Negative reviews can have consequences on how the game sells.
And this is exactly why there’s a concerted effort to snuff out any negativity at all as it pertains to consumerism.
Negativity is bad for business.
This exact same article was already shared a week ago here, and it got this same reply.
Negative reviews can have consequences on how the game sells. The article (which apparently nobody reads, because Lemmy has a hard on for Steam and refuses to admit that Lord Gabe can do wrong) is NOT talking about random comments, it makes very specific examples (with links) to specific games that have received negative reviews for things unrelated to the game at hand, such as antisemitism and political content.
“I’m not new to online harassment,” says designer Nathalie Lawhead, who spent two years trying to get reviews removed from their games’ pages. Both reference allegations of sexual assault that Lawhead made in 2019. “I assumed reporting Steam abuse might have its own issues. But when people suggested that I open a ticket, I did have hope that this would be the way to get it resolved.”
One of the reviews, published in 2023, read, “cringe game, made by a liar”. The other, a review of Lawhead’s game Blue Suburbia posted in 2024, said: “A women [sic] who seeks to destroy other’s [sic] career made this. It’s very poorly put together. She also probably has dual Israeli citizenship with how pointy her nose is.”
Despite Steam’s code of online conduct and community guidelines prohibiting “abusive language or insults”, public accusations or “discrimination”, moderators initially cleared both reviews after Lawhead reported them.
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.
The problem is not even that Steam forums are a cesspool (which they are, by the way), but that Steam adamantly refuses to moderate the shit that gets posted on their site, going so far as to ignore that shit even when it gets reported, because ultimately they gain money from those people, so they don’t care.
rushmonke@ttrpg.network 1 day ago
Nima@leminal.space 1 day ago
actually, I did read the article. i wouldn’t have commented unless I had.
my opinion still remains the same. steam forums can absolutely be a cesspool. a lot of internet places can. most of them in fact. moderation goes a long way, but it’s my opinion that if you go looking for shitty comments and behavior, you will find it.
there’s a reason the saying is “don’t feed the trolls”. and I wouldn’t be surprised if harassment towards this developer increases tenfold due to this opinion article coming out.
i sincerely hope it doesn’t happen, but I feel it will.
MurrayL@lemmy.world 1 day ago
You’re acting like harassment of the sort in the article is some kind of unavoidable natural phenomenon, and the only possible course of action is for the victims to suck it up and take it.
Steam is a platform owned, operated, and fully controlled by Valve. They have the ability and the money to take steps to improve the situation, but instead they seem perfectly happy to let it continue. It’s gross.
doublah@sopuli.xyz 23 hours ago
Curators are hidden by default, only people who follow the curator see curator recommendations. They also don’t affect store visibility or the review score in any way,.
Steam leaves moderation of forums to the developer/publisher to moderate as they wish, as if they interfered you bet they’d get complaints about Valve stepping on their toes. If a developer/publisher decides they want to allow hatred in their Steam forums, you should probably blame them.
Aielman15@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Cool! Will you also read the rest of the quote?
But apparently nobody wants to read the article, so here’s my screenshot:
spoiler
Image
Yes, I also blame the poor indie dev who barely gets enough money to keep existing instead of the multi billion dollar company that apparently is content with misogyny, racism and bigotry running rampant on every facet of their platform.
doublah@sopuli.xyz 7 hours ago
Do we have any proof those reviews were from people following that curator? I imagine that information has also been posted elsewhere online.
Do you think off topic reviews or curator recommendations should be allowed for things you approve of? Say if a review points out the developer is a secret fascist?
Oh please, moderating a forum unpaid for 5 mins every now and again is so easy it’s how this whole platform and Reddit function. If you’re truly an indie dev without the resources to moderate your own space, Steam allow you to simply close the forums and forbid discussions.
Aielman15@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Why does that curator exist in the first place? Why are those reviews still up?
And also, great comeback! I really love whatabaoutism.
Please, kindly refrain from talking about things you know jack shit about.
Steam forums are a resource for devs to interact with the community, get feedback, etc…
Closing them means losing a resource. What you suggest is that devs big enough to employ a community manager should have access to that resource, while small/solo devs should just accept that they can’t have it. Sounds like second class citizen treatment to me.
It would be a lot easier if Steam got their shit together and started moderating their online spaces, which is something they should’ve been doing this whole time.