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I'd rather read WHY someone doesn't like a game rather than something like "stupid."
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carnival73: .
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It's difficult to encourage and reward new developers ranging from ages 12-24 on Steam because it's saying 'Great work guys! Keep that landslide coming in! We're all loving it!'
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Darvond: I'm going to be rather blunt, but I don't think 12 year olds are supposed to be on Steam in the first place (legal reasons). And honestly, I can't see much in the way of any programs until around age 16 being of any notable worth. Steam isn't the DigiPen institute, after all.
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For a half decade now Steam has been the only outlet for the Digipen Institute

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carnival73: What sparked this thread was that I had written a review for a game (forget the name) that played like Torchlight but with guns and the characters were all vermin.

The game functioned great and even worked out of the box the non Bill Brand game pads.
The graphics were good (although the game always had to be zoomed out so you could only witness the art during intermissions and such).
But I hate being cheesed
The game offered single-player but it was obvious that the developer was trying hard to force multi-player by spamming enough enemies that would be a perfect challenge for at least two players.
So here's the thing, a lot of these games are serving more as Rorschach tests than they are games
And these types of 'Please play with me' games usually read deep into the soul of the developers themselves.
I didn't want to embarrass the developer THAT much to call that out but wanted to express that I was aggravated
with the underhanded engineering attempt
so my review simply read 'Crap'

There was a bit of a stink about it and now whenever I plop a one-worder it gets removed or doesn't go live at all.
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Telika: You suck.

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False much later edit : No. See ? It wouldn't mean anything. What, would I be criticizing - your avatar, or your forum behaviour, or your cooking skills, or the content or your post, or the form of your post, or nothing in particular because I'm in a general "everything sucks" mindset ? Would the reason be something you'd agree with ("hm, yeah, I should pay more attention to this"), or is it just our opposing opinion and tastes ("ah ok but that's precisely what I was aiming for, so, if they don't like it it's all the better"). Would I have a specific reproach, but not phrase it, because it would be hurtful ? In the void, you'd just have to fill the blanks with anything and its contrary. You could even be encouraged in the wrong direction (assuming you did too much of something instead of not enough). With no hint, it's meaningless, possibly counterproductive, and probably not less hurtful than the actual reasons - because some people are good at assuming even worse reasons.

I do think that arguing, rightly or wrongly, is always better. And if you have scrupules, just mind the phrasing. But just a nonspecific qualifier is just too random. It can mean many things you didn't intend. It's too much out of your control.

I love Quino. And one of his cartoons showed a street with a totalitarian-looking police force keeping a sardonic eye on everbody while putting up a panel saying "Guess what could be forbidden today". One-word reviews are pretty close to that.
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No one learns from Constructive Criticism
It just triggers ego and makes them defensive
C'mon, man - these very boards demonstrate that on an hourly basis
Post edited April 14, 2018 by carnival73
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carnival73: The game offered single-player but it was obvious that the developer was trying hard to force multi-player by spamming enough enemies that would be a perfect challenge for at least two players.
So here's the thing, a lot of these games are serving more as Rorschach tests than they are games
And these types of 'Please play with me' games usually read deep into the soul of the developers themselves.
As a reviewer you should try and stay FAR away from the condescending attitude a some of the reviewers have when dealing with indie film and games. The way the game forces Multiplayer in not much different than the way GOG.com is forcing its Galaxy client. Only, the game is an indie game. For this reason alone, it gets attacked much more severely than even the harshest critic of Galaxy (me) ever would:

"these games are serving more as Rorschach tests than they are games. And these types of 'Please play with me' games usually read deep into the soul of the developers themselves"

The same could be said about pretty much any MMORPG. Only, those aren't indie game, so the reviewers are forced to "assume best intentions", which in this case means that the developers of World of Warcraft knowingly downgraded singleplayer to focus fully on the multiplayer aspect, without this meaning that they are lonesome or whatever.

Likewise, I have never heard of anything but indie stuff that gets slaughtered by reviewers with the passive-aggressive praise that it is "interesting" or "promising".

So, just say that the single player aspect is crap!
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amok: no, a long embarrassing review is better than just a thumbs down. The former has meaning, the latter is meaningless. If you want people to stop making bad games, let them know what is bad about it.

On the same note, an angry rant or "funny" review are just as pointless as the empty thumbs down. And it does not take you long time to say "I did not like the way quests was implemented, they did not make much sense in the context of the story and was very repetitive. I got bored after doing the same quest 5 times" - or - "the colors really clash, and it makes it difficult to distinguish between the background and the mobs, let alone knowing what is a mob and what is a friendly NPC. This made the game unplayable". Short, to the point, and it is criticism that can be worked with for the developers, and that customers can understand before buying the game.
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How often is it that development houses, large or small, use informative criticism
to make things any better?
Usually the criticism is debated and then everyone starts taking sides and implementing the same issue
intentionally for political stance.
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carnival73: Play many Steam games that just blew chunks but you didn't want to say why as you knew
they were made by a one-man team and elaborating the reason for your negative review would do more damage?

It looks like Steam is starting to delete one word reviews but this is going to backfire in more detriment to the developers....

"Ok, so here's my honest review and video of all the horrifically bigoted comments, subliminals mocking the intellectually disabled, some hidden homophobia and a whole lot of climate-change denial, that most hadn't noticed, that led to my last one word review reading only 'No.'"
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darthspudius: Mocking the intellectually disabled... you mean retarded? What the fuck is wrong with saying retarded?! Civilization has become so pathetic and weak. If a game is utter shite, say so. Screw what the developer thinks, they created the pile of crap. They should be able to handle the criticism.

One word reviews should definitely be deleted. They don't have any use at all.
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I was using a hypothetical example but 'retarded' only became an offensive word because some people decided to make it so and then everyone else sheeped along with the taboo.

If kids in the Jr. High school ground start insulting each other with the term 'intellectually disabled' that politically correct term will be a social no no as well thirty years from now.

I mean the names 'Richard, Peter, Wili, Johnson' didn't start off as derogatory reference to male genitalia.....
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carnival73: The game functioned great and even worked out of the box the non Bill Brand game pads.
The graphics were good (although the game always had to be zoomed out so you could only witness the art during intermissions and such).
But I hate being cheesed
The game offered single-player but it was obvious that the developer was trying hard to force multi-player by spamming enough enemies that would be a perfect challenge for at least two players.
So here's the thing, a lot of these games are serving more as Rorschach tests than they are games
And these types of 'Please play with me' games usually read deep into the soul of the developers themselves.
I didn't want to embarrass the developer THAT much to call that out but wanted to express that I was aggravated
with the underhanded engineering attempt
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Leroux: Everything you wrote above is more helpful than "crap". I don't really see how calling the devs' work "crap" would be less of an annoyance to them than criticizing the game in detail. What's your main motivation in rating a game anyway? I can think of three possibilities: 1) inform/warn other players, 2) praise or criticize the devs' decisions 3) feeling self-righteous and self-important without really helping anyone, just wanting your opinion to count without actually having to explain it to anyone. A one-word review sounds like 3) to me; neither players nor devs will take it seriously, they'll just think you're trying to mess with the overall rating for no apparent reason and become suspicious of your motives.

That being said, I think it's perfectly possible to criticize a game for what it is without insulting anyone or making assumptions about the devs.
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For some games it's just to add a point score away from 'Overwhelmingly Positive'
You do realize that many games on Steam right now have been *Anonymously* trolled on there to make a point concerning Valve's dire lack of a Quality Gate?
Just like a troll post do you want to give a troll game a reaction other than just warning others it's a waste of money?
Post edited April 14, 2018 by carnival73
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carnival73: The game offered single-player but it was obvious that the developer was trying hard to force multi-player by spamming enough enemies that would be a perfect challenge for at least two players.
So here's the thing, a lot of these games are serving more as Rorschach tests than they are games
And these types of 'Please play with me' games usually read deep into the soul of the developers themselves.
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KasperHviid: As a reviewer you should try and stay FAR away from the condescending attitude a some of the reviewers have when dealing with indie film and games. The way the game forces Multiplayer in not much different than the way GOG.com is forcing its Galaxy client. Only, the game is an indie game. For this reason alone, it gets attacked much more severely than even the harshest critic of Galaxy (me) ever would:

"these games are serving more as Rorschach tests than they are games. And these types of 'Please play with me' games usually read deep into the soul of the developers themselves"

The same could be said about pretty much any MMORPG. Only, those aren't indie game, so the reviewers are forced to "assume best intentions", which in this case means that the developers of World of Warcraft knowingly downgraded singleplayer to focus fully on the multiplayer aspect, without this meaning that they are lonesome or whatever.

Likewise, I have never heard of anything but indie stuff that gets slaughtered by reviewers with the passive-aggressive praise that it is "interesting" or "promising".

So, just say that the single player aspect is crap!
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I just tackled Injustice 2 for using pay 2 win tactics despite it being a really good fighter
I'll call out large development houses if they're playing up - Capcom and Koei are two of my favorite devs but I've called Capcom on being greedy and I completely ignore Koei's PC releases for being exponentially greedier than Capcom.

In this instance however adding criticism like 'Single Player bullies the player into taking the game online by forcing too many enemies on the single player at once.' is only going to get met with 'You just doesn't have TRY - I spent forty seven hours on level one so now I can do it solo with my eyes closed!'
But don't say anything? Eventually the developer thoroughly and caringly reviews what he did and goes 'Oh, alright - my deceptive tactic to engineer solo players into going online was too easy to see through....'

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There was a bundled Indie game not so long ago
(forget it's name)
that forced online play - now you would think the developers would be frequently monitoring what was taking place
but any time of the day that you logged into it there was one kid stalking the hub (from where you launch a mission) with a gun that could create walls
Since this game and it's hub was this child's only passion he mastered how to quickly encapsulate anyone entering into the hub with walls all around them and then leaving them there to cry.
I mentioned this in a informative complaint to the developer only to realize sometime later
that goofy kid WAS the developer.

It goes to show the lengths and expense that some people will invest to grieve others.
How do you give a serious review to something like this?
Post edited April 14, 2018 by carnival73
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Leroux: What's your main motivation in rating a game anyway? I can think of three possibilities: 1) inform/warn other players, 2) praise or criticize the devs' decisions 3) feeling self-righteous and self-important without really helping anyone, just wanting your opinion to count without actually having to explain it to anyone.
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Starmaker: Provide input for the Steam recommender.
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Do you mean review the reviewer?
That's the comments section under the user-review
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carnival73: For some games it's just to add a point score away from 'Overwhelmingly Positive'
You do realize that many games on Steam right now have been *Anonymously* trolled on there to make a point concerning Valve's dire lack of a Quality Gate?
Just like a troll post do you want to give a troll game a reaction other than just warning others it's a waste of money?
I'm not quite sure if I understand what you mean to say here, but to me a review that reads "crap" isn't much different from a troll post. If you really want to counteract false reviews, write an honest review and warn readers that the others are just trolling.

Or if you mean the devs are trolling, than yeah, go ahead and warn others that it's a waste of money, by actually saying it and why, instead of letting people guess what you mean by "crap" and whether you're even a human being capable of expressing noteworthy opinions. Like I said, customers won't take a one-word review seriously, so if your goal is to warn them, you won't reach 'em that way.
Post edited April 14, 2018 by Leroux
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carnival73: No one learns from Constructive Criticism
It just triggers ego and makes them defensive
C'mon, man - these very boards demonstrate that on an hourly basis
Yeah well, I've provided a LOT of Non-Constructive Criticism on these boards and, to my great surprise, people didn't learn from it either. So...
Post edited April 14, 2018 by Telika
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Starmaker: Provide input for the Steam recommender.
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carnival73: .
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Do you mean review the reviewer?
That's the comments section under the user-review
No, I mean Steam uses an algorithm to determine which games show up on the front page ("featured and recommended") and the Discover queue, based on games I played, and my main motivation for reviewing a game is leaving a rating to tell Steam whether I actually liked the game I played.
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carnival73: .
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Do you mean review the reviewer?
That's the comments section under the user-review
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Starmaker: No, I mean Steam uses an algorithm to determine which games show up on the front page ("featured and recommended") and the Discover queue, based on games I played, and my main motivation for reviewing a game is leaving a rating to tell Steam whether I actually liked the game I played.
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heh
So instead of my review reading 'Crap.' It should read 'No, Steam; no.'
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Starmaker: No, I mean Steam uses an algorithm to determine which games show up on the front page ("featured and recommended") and the Discover queue, based on games I played, and my main motivation for reviewing a game is leaving a rating to tell Steam whether I actually liked the game I played.
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carnival73: .
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heh
So instead of my review reading 'Crap.' It should read 'No, Steam; no.'
Review text most likely doesn't matter. If Steam used neural networks or semantics, you'd have to leave a standard human-readable three-paragraph review (likes, dislikes, conclusion). But they probably don't do this; instead (and they try to be transparent) the have a classic item-based recommender matrix: an item is characterized by tags, you as a player have a tag profile which is a weighted sum of the tags of all games you've interacted with, and some games are recommended based on how well they fit the profile.

So when I fire up Steam, I see something like "Hey Starmaker, because you have 117.5 hours in Sorcery!, here's today's dozen games about gay furries sniffing each others' butts." (I think it happens because Steam also weighs tags by popularity and the most generic descriptions rise to the top; all these "indie", "adventure", "rpg", "story rich", "choices matter" leave no way to account for "please no furry butts".)

What if I bought a game and didn't like it? Steam still sees I bought it, played it for some time (maybe I even persevered and completed it), so it's assigned a positive weight and recommendations lean more toward similar games. To get Steam to subtract it instead, I give it a thumbs down, and, because I can't do this without reviewing, I leave a review that might be useless to other players (as I don't want a shitty game to devour even more of my time).