Steam, the world’s most popular video game digital distribution service and storefront, has received a new update that ushers in the public testing of a new system that changes the way user reviews on store pages are sorted, with the goal of prioritizing reviews that can best help players make a purchase decision about a game, Valve has announced. The new update, which is enabled by default, was prompted by players using reviews for reasons that Valve apparently didn’t like, including “jokes, memes, [and] ascii art.”
Valve writes:
- “This new helpfulness system is now enabled by default, and can easily be toggled within the user review settings for each game.”
- “Historically we’ve sorted reviews by the number of ‘helpful’ votes given to each review by other players.”
- “However, we’ve seen that many players use reviews for sharing jokes, memes, ascii art and other content that might not be the most helpful for a potential purchaser.”
- “That content is usually fine, and often a lot of fun for existing customers of a game, but it doesn’t always help new players in making informed purchasing decisions.”
An “unhelpful” review:
Valve added:
User reviews that are identified as being unhelpful for potential customers, such as one-word reviews, reviews comprised of ASCII art, or reviews that are primarily playful memes and in-jokes, will be sorted behind other reviews on the game’s store page. That doesn’t mean players won’t ever see these humorous, but unhelpful posts, but it hopefully means that they’ll see them less frequently when trying to learn about a game. If you enjoy seeing these sorts of reviews when browsing the store, there’s an option on the store page to include them when browsing.