Steam Changes - Social Links and Reviews

This isn't a great change for developers or players.
Hoping they walk this part back.

Link to changes by steam:

Watch the stream here:

Join the community here:

#Pants #Steam #PirateSoftware

- Editing by Sunder

[PirateSoftware]

For those stating in the comments that they like the change because it helps hide "meme reviews".
Under optimal usage, sure.

Do you really think that's how this plays out?
The moment you let the internet curate a forum what happens?
The moment you let people bot likes/dislikes of a review what happens?
You don't need to own a game to upvote/downvote a review.

[KingTaltia]

"Were games doing that" As someone whose been binging the Roguelike genre, Thor, yes, yes they have, it's gotten kind of annoying to see an EARLY ACCESS game, that has in it's description; "Also check out (big embeded link to steam page), our NEXT GAME that is in EARLY ACCESS NOW"
Or similarly was the "check out X another game by our publisher (and not us in any way shape or form, our publisher is just forcing us to say this)"

[Themtwa]

I dunno. I have a laugh at some of the reviews but I they never factor into my purchasing decision. As far as I understand this it's just another way to sort. I've lost interest in buying before because the entire review section has absolutely no useful info in it, just memes.
I also don't care too much about the removal of links. I'm sure it will be frustrating to not have links to your own Discord/website front and center but I've seen too many pages that are just full of links to other games from the same publisher. They could just rework the socials section so that it was slightly more eye catching and higher up on the page and the results would probably be the same as it is now.

[Ephemeral_Inspiration]

It's not the community/game in-jokes that are bad, it's the ones that get spammed across all of steam; they are irrelevant and make it harder to find actual reviews to help me decide whether or not I want to buy the game

[squirrely_wrath]

good thing steam still has a community hub and discussion. steam doesnt change a lot but when they do; there was usually somebody who forced their hand by blatanly abusing the functions. meanwhile on the epic store page...

[extremepayne]

I am a 45 yo father, probably one of the oldest people playing this game. I am a single father to my Son, who is 14 now. My son got this game for Christmas in 2021 from his uncle, so we installed it on his computer and he started playing. By the end of the week he had 24 hours on this game. This was horrible for me, as it was already hard for me to find ways to spend time with my son, as he is always out with his friends or just watching YouTube. So i decided to make a Steam account and get this game to see if I could maybe play alongside him. I loaded into the game, picked my character and world and started playing but I was stuck on what you where supposed to do. I asked my Son for help and he hosted a game for me to join. I loved it as it was the best time I had spent with my Son since my wife had died. This game has ever since brought me and my son closer again and now we actually spend time together outside the house together as well. This game reminded me that there's fun to be had in everything, and it has brought both me and my Son many happy memories.

[LARAUJO_]

A couple things:
I agree that "No links to other websites" in descriptions is kinda dumb with how Steam store pages currently look, but if they revamped the side bar to make these links more visible then I'd be 100% down because it'd make the locations of these links much more consistent
You say "Prioritizing Informative Reviews" is a bad system, but as a player I am all for it. There have been countless times where a game catches my intrigue, I watch the trailer and am still unsure about it and decide to check the reviews, but I'm met with mostly meme/joke/copypasta reviews (such as the ascii cat, braille gigachad, or some inside joke I'm left confused about because I haven't, y'know, played the game). Now I like seeing some joke reviews too because they can be really funny, but getting nothing but joke reviews when I'm trying to learn what the game is actually like is just annoying.
One criticism I do have with it though is that the developer/publisher decides whether to turn this new system on of off, when I think it should be up to each user viewing the page just like it is with off-topic reviews

[thisisMYname]

How dare they imply Memes are unhelpful when buying a game. I've bought many games bases solely on the memes. memes are FANTASTIC for getting people to understand things without having prior experience.

[Charziot]

Cheers for going into detail with this, I've got some changes to make now...

[elijahbauer]

I feel like the more I watch Thor the more insufferable he has become. Sure, I understand the reasons why hes opposed to this change, but his definitive negativity towards it is off putting. Like, from a players perspective, most of these memes are annoying and unproductive, when trying to decide if you are going to purchase a game. However, since Thor views everything thorugh the perspective of a developer, he would rather the reviews be used to primarily advertise his game, rather than show possible information that may lead players to not buy his game.

While I think most of Thor's takes and opinions are valid, the way he describes them has begun to come off as very arrogant, with little desire to possibly change his opinions.

[JRCOBRA]

I've noticed a lot of Patreons doing that too instead of providing an update for what they are doing they instead are doing essentially ads for other projects. I almost never look at reviews on Steam anymore because it so full of garbage with the meme joke reviews or the ASCII ones being the worst offenders.

[FlakeyRice]

The ASCII art, one word, and funny reviews are the only reason I even read steam reviews lmao

[srcVexx]

The change to links on store pages should also be coupled with an update to the existing social media links section to make it more prominent (and even allow custom art for the buttons).

[CammieShark]

Seems like an excellent way to suppress any controversy in games from the public eye. Thinking about Helldivers and Warthunder. Who knows how many divides in communities will go unadressed and never see the light of day when one of our only meaningful mechanisms of collectively pushing change is stripped

[larshoneytoast]

I use the sidebar links, its clean and off to the side for easy access. As far as links to other sites, im torn because I want creators to have control but i hate when they post abridged patch notes and then link their own dev blog elsewhere. I dont want to go to some other place to see notes for games being sold on steam. It will probably have a negative impact but id prefer if this change made more devs post entire patch notes to steam.

[Avanstarwa]

I dont know man. Ive never clicked in a link in a games description. Ive always used the links ob the right side.
I do not understand why you don't like them...

[WilliamT-epcz]

::) tells me absolutely nothing as a potential purchaser though. If I wanted to know the in jokes I would visit the community page. Having them on the review page is a waste of Steam's visual space and my time and it makes me less likely to buy the game.

[BoxCoverArt]

You nailed it. They are interacting with the game creating awareness. Who cares if it's a meme? The person is engaged.

[ImmortalGeorgeGaming]

I'm all for the curation since its not hiding them, just re-ordering them. Its a REVIEW! The bullhockey reviews of 2000 hours: "it sucks". That is not at all helpful. You play it for 2000 hours, obviously at some point it was good that you invested an ungodly amount of time in to it. Why, when did it turn bad, at what point did it break you? I want to know about the game's design, its sound, its visuals, how it felt as a player to play the game. On the other hand, this brings us to another point below.

The downside to this system is if it decides that reviews like following are considered low effort: "The developer/publisher requires you to make an account on THIS specific platform, negative review!" Then I have a huge problem with that. That one sentence alone will make me stay away from a game. For example lets say I have to use ubisoft launcher, or epic's launcher, or whatever other launcher or account to play the game. I'm right away not playing that game. People might say "oh that is petty, why for that reason?". I've used other launchers in the past and one of them was epic. They had a huge security breach where account data was stolen. Sent no emails about it, sent no email that my account was being used in a foreign country, sent no email that this person spent money (my money) on it. I had not used their service in over a year by then. I refuse to use epic and their craptacular service ever after that. Steam will at the very least tell me "reset your crap!" via email if they get a breach. And yes i had 2fa, its not foolproof.

If I am looking at the reviews for the game that means I am on the fence on whether or not I am buying the game. If I have to hunt through 200 reviews to find the 4 that are actual written out reviews then I am just going to pass on the game. I got plenty others to play. I typically look at the top 10 or so positive reviews with some girth to them, or at the very least, some quick sentences about why its good. I do the same with negative reviews, i take a quick glance at negative reviews for the same information. I've written some pretty lengthy negative reviews and the developers usually reach out to me later and say "hey we fixed these issues, can you review the game again?" and i do! One of them was hex defense. The dude did a good job on updating his game based on feedback.

[OliverLarge]

Some good, some bad time will tell, valve has a history of accepting criticism and reverting bad choices rather then doubling down