Valve is cracking down on “off-topic” reviews on its Steam marketplace.
The publisher has built a tool which scans for real-time “anomalous review activity” and moves to remove the discrepancies, Valve recently advised. As part of the service, the developers of the targeted game will also be informed by Steam.
“Off-topic” examples, as provided by Valve, include complaints over DRM systems and changes to EULAs (end-user licensing agreements).
“We had long debates about these two, and others like them,” Valve wrote in an update. “They’re technically not a part of the game, but they are an issue for some players. In the end, we’ve decided to define them as off-topic review bombs. Our reasoning is that the “general” Steam player doesn’t care as much about them, so the Review Score is more accurate if it doesn’t contain them.”
While the reviews flagged as “review bombs” will not count towards a game’s overall score, they will remain on-site and can be read by those curious.
“We believe that players who do care about topics like DRM are often willing to dig a little deeper into games before purchasing – which is why we still keep all the reviews within the review bombs,” Valve said. “It only takes a minute to dig into those reviews to see if the issue is something you care about.”
Those reviews won’t be viewable by default; players will have to head to Steam Store Preferences > Review Score Settings and select “Include reviews from all Steam purchases in Review Score.”
What do you make of this new policy?
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