Steam Reviews Now Allow You to Attach Your PC Specifications

Controversies Surrounding User-Submitted Steam Reviews

User-submitted Steam Reviews have generated significant debate, particularly during instances known as “review bombings“.These events often target specific titles with a surge of negative feedback, resulting in a diminished overall user rating on Valve’s platform.

The Rise of Review Bombing: A Historical Perspective

One notable early case of review bombing occurred with Firewatch, an adventure game developed by Campo Santo and released in 2016. The situation escalated in 2017 when YouTuber PewDiePie made a racial slur during a live stream of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG). This led Sean Vanaman, the founder of Campo Santo, to request the removal of PewDiePie’s videos from YouTube. In retaliation, PewDiePie’s followers flooded Steam with negative reviews of Firewatch.

In response to the backlash, Valve implemented histograms into Steam Reviews within a week to help users navigate these review bomb scenarios. Despite this effort, the trend of review bombings persisted:

Total War: Rome II from SEGA faced review bombing in 2018 over the presence of numerous female generals in the game.
In 2020, Monster Hunter World by CAPCOM was temporarily bombarded with criticism from Chinese players who took offense at a perceived racist joke in the Monster Hunter film.
The 2023 launch of Diablo IV by Blizzard witnessed immediate review bombing, as many users criticized the studio without engaging with the game itself.
Lastly, in 2024, God of War: Ragnarök from Sony Santa Monica faced a brief wave of negative reviews due to Sony’s requirement for a PlayStation account to play single-player games.

The Positive Side of Negative Reviews

Interestingly, not all negative reviews are detrimental. They can provide valuable feedback to developers, particularly when addressing legitimate issues such as performance problems. Recently, Valve’s latest Steam Client Beta introduced an option that allows reviewers to attach their hardware specifications when submitting or updating a Steam User Review on a game’s store page. This feature could significantly assist developers in diagnosing and resolving performance concerns highlighted in reviews.

Additionally, the new Steam Client Beta offers a feature to send “anonymized frame rate data“to Valve. This information will be collected without any ties to individual Steam accounts, instead categorizing the data based on the user’s hardware. Valve asserts that this initiative aims to enhance the overall compatibility of games with Steam, especially for devices operating on SteamOS.

In summary, while user-submitted Steam Reviews can lead to disruptive controversies, they also hold potential benefits for developers striving to improve their games based on community feedback.

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