Valve is introducing a new Steam policy to the platform that will now ask users to re-review a game after sinking more time into it, a feature that was quietly implemented last week and has now been officially acknowledged by the company. Steam has have a great deal of criticism levied at the platform for its antiquated curation policies, some of which are informed by its users review practices - for instance, the process of review bombing a game to take a stance on an extraneous issue is a direct result of the hands-off approach, and, while giving consumers a voice, can also negatively and unfairly impact a game's performance overall.
Steam's curation policies have also been the subject of criticism for much darker reasons, including shock value games meant to offend getting prominent advertising alongside games from well-meaning developers, creating a no-win situation for those using the platform. To make matters worse, Steam's indie game sales have taken a major hit this year, and the Epic Games Store's ability to offer both a much more closely-curated library of titles and a better cut for developers has lead some to suggest Steam might be quickly falling behind its new competitor. Valve is notoriously slow to act, though, so consumers have been holding out hope that new methods might be produced soon.
It looks like Valve is at least addressing one problem on Steam, according to a report from Kotaku - the fact that some users are too hasty in their judgment of certain titles. Steam will now ask users to "revise" their review after they've sunk more hours into the game, an implementation that was apparently born out of developer feedback. It's an interesting policy, but at a base level, adding something that developers want on the digital distribution service is a no-brainer for Steam now that it's fighting to keep them on the platform.
The new feature was planned for a while, but the new Steam UI overhaul made the most sense for implementation. It will be fascinating to see just how much this new policy changes the way games are reviewed on Steam, but encouraging more consumer feedback will likely score the company some points with fans who want their voices heard and respected by developers. Likewise, developers whose games are slow to start but win fans over now have a better chance of seeing positive correlation to that process on their game's Steam page.
It's not a major change, but it's one being made with devs in mind, so it's an important one for Steam. As the Epic Games Store continues to sway developers over to the platform with more developer-friendly incentives, a lot of Steam's old - and frankly, dated - policies will need to be revised to keep important companies on-board. The recent move to acquire EA Access for Steam is a smart one, too, and it could be indicative of Valve rousing out of its slumber and making some big changes to Steam moving forward.
Source: Alden Kroll/Twitter (via Kotaku)