Steam has always been extremely protective of the far right on its platform
Game platforms should act neutral towards player reviews, because If people who have bought the game cannot express how they feel about the game, that would kill what makes Steam better for the players.
Read the article before pretending to understand what it’s talking about.
Some games have been targeted by Steam curators. Ethan, the developer of Coven, a first-person action-horror set in the 1600s, says he has been targeted by “CharlieTweetsDetected”, a curator devoted to recommending games based solely on whether their developers are perceived to have correctly mourned the assassination of rightwing activist Charlie Kirk.
CharlieTweetsDetected’s review of Coven, a first-person action-horror game set in the 1600s, read simply “Celebrated Sept 10th on blue sky [sic]”. This encouraged others to post further reviews and comments related to Kirk (and not the game). “I even mentioned it to Steam support,” Ethan says, “how it stemmed from that curator list, but they weren’t interested.” Instead, Steam support claimed that “off-topic” constituted “a recipe for cookies, or something completely unrelated to video games that is clearly trolling.” Reviews referencing Kirk, including one reading simply “RIP Charlie Kirk” alongside a negative rating, did not fit that criteria according to Steam; all remain in place today.
Elsewhere, campaigns chase games that include trans or LGBTQ+ characters. A trans developer included on a curation list titled “NO WOKE” cites frequent discussion threads, including one that referred to them as a “transvestite” and asked whether their game included “woke faggotry.” Plane Toast’s Émi Lefèvre points to reviews and discussions of Caravan SandWitch, a sci-fi action-adventure and driving game, which frequently approach its queer characters negatively. “Too LBGTQ [sic] … There is no future or continuation for these sad gays and lesbians,” reads one among many that remain visible on the game’s store page.
“For sure, the ‘anti-woke’ curators brought insincere negative attention to the game,” Lefèvre says. “Valve’s refusal to moderate any of this is making Steam reviews and forums the battleground for some kind of culture war, and is making them unsafe for marginalised people and regular gamers trying to simply enjoy the game they bought.”
The tricky part here is that many of these reviews aren’t about how they feel about the game but rather how they feel about the developer or publisher, often based on wildly inaccurate speculation. Valve has a particularly tight rope to walk on this one because it does seem problematic to dogpile some game because of a perceived opinion that has nothing to do with the actual game itself.
One possible solution would be to add a category system to reviews that let’s reviewers correctly categorize their reviews, purchasers exclude categories they don’t care about, and Valve only removes miscategorized reviews. Categories could be something like “game contents”, “game bugs/technical issues”, “drm”, or “publisher/developer opinions”. Maybe make an entry form on the review itself for each category and you can just leave any category you don’t care about blank in your review.
This might also help solve one of the more long standing problems with Steam reviews which is that reviews of early buggy builds often linger long after those bugs have been fixed and can provide a somewhat inaccurate impression of the current state of the game.
I think player reviews should not include allegations of lying about being raped, transphobia, or political comments.
Gabe Newell fanboys incoming…
Lol why did you link his Wikipedia for? Strange choice imo
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You hate Wikipedia for some weird reason?
Yeah dude, I fucking hate that site. It’s the worst site on the Internet. So much illegal, horrible, immoral stuff is posted there every waking moment I just can’t stand it.
What a dumb question
Very mature response
Yes, and posting the first comment to your own thread basically instigating with users is better?
Come the fuck on dude, and get a grip. It’s almost like an internet argument is what you asked for.
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