• Donut@leminal.space
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    103
    ·
    2 months ago

    Fucking finally. I love a funny joke but if you’re looking for serious reviews, you currently have to wade through a sea of trolls, jokes and copy-pasted meme reviews in order to figure out if a game is interesting to you.

    Community features are cool but if you’re the most popular platform of your kind, you’re gonna attract a lot of trolls who’s content can be really out there. Filters are a good solution to this!

    • Lojcs@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      2 months ago

      And people explaining what the game is instead of how the game is.

      • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        28
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        A review should tell you what the game is. It should also tell you what they like/don’t like about it, but different perspectives about how the core mechanics work are absolutely critical parts of the discussion.

        • all-knight-party@kbin.run
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          2 months ago

          Indeed, sometimes I really appreciate a heads up of if I can save in the middle of gameplay or if I have to complete a whole run before it saves progress, things like that are not deal breakers but it can definitely affect how I play a game

          • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            2 months ago

            There’s stuff like that, but it’s also as simple as most game pages just not accurately depicting what the core gameplay loop is. The number of games with 10 cinematic trailers that combine for 3 seconds of gameplay and have descriptions full of setting with maybe some features but don’t mention whether they’re a card game or an FPS is way too high.

            Screenshots can probably resolve my example, and tags are “OK”, but marketing trash is just so abundant that a lot of pages are genuinely hard to figure out pretty basic elements of what the minute to minute experience is.

            • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              2 months ago

              God I hate cinematic trailers for unreleased games. It’s fine if it’s a released game that I can just Google gameplay.

              • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                2 months ago

                I straight up am not interested in them at all.

                There are some games where I become attached to the writing, even though most are pretty mediocre and it’s not why I play games. But I’ve never once had a story trailer interest me in any way. I will play the game if the mechanics are compelling, regardless of story. If they aren’t, the story isn’t better than a book or TV show and I don’t care.

                It’s super annoying when even the screenshots are cinematic nonsense. It’s a game. I want to know what the game is.

        • Lojcs@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          2 months ago

          different perspectives about how the core mechanics work

          As you said, how they work. The description already tells me what the game is and I don’t need a review reciting it a la “Shadow warrior is an action adventure fps game where you play as a ninja fighting against demons”

            • BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              edit-2
              2 months ago

              To further flesh out your comment:

              I recently played a small game called “Ever Forward” on the Nintendo switch. Nowhere it says that the game runs like a PowerPoint presentation. Other than that, it would be helpful if I would have read a review that said “the beautiful world you see in the trailer and screenshots is the ‘hub’ where you enter boring looking levels. The puzzles consist of 2-3 cameras that react to sound and a cube you can throw and that you need to carry to the end of each short puzzle.”

  • kibiz0r@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    49
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    2 months ago

    I hope this is partly to deal with review bombing, but I also hope it doesn’t completely hide review bombing.

    It can be really helpful to know that there is a social media shitstorm around a game.

    But sometimes the shitstorm is a bunch of basement dwellers getting mad over nothing, and it makes it hard to see actual opinions about the game.

    • Paradachshund@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      I don’t have a direct quote, but I remember reading a few years ago that valve was debating how to handle bombing. They said something along the lines of not wanting to silence the bombers, but to highlight it so it was clear it was a review bomb. I got the impression they were considering things like showing the unusual spike of reviews in a different color. This sounds like it might be the results of that.

      • RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        2 months ago

        They already have something for it, when I look at a review bombed game it specifically tells me that theres been unusual activity with the reviews. I believe you cna choose to hide or show the review bombs in the settings somewhere.

    • Routhinator@startrek.website
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 months ago

      If I’m grokking the feature correctly, people will have to review bomb the review bombers with “unhelpful” flags.

      • Ænima@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        To be fair, what else are those points for other than blowing on awards to dump on reviews and guides?

  • Pika@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    2 months ago

    This is a good change, they have had the unhelpful/helpful/funny review system for years now, but I always found it weird it didn’t do anything aside from boost on “helpful” rating. something that is majority unhelpful rated shouldn’t be shown on the review page or arguably in the score in the first place.

  • simple@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    2 months ago

    Really good change. Filtering out “funny” reviews are what everyone’s thinking of, but I hope this also gets rid of those dumb reviews where people just fill out a long form rating everything 10/10 just because they like the game.

    • all-knight-party@kbin.run
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      2 months ago

      How I feel about your comment: 1 - it’s ugly 2 - meh 3 - the graphics are okay 4 - it’s pretty 5 - OMG it’s like real life!

      5/5

  • Sparking@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    Should probably just filter them out by default, and then have a sort by funny or something.

  • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    I do enjoy a sprinkling of meme and unhinged reviews - especially as part of Northernlion Reads Hentai Game Steam Reviews segments - but overall this is probably a change for the better.

    • Linktank@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      What? You think they should run the platform out of the kindness of their hearts?

      • index@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        2 months ago

        Why not? Don’t people play games because they want to have fun?

        The instance and platform you are using to comment isn’t a corporation grinding billions.