I don't see how having your games on a different profile would protect you.
Real profile = real identity.

Posting profile = anonymous. If GOG were ever hacked for example, I wouldn't be impacted significantly. Also, I can use less secure computers to post.
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Rakarr: I can understand the desire to keep reviews relevant, but "relevant" is going to differ from person to person. Furthermore, censoring reviews is a dangerous game because where, really, do you draw the line?
Linko made it very clear what the line is: Reviews have to be about the game. "Reviews" that only serve to spread the authors political views are worthless spam. That's like giving Zool 1 or 5 stars depending if you love or hate Chupa Chups.
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Linko90: The reviews were posted by people who do not own the game on GOG.
Fixed that for you.
high rated
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Linko90: These reviews offer no value. They do not reflect the quality, or lack of, of the game itself. They do not express a view on what the game does well, or what it fails to do.
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InvisibleJim: False because they describe the politically loaded qualities of the game; particularly of a politically loaded game.

But we all know what GOG.com's SJW employees are doing here: trying to drum up sales for a shitty indie developer that shares their toxic ideals; likely at a push from the ridiculous anti-gamer journalists they love like VG24/7 - see the Postal incident for another example of how cancerous GOG.com has become.

The lesson is simple: do not buy games on GOG.com. Get woke? Go broke.
And yet they mention nothing of the game's mechanics, story or ability to convey the desired experience. This isn't a new process, we deleted false reviews when they were spammed onto visual novel game pages.

At this point, I feel official insight into the process is lost on people wishing to echo their favourite Youtuber motto.


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Linko90: The reviews were posted by people who do not own the game on GOG.
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xyem: Fixed that for you.
And don't mention anything of the game's gameplay, mechanics, story, audio etc etc, just political rantings.
Post edited August 19, 2018 by Linko90
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Linko90:
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InvisibleJim: The lesson is simple: do not buy games on GOG.com.
Which is why you own 50 of them. :P
Post edited August 19, 2018 by tinyE
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Linko90: These reviews offer no value. They do not reflect the quality, or lack of, of the game itself. They do not express a view on what the game does well, or what it fails to do.
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InvisibleJim: False because they describe the politically loaded qualities of the game; particularly of a politically loaded game.

But we all know what GOG.com's SJW employees are doing here: trying to drum up sales for a shitty indie developer that shares their toxic ideals; likely at a push from the ridiculous anti-gamer journalists they love like VG24/7 - see the Postal incident for another example of how cancerous GOG.com has become.

The lesson is simple: do not buy games on GOG.com. Get woke? Go broke.
So if I post a review of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and say this game sucks, it's just perpetuating the princess rescuing trope and is blatantly sexist, you would consider that a valid and useful review?
Yes, the game is set in an alternative future as seen by those with a particular political leaning, but that doesn't mean that disagreeing with those political leanings is a reason to hate or poorly review the game.
If you have bought the game and played it and can say that the gameplay is rubbish and it's just a poorly concealed way to spread a political message, go ahead.
But if your just assuming that is all there is to the game without even giving it a try then go find a game that panders to your political views and play that instead.

You don't see people arguing that we shouldn't release cyberpunk games here because they portray an anti-capitalist political agenda, so really what's the difference with this setting compared to any other dystopian future used as a setting for games?
low rated
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InvisibleJim: The lesson is simple: do not buy games on GOG.com.
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tinyE: Which is why you own 50 of them. :P
Observe how flat that number will remain and despair. I've got ~800 on steam after all.

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InvisibleJim: False because they describe the politically loaded qualities of the game; particularly of a politically loaded game.

But we all know what GOG.com's SJW employees are doing here: trying to drum up sales for a shitty indie developer that shares their toxic ideals; likely at a push from the ridiculous anti-gamer journalists they love like VG24/7 - see the Postal incident for another example of how cancerous GOG.com has become.

The lesson is simple: do not buy games on GOG.com. Get woke? Go broke.
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adaliabooks: So if I post a review of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and say this game sucks, it's just perpetuating the princess rescuing trope and is blatantly sexist, you would consider that a valid and useful review?
Yes, the game is set in an alternative future as seen by those with a particular political leaning, but that doesn't mean that disagreeing with those political leanings is a reason to hate or poorly review the game.
If you have bought the game and played it and can say that the gameplay is rubbish and it's just a poorly concealed way to spread a political message, go ahead.
But if your just assuming that is all there is to the game without even giving it a try then go find a game that panders to your political views and play that instead.

You don't see people arguing that we shouldn't release cyberpunk games here because they portray an anti-capitalist political agenda, so really what's the difference with this setting compared to any other dystopian future used as a setting for games?
Sure, something tells me such a critique will increase a games sales though ;)

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InvisibleJim: False because they describe the politically loaded qualities of the game; particularly of a politically loaded game.

But we all know what GOG.com's SJW employees are doing here: trying to drum up sales for a shitty indie developer that shares their toxic ideals; likely at a push from the ridiculous anti-gamer journalists they love like VG24/7 - see the Postal incident for another example of how cancerous GOG.com has become.

The lesson is simple: do not buy games on GOG.com. Get woke? Go broke.
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Linko90: And yet they mention nothing of the game's mechanics, story or ability to convey the desired experience. This isn't a new process, we deleted false reviews when they were spammed onto visual novel game pages.

At this point, I feel official insight into the process is lost on people wishing to echo their favourite Youtuber motto.
If you want to keep looking like bumbling clowns you can keep repeating your word salad overton window.
Post edited August 19, 2018 by InvisibleJim
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Linko90:
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InvisibleJim: But we all know what GOG.com's SJW employees are doing here: trying to drum up sales for a shitty indie developer that shares their toxic ideals; likely at a push from the ridiculous anti-gamer journalists they love like VG24/7 - see the Postal incident for another example of how cancerous GOG.com has become.
Are you going to keep shopping on Steam? :P

https://store.steampowered.com/app/733790/Not_Tonight/

They require purchase and time played before posting a review. As of my posting this there were 89 reviews; I counted three bad ones, two of which hated the game not because of subject matter but rather slow and repetitive game play.

They seem doing the exact same thing you are condemning GOG for or they are doing the same thing that GOG is ACTUALLY doing: keeping the reviews limited to the game itself and not political rants.
Post edited August 19, 2018 by tinyE
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Rakarr: I can understand the desire to keep reviews relevant, but "relevant" is going to differ from person to person. Furthermore, censoring reviews is a dangerous game because where, really, do you draw the line? If the person leaving the review thinks that the game's overt political stance is a reason to warn others away from it, is that really so bad? The game is deliberately political, so would political commentary not be relevant? With that said, I can't really get behind people abusing the review system to engage purely in political soapboxing, either. I don't like the idea of GOG becoming yet another political battleground.

I like the idea of making reviews possible only to purchasers of the game, but that could have its own issues. GOG's focus on retro titles means that people will sometimes be leaving legitimate reviews for games they've played in the past but haven't purchased through GOG, and I find that information valuable. Still, restricting reviews to purchasers would be better, I think, than going down the road of removing them for their content, because again, where is the line drawn?
In the case of an overtly political game with a particular bias, it's possible to review the game and in the course of that point out the games politics. According to the mod the reviews removed had no value with regard to reviewing the game and were just political rants. If you reviewed a restaurant management sim by taling about recipes without discussing the game that would be a reason to get removed.

The best possible solution, as I suggested a page or two back on this thread, is buyer verification with the abiltiy to sort reviews by this criterion. That way anyone can still review a game but you can know who has bought it on Gog. Also a minimum character restriction would help keep reviews a bit more credible.
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Linko90: I explained what makes a false review. I'll say this again, to be crystal clear -

The reviews were posted by people who do not own the game. The reviews consisted of pure political views, not a mention of the game, be it gameplay, language support or controller/mouse support.

These reviews offer no value. They do not reflect the quality, or lack of, of the game itself. They do not express a view on what the game does well, or what it fails to do.
Out of curiosity... if I posted a review of Myst III ~ Exile which I own on CDs but not on GOG (no need to since the discs work perfectly fine, I made backup ages ago and the game runs well in ResidualVM) in which I praised it only for being fun and something I sincerely recommend, would that fall under your definition of a false review and be deleted? Such a review would be pretty shallow and not really reflect what the game is after all...

EDIT: And just for fun, I did it ;)
Post edited August 19, 2018 by wingboner
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Linko90: I explained what makes a false review. I'll say this again, to be crystal clear -

The reviews were posted by people who do not own the game. The reviews consisted of pure political views, not a mention of the game, be it gameplay, language support or controller/mouse support.

These reviews offer no value. They do not reflect the quality, or lack of, of the game itself. They do not express a view on what the game does well, or what it fails to do.
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wingboner: Out of curiosity... if I posted a review of Myst III ~ Exile which I own on CDs but not on GOG (no need to since the discs work perfectly fine, I made backup ages ago and the game runs well in ResidualVM) in which I praised it only for being fun and something I sincerely recommend, would that fall under your definition of a false review and be deleted? Such a review would be pretty shallow and not really reflect what the game is after all...

EDIT: And just for fun, I did it ;)
Pretty sure saying the game is fun would count as "a mention of the game"
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wingboner: Out of curiosity... if I posted a review of Myst III ~ Exile which I own on CDs but not on GOG (no need to since the discs work perfectly fine, I made backup ages ago and the game runs well in ResidualVM) in which I praised it only for being fun and something I sincerely recommend, would that fall under your definition of a false review and be deleted? Such a review would be pretty shallow and not really reflect what the game is after all...

EDIT: And just for fun, I did it ;)
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DarkSaber2k: Pretty sure saying the game is fun would count as "a mention of the game"
If that's the case then saying the game is lame (or better shit) would count as "a mention of the game" as well or wouldn't it?