Summary
Just hours after a helpful new feature seemingly debuted onSteam, Valve has taken it down. First spotted by perceptiveSteamusers in the user reviews section of the storefront, the feature was disabled just after reports began to spread.
As the owner and operator of Steam and a pioneer of digital game distribution, Valve has maintained a primary position atop the PC gaming market for years. Despite increasingly intense competition from rivals like theEpic Games Store with its regular free game offeringsor from indie-focused storefronts like Itch.io, Valve has managed to hold onto its lead by improving the convenience of its massive platform.
One avenue for such improvement is new features, such asone intended to help players better filter Steam Reviews. As spotted by users on Reddit and social media, Valve appeared to be testing a “Helpfulness” system on the review sections of various Steam store pages. Exactly what the new system did isn’t clear, and Valve disabled the system shortly after it was spotted.
Valve Potentially Testing New System For Filtering Helpful Steam Reviews
According to screenshots posted by users that noticed the Steam review helpfulness sytem, the affected store pages contained a new addition to the “Display” tab in the reviews section. Underneath the usual options to sort reviews based on their recency, helpfulness, summary, or whether they were considered funny by other users, a checkbox allowing players to use the new helpfulness system was present, applying to the display options for “Summary” and “Most Helpful”. Based on early impressions, the system seemed intended to improve the usefulness of reading a Steam review in full, rather than relying onthe positive or negative rating of Steam reviews in aggregate.
Unfortunately, it seems that the helpfulness system is still in testing, as Valve quickly disabled the feature. A few users said they were able to see it working, though. In their description, enabling the helpfulness system caused the Steam reviews page to display only longer and more “constructive” reviews, seemingly filtering out reviews written as a joke or ones that didn’t seem helpful. Some commenters suggested that the system might be in place to help deal with theproblem of review bombing that has occurred to games likeEarth Defense Force 6, as well as to make the system more useful to more players. When discussing how the system might work, some commenters theorized that the helpfulness system may involve the use of a text analysis algorithm that “reads” reviews and flags them as helpful or not based on the quality of the written text.
Steam reviews have been a persistent concern for both Valve and many game developers, as players have complained for years that the current review system isn’t very useful for informing purchase decisions. The sheer number of users on Steam makes the review section of any game rife with joke reviews, bot-written text, and borderline-spam reviews.Users have asked Valve to adjust its reviews policybefore, but the company is still reliant on the community to help police the reviews sections. If the helpfulness system works out, Steam could become an even better platform for players to express their opinions on PC games new and old alike.
Steam
Steam is a digital video game storefront and program developed by Valve that allows gamers to purchase, play, and mod their titles all through one convenient program.
