Listen, Valve could stop updating Steam right this minute, and it still would widely be considered the best platform to buy and play games on. However, Valve continues to make Steam that much more intuitive with each passing update, the latest being one that could absolutely change how gamers interact with reviews.
As first spotted by MP1st, in the Steam beta version, via a new update released on February 12, users can now attach hardware specs to their review before uploading it.
In other words, a front-facing review could show the hardware information that a player was gaming on. This would, in turn, further help other players who might be turned off by a bad review that cites poor optimization by comparing the hardware specs attached to the review against what they have.
That could lead to more people either purchasing a game after a vote of confidence from someone with a similar rig, or it could lead to one less purchase if that person is wary about how the game would run on their PC.
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More than anything, it could stop an influx of negative reviews from users that claim to have better hardware than what they’re letting on. Of course, like with anything, it relies on people checking the box when it eventually escapes the beta program.
Steam Has Tackled Reviews Before, So This Is A Logical Next Step
If there’s one thing that Steam reviews have become known for, it’s an influx of bad ones that quickly shift a game’s overall rating from one area, say “Positive,” to an entirely different end of the spectrum, “Mostly Negative.”
That’s not to say there aren’t helpful user reviews, because there are. It’s just finding them is the equivalent sometimes to finding a needle in the haystack.
To partially help combat the influx of negative reviews, Steam recently did away with the “Clown” icon in its community award system, a move that was intended to stop people from posting rage-bait reviews that would skyrocket the charts, or as Valve called it, “a narrow set of attention-grabbing content.”
That Steam is also experimenting with attaching hardware specs to reviews, at least on a voluntary basis, should ward off people from hitting recently-released titles with an influx of “poor optimization,” especially if an honest person did attach similar specs to what the user is alleging they have.
All that should go a long way in making the review system an actual system and not a void of falsities.
- Date Founded
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August 24, 1996
- Subsidiaries
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Campo Santo
- Headquarters
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Bellevue, Washington, United States
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