Whenever the valve to make a change to its platform, which is great news. No matter how small it may seem, steam size means it has had a drastic effect on someone. When restructure its review system set, there will be many more people. Thus we come to those who know, developers and publishers who regularly put their games on Steam and whose ratings have been affected by the change, to find out what they thought about it.We have a large number of responses from a variety of people, and you can see them presented below, along with links to their games. It is noteworthy that by Eugene Krylov graphic showing how much change games, and his Twitter account related information.
Simon Roth, Machine Studios - Maia
"First, it is worth mentioning that I opinions steam, if implemented well, are a good idea. The steam really lacks a process customer feedback and decent review, but do not think that changes today actually set the focus to the system, which is the lowest quality.
"If users were given more direction and guidance in the review process, produce better quality criticism to help players, and also cut the spam low effort. It would also increase the cost of defrauding the system as a test thoroughly it would take a little time, effort and a real understanding of the game.
"Comments should be able to focus on individual aspects of the game too, with their scores not add to aggregate. For example, a user might want to talk about performance on Linux, which does not speak for the game as a whole, but still it could help others. Giving customers the ability to search those labels and add your own tags would be very useful too.
"Reviewers should have a small profile that gives his opinion more context. It has to publish its specifications rough system for example, or what kind of games usually reviewed. The reviews are subjective, after all, so knowing on the reviewer can shed more light on why they conducted an opinion. [in addition], users should ask them if they want to post the dev before writing a review. a lot of reviews read support issues as.
"The steam also needs to encourage players to leave a comment. Maybe a week / month in the pop-up news has generated a page allowing them to review their latest games.
"From a commercial sense, once you go below 50% of its sales are outside hard. Most people will give you a game middling a look, but when you get lower than begins to ignore it completely. so there is that as you can not sell more. What if their views are well thought out breakdown of defects in a product is fine, but if they are all hilarious jokes or revisions single sentence that is quite harmful.
"As for my own case, the recommendations are down, as we spent much time in Early Access. However we were starting to creep up and this change disappointingly hit us with the walk down a peg or two. Many of our kickstarter and direct buyers got early support and are waiting for a beta or more final version to play and review. I was hoping that the protrusion to help us for our next major releases, but I can no longer count it. they have low scores likely to reach our pretty hard sales and that puts me in a bit of a corner. "
Andy Hodgetts, Indie Stone - Project Zomboid
"To be honest, I'm not sure to what extent the real fraud is a problem in terms of user reviews on Steam. [Positive] Reviews [free] keys is not something we have committed or condoned and I'm not sure I've never spoken to any developers who have. So really, if the valve say that this is an issue that requires addressing I have no reason not to take them at their word.
"That said, it is rather secondary to my personal opinion about it. For me, it seems strange that ever was possible to evaluate an accommodation in a store that has not been used to purchase the game. The end of exams steam is steam for customers * * leave feedback for other customers steam. If you purchased the game elsewhere and rescued the key in steam, then give your opinion on the store where you bought it.
"I sympathize with developers who, perhaps, have a Kickstarter project and hoped to benefit from the views of the sponsors to help push the visibility of your game - its visibility through Steam is linked, in part, the number and qualification of user-reviews - purely based on my own observations, order and visibility of the results in real time in the search box [for example] is affected.
"At the same time, we ourselves have benefited from this same thing when we first launched in Zomboid Early Access - our customers Desura who redeemed a key steam were able to leave comments But looking at the numbers as they are. now, 12,000 or less reviews Only 200 or so were key activations (ie, Desura or direct customer sales) to, ultimately, the loss of the overall score makes almost no difference to the value result. the same appears to be true for almost all comparable games, including triple A games much, much larger.
"It's much smaller games that will be affected to a greater extent, of course. But while I sympathize with the developers in that position, I think it makes sense that the steam store uses purchases steam for its metric popularity. And the same applies to all other windows. If you buy GOG, check the GOG. Buy at Amazon, Amazon check in. If you buy a copy shop ... well, you're probably lucky to find an appropriate place for leave a comment. But a game store does not have a section of reviews of users does not mean that Steam will become the place to leave just because you have redeemed your copy on that service. for customers, by customers. valve, for me, they are just trying to do the best for their customers and are committed not to allow steam purchased copies still leave a review, but not one that contributes to the score ".
Trent Oster, Beamdog - Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragasta
"I'm still digging into what was changed, but from the experience of ten thousand feet that seems to make sense. If someone is messing with the system, the system is more difficult to play. The whole system vapor extraction has an industry of package deals and other businesses, so it will be interesting to see how this change affects the key market and from a perspective view, keys were demoted in importance.
"From our point of view it does not make much difference. We sold some keys to our games through various partners and has generally been a positive experience. I'm not sure people assign value to be able to create an opinion Steam will influence any decision to actually purchase. "
Tom Francis, suspicious Developments - Gunpoint
"I feel bad for developers adversely affected by this change without notice But I also believe that the new standard is not unreasonable It is quite extraordinary that Valve give us free keys unlimited can sell for pure profit and give them nothing -.. If needed adjust the way your site looks to those sales to avoid being exploited, I still feel like I'm getting a good deal. "
Alexis Kennedy, Failbetter and Self - sunless sea
"The key to my mind is that this will not be the final situation like doing simple valve based on data big radical changes, not people -. It is a technocratic mentality programmer.
"But I always iterate over those changes. An effective review is essential to the health of the store, so it is always a priority. But know well that has competitors steam, and always have an eye on the long term. So I imagine they are throwing the bathwater out with every intention of picking up the baby later, when they have heard how loud squeaking. what we as developers have to do is strong, firm squeak and not too apocalyptic . They do not care about the Indies, but only in aggregate form.
"It hurt Indian community-driven right now, and my heart is with the people who have seen their scores stagger down, but that's what happens when you have a hegemon market, even a relatively benign. And in the long term building a community still bear fruit. "
Paul Kilduff-Taylor, Mode 7 - Frozen Synapse 2
"Valve give developers a tremendous amount of flexibility in terms of registration and use of the keys on Steam. It is very important to us that this does not change, therefore, a measure of this kind which is intended to prevent abuse this system is undoubtedly fundamentally welcome.
"The kind of fraud that this is to be achieved is really horrible: it is misleading to customers and makes the situation worse for everyone, I'll be glad to see that gone and I can see why the valve felt the need to make a big move against it.
"I think this new system could cause a problem for developers who want to release a first version of the game on your own site, and then move to Steam later Early adopters tend to be fairly amateur vowels. You do not want to lose influence. it's a big problem that their opinions will be published yet, but it's a shame, though. I would like to see some way for those customers who have the same weight in the score of the general criticism of the user of a game in the future but equally I can understand why they simply can not be technically possible.
"As I have said elsewhere, I think the most important thing is that developers focus on creating games that can attract players out of that initial rush of alpha enthusiasm. If other developers feel this change has had a negative impact in them, then I'm certainly not diminishing that. experience of each varies greatly, however, if a game has a lasting impact and can continue to draw new players after launch, then I doubt this change will affect their prospects ".
Jay Tholen - dropsy
"I'm not sure how much I like in a broader sense, but it certainly has helped out dropsy, in percentage terms. We always get a couple of negative reviews after packages of people who have tried it on a whim he had obviously never played a point and click. I do not care that limits the weight of the opinions of people who never would, by choice, buy my game. on the contrary, I would not want to reduce the prominence of the opinions our kickstarter Backers', as they are likely those with the most intimate knowledge of the game. "
Rami Ismail, Vlambeer - Nuclear Throne
"Ultimately, I think the decision is sound. The review system is one of the most effective ways to promote a game within the ecosystem, and that makes it a popular destination for abuse ways.
"There are disadvantages are quite serious. Gifts and packages are a good way to increase the buzz, and while cheap copies of the game tend to generate more negative reviews, they are still a way to increase the buzz for the game. Similarly there has been a movement toward custom programs early access controlled by the developer instead of steam - these movements are far less useful, because they can not generate opinions.
"Ultimately, the quality of comments is important to ensure that consumers know what they buy, and if this system helps restrict low quality or even fraudulent criticism, then it is a good move as far as I'm concerned.
Andrew Smith, Spilt Milk Studio - Tango Festival
"Changes valves are very heavy handed and - by his own admission -. Only against a small subset of the problems facing the system user review I do not expect to see our sales affected almost nothing, and although undermined one of the value nurture a community out of steam, I have yet to see much more hard data showing a correlation between user reviews and sales (at least on a scale so this change will have no effect broad range).
"More troubling to me is the speed with which the valve usually react in these situations (constantly changing) -. Take so long to deal with any problems they have inevitably allowed room for new problems to grow firefighting little a little is not the way they will make more room for steam games, players and developers. I am hopeful that they will introduce something more meaningful with your next update, whenever.
Gary Chambers, introversion - Architect prison
"It seems to me as a solution to a problem that no one was having. They said it was about 160 games that had reviews" suspects "in them, so it should be more than 6000 at this point. And they are clearly capable of detect when this happens, so if they were so concerned about her, with such low numbers that could easily just check manually from time to time.
"And the impact this has on a number of developers is quite severe - I've seen a number of people today say that their media opinions have decreased significantly as a result of this, especially those who had kickstarters or did well in things as the Humilde package. the reality is that the vapor reviews have a noticeable impact on sales of a game, and have opinions cut like that is a very big blow.
"We are quite lucky with the architect of the prison in which the vast majority of the recommendations are from people who have purchased through Steam, so this has had little noticeable impact on the average, but there are plenty of games It is not in that position. it is expected to change their mind about this and restore all lost these comments. "
Brian Hicks, Bohemia - DayZ
"Changes in the comments of users of steam are an example of a problem of repetition with Steam as a platform. The valve is not often to discuss properly or inform large scale that are made in the two pages of developers changes the store and the store as a whole. Going back to the application user reviews, and culminating in issues such as returns, and shop mod monetization. But I honestly do not see this pattern change at any time the future. that leaves us as developers are forced to quickly adapt to changes that directly affect our success on the platform.
"The new changes to criticism specifically hurt developers who sell through more than one portal steam. For example, DayZ can be purchased at the store interactive Bohemia, plus water vapor. This will provide a key steam you can activate, gift, do what you want sometimes, in order to encourage attention to our own shop we could run a sale there -. although I'm not allowed to reveal exactly the key difference in sales between the two fronts store, I can say the number of keys is sold through this portal is certainly not insignificant.
"However, he said that - our concern is largely not in the comments of steam as we are in Early Access fully recognize that many users can and will probably be frustrated with the process of integral development that comes with our engine. and be part of that period Early Access game development. Those who are and should be concerned are indie titles that do not benefit from the large number of sales, and user comments for the benefit of DayZ. Titles like Maia, the long, dark, ugly, or even Wasteland 2 - or really any person who has participated in programs such as options Humble Bundle or the like can and will probably end up seeing a great success to their assessments - something the titles small without the benefit of great brand recognition and it has DayZ will suffer due.
"So here we are again at the mercy of the valve as independent developers. Having to adapt with little or no warning systems can greatly affect our market presence and consumer perception. Not me misinterpret, steam provides a lot of important benefits that allow independent developers to set aside the traditional publisher bad model - but at what point this principle to become enough of a problem to security blanket of an established, and powerful editor is becoming more attractive? "
Debbie Bestwick, Team 17 - Worms weapons of mass destruction
We are delighted to see that steam takes steps to improve its system of review and address some of the problems valid user reviews are getting falsely surrounding. However, excluding authentic steam customers through crowdfunding and other stores to be able to provide a score is something we would like to see considered.
There are many independent teams we support through our label have conducted successful crowdfunding campaigns and has earned a core fan base willing to give their opinion about the game in a meaningful way. In an ideal scenario would have a good balance established between the current system and allow these comments customers have an impact on the game scores percent.
So what do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
