Yep. I wonder if it is an 'ironic' post in relation to review bombs? Like the thread title is that kind of thing? Anyway i agree with the downvote just for the click-bait title.

This move by valve is a complete non-issue as far as I'm concerned, you have the option of opting out of the changes to review bombing and can view the reviews normally if you like. That's hardly a censorship move, at least at this point.

To quote them: "Finally, we've also enabled you to opt out of this entirely, if that's your preference - there's now a checkbox in your Steam Store options where you can choose to have off-topic review bombs still included in all the Review Scores you see."

Edit: Thinking on it, I would still like the option to view review bombs be the default option, and you have to opt in, in order to use the new review bomb filter, instead of having to opt in to see all the reviews. It could be better.

Op should have quoted this text

I'm torn. On one hand, you are using a computer algorithm to detect unnatural shifts in the opinion of a game and deciding if it constitutes review bombing. At least the way they claim they will be dealing with it is not by removing the reviews themselves and just removing all reviews posted in the review bombing period from impacting the percent positive. This means that positive reviews are also ignored from this period which is far more fair than deciding a bunch of reviews are trolling to prop up the score.

Nope. There are several games that are just mediocre.

I might be totally wrong, but it may have something to do with the fact (?) that threads that complain about Steam get (allegedly?) quickly deleted on Steam's forums.

So they take their Steam criticism out of the Steam forums and put it into the GOG forums, instead.

But as I said: I usually don't partake in the Steam community, so I am not sure about that.

Thanks for posting. :)

(Generally, I don't follow off-site links.)

So, under the guise of censoring antisocial behaviour, the corporation will be censoring negative feedback against DRM in their catalogue. Because, y'know, it's harmless and everybody is fine with it.

This is, indeed, relevant and specifically why I would not join the Steam community.

The explanation specifically states that, whilst the identification of anomalous posting (i.e., lots of review in a short period) is automated, the adjudication of what is permissible is the job of humans.

I agree that the option to include the reviews deemed unsavory is important, though it does mean that any unwanted criticism can be and probably will be buried in a plethora of barely-literate bot-spam.

Positive review-bombing (sockpuppertry) is also an inherent problem of digital social media, since the costs for spam are negligible and the reward potentially manifest.

hyperlink reference:
https: // en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpuppet_(Internet)

That's pretty much it. Steam basically want to remove negative reviews on grounds of having Denuvo, etc, from being included in the overall game score "for having nothing to do with the game" (even when they impact gaming performance). All useful negative reviews will also be removed from the score if they were posted at the same time as the "counter review bomb" thing is based purely on date of posting not actual post contents. It's entirely about self interest by both Steam and developers in not wanting the worst / least optimised / most locked down of their games to be judged simply for what that are, and to artificially inflate the scores of trash-filled recent AAA's upwards on the back of an excuse that pretends every review bomb without exception is "unfair", "social hate" or "off-topic".

Same for not wanting comments about EULA's, the reason for that is obvious too. Things like RedShell, mass-scale individual profiling without consent, etc, are naturally at odds with new laws like GDPR. If future games includes stuff like, eg, a .dll that reads your browser cookies to try and gauge socio-economic profile (age, gender, wealth, etc) of the gamer in order to match them with the "correct" level of "Dynamic Difficult Adjustment" (AI manipulation of gameplay on individual user level to increase probability of a particular user purchasing a micro-transaction), then they may need to disclose such stuff like storing data of extensive individual profiling of users in the EULA in order for it to be legal under some regions data protection laws (eg, EU). Anyone who thinks this stuff sounds like fantasy simply because they aren't currently using it in today's games, would do well to look at the things the major studio's are currently patenting for future +2020 era games:-

https://www.pcgamesn.com/ea-matchmaking-microtransactions-eomm-engagement-patent
https://www.pcgamesn.com/activision-microtransaction-matchmaking-patent
https://www.techpowerup.com/240655/leaked-ai-powered-game-revenue-model-paper-foretells-a-dystopian-nightmare

So expect "round 2" of this in a few years time where games will start aggressively trawling through your HDD harvesting personal data then using that for micro-transaction related algorithms (that you "agreed" to in the EULA) but any negative comment on that will be dismissed for scoring "because it has nothing to do with the game". That's the real "long game" being played here...

This.

The net effect for me is that I now care even less about overall review scores than I did before, as they're being "politicized" to death, much like everything else is these days. And please don't try and tell me that Valve is trying to "depoliticize" them, because what's slavery to some, is freedom to others.

The bottom line is that we're too immature to discuss our differences and work to find common ground. Or brainwashed. Or whatever.

no they do not. they say it is not about the game itself, and reviews should only be about the actual game, not the contexts around it.

whether you agree with this or not, is another matter

I see it this way. There is plenty of review bombing from arguably clickbait articles for a lot of reasons. How about articles from the Kotaku's/Polygons and brigading from ResetEra? Add those to the anti-Denuvo brigades, stories about potential microtransactions uncovered in game files that never actually were activated in games. Decisions by a publisher to exclusively publish on Epic so the rest of their titles get attacked.

To me, as long as Steam handles this even-handedly (and this is where I'm torn, because I don't trust they will, but maybe), I'm not sure this is that bad a plan. They seem to have put a lot of thought into it. The details of the plan seem to be geared at helping keep a review score as an accurate reflection of the quality of the game itself. It seems like a good goal.

Here's the real question. Is it better for games to be brigaded by people from multiple political sides; clickbait journalists; uninformed Youtubers who think a game has a virus because Norton showed a false positive; people upset over a developer's political Tweet; Kotaku claiming a game has too many white people in it --- or to put this plan in place to attempt to keep the reviews about just the game?

We all know about our own local anti-VN troll. Well what if he were to recruit a couple dozen more people to review bomb all these games, not based on their quality but because he hates the genre? What if a group of people forms to do the same thing against all first person shooters on the flimsy belief this genre provotes school shootings?

Is it truly better to allow the masses to attack reviews to push their personal agendas, whatever they are?

For me, I'm willing to see how well this is implemented. Because sometimes it's better to try something than to do nothing. Especially when a lot of thought seems to have been put into this system to keep it non-political.

Well, I doubt they will need to go to a local pc, when the trend is to have players log into a persistent online "experience". For sure, all player data will be analyzed for exploitation opportunities. Just like when Microsoft first implemented online authentication for their OS, there was no need to retrospectively attack pirates of previous versions, since the retrofitting would be unworkably expensive, since they could create a "year zero" point from which all Windoze licences could be absolutely verified, and there was a palpable desire to keep up with hardware through the upgrade of software.

(I can see future geeks doxing people by outing their game proclivities; some future politician is Me-Tooed for buying HuniPop and playing it for hours forty years previously, for instance, or even playing an evil character in a RPG that chooses to inflict evil deeds on NPCs.)

Then again, in the Red Queen arms race of privacy, Vernor Vinge has already presaged the "vandal charity", to wit, a group of activists who deliberately create an envelope of misinformation around people to prevent snooping by algorithms (he calls the group "Friends of Privacy", in Rainbows End, published 2006). So I haven't lost hope, yet. :)