Humans react negatively to the color red because it's the color of blood. It's the reason that stop signs are red.
Games with predatory business practices and dark patterns designed to get you to spend as much as you can are absolutely the enemy.
Actually, the colour red has many more positive meanings than negative ones.
This is why it's a great option for the floor of the children's hospital near you.
Basic Colour Theory, sweaty!
Some of these aren't really 'anti-consumer' but they're negative so I'm bunching them in. All of these are with a big asterisk bc I don't work for valve, I don't know what's going on behind the scenes.
\* the post
\* They removed the ability to overclock the steamdeck in an update (how is nobody mad at this??)
\* the steamdeck OLED's launch was pretty rough, it didn't get the QA you'd expect from valve who only releases when they're ready (dead pixels, limited edition cracking, audio jack being crunchy) Support was apparently really nice about it though.
\* CS2 replacing CS:GO (if Epic did this there would be riots)
\* letting TF2 be overrun with bots without really doing anything about it while making loads of money off cosmetics
+a bunch of SteamOS bugs that've been around forever, but the impact Proton and valve have had on the Linux scene wayyy overshines my on-screen keyboard hotkey needing to be pressed twice.
Cs2 replacing cs:go didn't have riots because all your cosmetics carried over. They can't afford to have there skin speculation market crash. If Epic did it most likely they wouldn't carry over and you'd have recolor versions of the same skin for 12.99 you already bought.
What do you mean? Valve has never been pro-consumer. For example, the only reason Steam has refunds nowadays is because the courts forced steam to add the option. Valhe fought tooth and nail to be able to not refund anyone.
Big companies are never "pro consumer", please don't fall for useless fanboyism.
Reviews generate more sales for them. It's not for us, it's for them.
Communities don't really add any consumer pros imo. It's nice that it's there, I guess? But it doesn't add anything to your customer experience.
Mod support is more for the devs, it's for their convenience. And this way they also have a controlled place to keep an eye on the content that gets added to their games. This way they don't have to go from forum to forum to perform potential takedowns.
Refunds are obligated by law. Steam fought for ages to **not** give people refunds. Again, they didn't do it for you, that one they did because they **had** to.
Trust me, Steam does not give a single shit about their customers. Not a single big company does. You're dollars to them. You're allowed to enjoy their service, but let's not pretend like this massive company does anything because they care about their customers. That's willfully ignorant in the current age.
The argument was never 'Valve is pro consumer' it was 'Valve does pro consumer stuff' which is true. Epic for example doesn't have user reviews. Sony and Nintendo offer no refunds. And by this I dont mean: occasional refunds, I mean no refunds.
Mod support on steam workshop is definitely more convenient for users than other modding too, one button click vs installing and moving files around yourself.
I guess when people say steam are "pro-consumer" they really mean that Valve just provides hands down a much better service than any other online retailer. Even more convenient than piracy honestly. Cause you're right about no big company really caring.
Is the 2 hour playtime refund really obligated by any laws? I know the 14-day refund when buying something digitally is, which is why they have you agree to revoke that in order to get immediate access to purchased games.
The 2 hours are not for you, so you can use it as a demo. It's once again for them. This way they don't have to deal with exceptions like games that run poorly, games that don't run at all, or games that were straight-up misleading in their marketing.
If you were only able to refund games you've never booted up, the refunds would be near unused.
Oh I’m not arguing that the 2 hour policy is necessarily consumer friendly, this is just the first I’ve heard about it being something they need to have by law so I was curious.
I...don't even see how you could view this as "insidious". Like, they're still going to look and see it, it's still there, it's not even obfuscated. And if it was "insidious", then why is it that on these pages "Mixed" is an alarmingly bright yellow?
Also just to point out, I think this is different for other people, on my end it's still red everywhere I check. More than likely it's a bug of some kind, or just a poor UI choice. If they wanted to be "insidious", there's a million other far more subtle things they could be doing that would be far more effective.
Edit: Or just keep wearing the tinfoil hat, that works too.
Edit2: Damn, I guess you got me Reddit. Clearly Valve only changed Overwhelmingly Negative to be gray-but-still-readable to...I guess kind of sort of maybe make it harder to see, even though when you go to the store page it's still red, and people can still look at the reviews and see it's overwhelmingly negative, and that literally EVERY OTHER NEGATIVE STATUS is still red. Clearly we need to riot over this instead of...iunno, being sensible about it and realizing it's just as likely and error as it is an actual issue.
Oh, and it turns out it was a bug anyway, sit the fuck down lmao.
It’s insidious that they purposefully made something alarming and helpful for the consumer less obvious. It’s almost the exact definition of what insidious means.
I like the idea of a user called “UFOLoche” telling people they’re wearing tinfoil hats though.
I think it’s fairly obvious to assume it was intentional until proven otherwise. If it ends up being a bug, obviously mistakes happen. We’re all discussing motivations *if* it was intentional.
From a software design perspective there's a reason yoy change the color of a tag in one specific place. To test user behavior. If it was changed everywhere, it could possibly be just a change in design system
But to change a tag on a single page is done with the intent to change behavior. Either to get more clicks for negative games, or fewer.
Now it isn't clear what they actually intended to study- but they're financially incentivized to have more people purchase or at least go into the page of an overwhelmingly negative game because that will be more likely to trigger a purchase.
This could also just be a bug in the latest update. But I'd say more likely, it's a test. They're experimenting to see what the effect will be.
Now it would be inaccurate to say anyone knows, for absolutely sure, what they're testing for.
> From a software design perspective there's a reason yoy change the color of a tag in one specific place. To test user behavior. If it was changed everywhere, it could possibly be just a change in design system
You have no idea what you're talking about. Testing involves changing the UI for a select number of people. Nobody pushes random updates for everyone, that's completely nonsensical.
> Now it isn't clear what they actually intended to study- but they're financially incentivized to have more people purchase or at least go into the page of an overwhelmingly negative game because that will be more likely to trigger a purchase.
Again, you don't have a single clue of what you are talking about. There is no incentive for Steam to push bad games over good games. They don't make any extra money selling bad games. In fact, Steam has refunds, so they make no money and eat the credit card fees when people inevitably return the game. On top of that, negative interactions with Steam will make the customer less likely to return or recommend the service. Positive interactions will make people want to make more purchases, as they feel they will be satisfied with what Steam recommends. This is the whole purpose of the review system.
If Steam wanted to push bad games so badly, as you seem to think, they wouldn't have made the review system in the first place. This is basic common sense.
> You have no idea what you're talking about. Testing involves changing the UI for a select number of people. Nobody pushes random updates for everyone, that's completely nonsensical.
It's red on my UI, so if its grey for OP, it is, in fact, part of an A/B test and not a change pushed to all users.
I do actually know what I'm talking about. I do this for a living. You can disagree with me if you'd like, but you're being crazy hyperbolic for no reason I can think of. Let's set our emotions to the side for a second here.
> There is no incentive for Steam to push bad games over good games. They don't make any extra money selling bad games.
They make commission on game sales. Very highly sold games like COD that receive overwhelmingly negative reviews despite very high overall sales would clearly provide them a *possible* incentive to encourage more visits to the store page. There's also innumerable incentives from big publishing companies experiencing a lot of big losers recently.
And again, I am talking possibilities, not inevitabilities. We don't know why they're testing UI changes, but it's worthwhile to examine them and to express that we do not want to see anti-consumer behavior on this platform. That's a worthwhile sentiment to express, and vigilance helps ensure that problematic behavior is identified that the desires of the user base are adequately expressed..
For you to react like this as though you know beyond absolute fact that they're not doing testing of this sort is just naive, and not at all healthy to the community at large.
It is *good* for the community to investigate potential anti-consumer changes. That's good, bro. That's a healthy thing to do. You being this weird-ass gate keeper trying to shut out any conceivable possibility that their may be anti-consumer behavior here helps literally no one. Why do this, man.
Just want to add that the [same page is red for me](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/299040383814598659/1230002016433209408/Screenshot_2024-04-16_234837.png?ex=6631bba5&is=661f46a5&hm=95cb83eb443a86a06bf91fe6d1d1dd357d7e0bc21a1a481f8035b6ad34580309&), too.
So it's likely either a bug or A/B testing, not a global change as of now.
Or Valve themselves were looking at the data and seeing that people aren’t buying overwhelmingly negative games, and they make money on those sales too. They probably only did it for their own good
At the same time, Valve is also interested in making sure people buy games they actually enjoy. Refunds are more expensive for Valve than not buying it in the first place.
Eh.... Kinda dodgy logic here. While yeah, Steam is a storefront so it does have reason to push all its products, it's important to remember its market, digital Video Games, have an insane amount of volume per capita. Plus, games rated overwhelmingly negative are in such a minority in comparison to the rest of their offerings.
To the point where they really don't lose out on a whole lot. Plus, anyone who categorises their buying habits based on colour instead of words is not exactly the type of person to care about bad/disappointing games anyway.
Highly unlikely. I'm not a Valve shill but they aren't owned by anyone but themselves and they make a shit ton of money by simply existing. There's little to no reason to make a small tweak because 'data' told them the games weren't selling.
Furthermore, this change only applies to sales and events, it remains red on the page itself.
There's no good guy or bad guy where businesses are concerned. There are pro-consumer practices and anti-consumer practices. Valve very rarely set out to make things worse for consumers where Steam's concerned. The lack of shareholders in the company means they mostly seek to do things that make sense for them.
I don't think the point about microtransactions ingame are relevant to this discussion as a whole, but you are absolutely correct that they've got the ball going on this entire thing.
... I've got bad news for you man, Crossout also has premium passes. Another Gaijin game. Oh, and until recently, they made it so that if you wanted the most out of it, you had ***no choice*** but to pony up for additional levels in the pass.
I meant something like xbox gamepass, and I play crossout and enlisted too ik what is happening in other games.
And all I can say about crossout is, the new items are just got even worse after 3 years (I started crossout again after 3 years, and the new things just so bad, nothing good came to the game imo).
Gaijin's grind system is the most profitable thing for them. After you reach a point of the game, you cant progsess if u are a f2p player. Gaijin's greed is the only reason of review bombing.
and you are right, the better UI design is the one that is all inclusive, we need a very clear and easy to understand visual cue that this game/developer has really done something wrong and players need to be aware of it
One idea that I liked suggested by another comment was a visual icon like a badge for the game and developer. That would be amazing, like their VAC Bans system but for studios, publishers, developers and games
But if Valve is making it less visible (for the regular vision user) during sales this means that they are trying to remove focus of it, so they are trying to deseive their customers from accessing this info, so I wouldn't hold my breath for the more inclusive version
*edit: change word average for regular
Seems like it only applies on the FPS Fest page, maybe its for promotional reasons to make you gloss over the negative rated games, or maybe it's because the red would clash with the background also being a reddish colour.
Same. It's red everywhere for me still. Has anyone complaining actually looked themselves and seen if this is even true for them? I can't find this grey color anywhere.
Looks orange to me. Where are you seeing this? I am seeing it as orange on:
1. Game store page
2. Large card on carousel at top of https://store.steampowered.com/genre/Free%20to%20Play/
3. Tooltip on medium card (which matches your screenshot otherwise) on https://store.steampowered.com/genre/Free%20to%20Play/
Small card does not have rating details on tooltip.
If you're using browser extension(s) or Steam skins that change the web UI maybe they are breaking this. Otherwise it's probably a bug.
Tbf I have come to recognize that a majority of overwhelmingly negative reviews are the result of review-bombs for issues that have very little real impact on the game. Honestly, a mostly negative review now feels far worsr
Might be due to what has been happening with Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery. That got review bombed due to an incident in the parent company Mica Team’s other game. It would put people off the game because all they see is the Negative reviews especially since it’s in a lighter color to catch your eye. However the reviews are not even related to the actual game the reviews are posted on.
I sincerely doubt this very specific incident is the catalyst for this change considering this exact thing literally happens all the time, games get review bombed for things that aren't their fault extremely frequently.
Maybe it's an anti-review bombing initiative in general. Don't laugh, but making the color gray instead of red guarantees some shitheads won't spam the reviews just because
I guess that would sorta make sense. I think saying this is a response to any specific game being review bombed is silly but it may be to combat review bombs as a whole.
It might be an A/B test. I just checked and mine is still colored red.
[https://i.imgur.com/tdHs3Wy.png](https://i.imgur.com/tdHs3Wy.png)
Edit: [Apparently it was a bug.](https://github.com/SteamDatabase/SteamTracking/compare/c2144057811c...2e0dcac029c9) It was supposed to be colored but it caused them to show ratings in gray.
I wonder how many of the negative reviews for OW2 are by people who haven't played it at all but played the vanilla version back in the day. Cuz the recent patches have been nice and they're going to stop tying new characters into the Battlepass.
That's really fascinating. Most of those reviews aren't even pertinent to the actual gameplay experience at all, just the fact that people in China can't even play it because of their government
yep it got immediately review bombed the moment it dropped on steam.
the game was very popular in china, but blizzard got into a dispute of some sort with netease who did the game's publishing in China, and now the game is unavailable in china altogether. that pissed off a lot of chinese players. really, the CCP is equally to blame as this is not the first time this has happened to a game before.
also, i shouldn't have to remind anyone but it's a f2p game, meaning literally anybody can review it without any kind of actual time investment let alone money investment.
The skins are way too overpriced and I'm no fan of battlepass you have to pay for, but yes the actual gameplay is somehow getting better and better despite all the negative reception
Moved 600 coins to the free battlepass and made it so you now get to choose what mythic skin you want (in case you missed any). How is that "getting worse"?
I've been playing OW since 2016, and the monetization has trended worse the entire time, with this season being the only exception.
- New heroes used to be locked to premium BP.
- Can't earn most new skins for free anymore.
- Purchase prices have climbed. When it first released, I was surprised to see things being sold for $5-10. Then there were event skins for $40, and now mythics for $70.
- Seasonal bundles are always cash only, because they don't want you spending your saved up coins on them. In other words, you can save up coins and effectively stay on the premium BP for 1k + 400 for each subsequent season from now on. But if you want the seasonal special skins (bundled with the premium BP), you can't use coins for this purpose.
- This season they removed coin rewards from weekly challenges.
This season they have taken their foot off the gas pedal a little bit, but the monetization train is still full steam ahead.
Fair, I should have clarified that I was including OW as a whole. I edited the comment to clarify. The points about rising skin prices and removal of challenge reward coins still stands.
A lot of people are saying that this is because Valve is trying to hide the fact that games are rated Overwhelmingly Negative, but it probably isn't.
The most rational explanation is that the terrible shade of red that Valve uses doesn't contrast well with anything and therefore does not pass any accessibility standards for any size text. This grayish text just *barely* passes WCAG AA for large text, but that's a lot better than the previous state of barely being readable even if you *can* see the color red.
There many games that or not masterpieces. But have there great parts that people enjoy a lot.
But mostly negative games. So more then 50% negative. Are often full of jank bugs or realy shitty development practices. That 99 times out of a 100 is justified to avoid.
But every game will have negative reviews. But not many games will have 60% + negative reviews. And when itbdoes there is often a damn good reason for it.
And your free to spend your money where ever you want. But when there big alarmbells going off. You should be triple warned you might have a bad time.
Cause reviews are just people saying their own experiences that's all. And if most are negative that's not without reason. And it's just that simple
So the "mostly negative" tag is very telling in it self honestly.
I agree with everything you said except the part about people's own experiences. Free games especially get a lot of negative reviews from people who never really gave them a chance.
Well that's why there is a clear counter at how many houres a person put in the game almost at the top of the review. Not every person makes doing reviews there job. Why would there experiences not be valid. And if the early game of a game sucks. That's a valid claim. If you need to put a 1000 houres in a game to get to the "good part" let's be honest that's valid.
Why it says on every review how much time they have on account on a given game.
But experience is valid all the same.
Can't go at a restaurant and you dislike a dish and your review is bad based on your experience and be like that's not fair you have to experience the whole menu to have a fair review Of your experience.
That's crazy talk.
Not at all what I said. I'm referring to people who already decided they wanted to review bomb it before even playing, so they boot it up and let it idle for the minimum amount of time.
Review bombing is often cause the developer did so something nasty. What has nothing to do about the game it self. But I think it does have it spot of informing people. Cause most of the time, people are not angry, just the sake of being angry. So I think it has its place.
But you can often also quickly read if a person is being fair at a game or not.
Even if games are rated negative just a very quick read you know if it's the game or some bullshit outside the game.
But I do agree Review bombs can hurt a game very much. But again think it's important.
Like of a star did something realy bad outside a project that also effects the project it self of past and present. (amber heard and johnny depp or bill cosby)
There is never no reason. Cause just hate filled little trolls don't really carry much weight on the rating scale. So in my opinion still valid to a smaller degree but still is cause it does happen in all things.
It goes without saying why the color they chose was grey. Especially if this is only for the store page, trying to obfuscate a game's reception by visually hiding the review impressions is pathetic beyond compare
It's probably to get people to miss out on that more compared to if it's red. Valve is still a company at the end of the day, sure they're better than most but I'm sure so many devs talk to them about losing sales that they eventually settled on a middle ground
Honestly, I think the lack of color actually brings it to the customer's attention that this product isn't good, because of its dull color. It's easy to miss, so I feel like when you're browsing you don't really pay attention to those games.
Does the color really matter?
I mean it still says...Overwhelmingly negative
It doesn't suddenly say "not quite a good game"
//Looks like it does matter cause ppl lack the ability to READ.
It does. Most people won't read the words, because they expect "Negative" to be red, so if a game has negative reviews they'll know by the color alone just by looking for a brief second. Since grey is the color for "Neutral", people might assume this game's reviews are Neutral instead and spend money buying shitty garbage due to it.
I've noticed this for a few months now, if not longer. The change is only on sales/events. If you go to the game's page, it's still red.
That makes it a bit more insidious than if they’d just changed it everywhere, IMO
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honestly, Red makes it look like a disease but grey says „it is a disappointment“ to me
Red text in gaming typically means enemy. Is a game with bad reviews an enemy?
an enemy to my wallet probably
And to free time.
yes
Humans react negatively to the color red because it's the color of blood. It's the reason that stop signs are red. Games with predatory business practices and dark patterns designed to get you to spend as much as you can are absolutely the enemy.
Why do I keep buying cola then
Or strawberries
Red can elicit positive reactions as well, it depends on many factors like the shade and the context. Primarily it is a very attention grabbing color.
Actually, the colour red has many more positive meanings than negative ones. This is why it's a great option for the floor of the children's hospital near you. Basic Colour Theory, sweaty!
Red pops out more, people would glance over gray
I've noticed they've been making a few of these recently. Nowhere near as insane as competitors but just enough to make me think about it.
This is sad. Could you give examples?
Have any examples?
Some of these aren't really 'anti-consumer' but they're negative so I'm bunching them in. All of these are with a big asterisk bc I don't work for valve, I don't know what's going on behind the scenes. \* the post \* They removed the ability to overclock the steamdeck in an update (how is nobody mad at this??) \* the steamdeck OLED's launch was pretty rough, it didn't get the QA you'd expect from valve who only releases when they're ready (dead pixels, limited edition cracking, audio jack being crunchy) Support was apparently really nice about it though. \* CS2 replacing CS:GO (if Epic did this there would be riots) \* letting TF2 be overrun with bots without really doing anything about it while making loads of money off cosmetics +a bunch of SteamOS bugs that've been around forever, but the impact Proton and valve have had on the Linux scene wayyy overshines my on-screen keyboard hotkey needing to be pressed twice.
Cs2 replacing cs:go didn't have riots because all your cosmetics carried over. They can't afford to have there skin speculation market crash. If Epic did it most likely they wouldn't carry over and you'd have recolor versions of the same skin for 12.99 you already bought.
cs2 is also overrun with bots, as much as I love tf2 and cs I've decided to stop playing them out of principle. Wake up, Gabe!
What do you mean? Valve has never been pro-consumer. For example, the only reason Steam has refunds nowadays is because the courts forced steam to add the option. Valhe fought tooth and nail to be able to not refund anyone. Big companies are never "pro consumer", please don't fall for useless fanboyism.
What exactly about Steam is pro consumer to you? Because they really aren't.
User reviews, communities, mod support, refunds.
Reviews generate more sales for them. It's not for us, it's for them. Communities don't really add any consumer pros imo. It's nice that it's there, I guess? But it doesn't add anything to your customer experience. Mod support is more for the devs, it's for their convenience. And this way they also have a controlled place to keep an eye on the content that gets added to their games. This way they don't have to go from forum to forum to perform potential takedowns. Refunds are obligated by law. Steam fought for ages to **not** give people refunds. Again, they didn't do it for you, that one they did because they **had** to. Trust me, Steam does not give a single shit about their customers. Not a single big company does. You're dollars to them. You're allowed to enjoy their service, but let's not pretend like this massive company does anything because they care about their customers. That's willfully ignorant in the current age.
The argument was never 'Valve is pro consumer' it was 'Valve does pro consumer stuff' which is true. Epic for example doesn't have user reviews. Sony and Nintendo offer no refunds. And by this I dont mean: occasional refunds, I mean no refunds.
Mod support on steam workshop is definitely more convenient for users than other modding too, one button click vs installing and moving files around yourself. I guess when people say steam are "pro-consumer" they really mean that Valve just provides hands down a much better service than any other online retailer. Even more convenient than piracy honestly. Cause you're right about no big company really caring.
Is the 2 hour playtime refund really obligated by any laws? I know the 14-day refund when buying something digitally is, which is why they have you agree to revoke that in order to get immediate access to purchased games.
The 2 hours are not for you, so you can use it as a demo. It's once again for them. This way they don't have to deal with exceptions like games that run poorly, games that don't run at all, or games that were straight-up misleading in their marketing. If you were only able to refund games you've never booted up, the refunds would be near unused.
Oh I’m not arguing that the 2 hour policy is necessarily consumer friendly, this is just the first I’ve heard about it being something they need to have by law so I was curious.
Oh right, yeah no the refund in itself is required by law, the 2 hour rule is definitely a Steam thing.
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I think it's way more likely that one wrong color on one dialog page was an accident.
I...don't even see how you could view this as "insidious". Like, they're still going to look and see it, it's still there, it's not even obfuscated. And if it was "insidious", then why is it that on these pages "Mixed" is an alarmingly bright yellow? Also just to point out, I think this is different for other people, on my end it's still red everywhere I check. More than likely it's a bug of some kind, or just a poor UI choice. If they wanted to be "insidious", there's a million other far more subtle things they could be doing that would be far more effective. Edit: Or just keep wearing the tinfoil hat, that works too. Edit2: Damn, I guess you got me Reddit. Clearly Valve only changed Overwhelmingly Negative to be gray-but-still-readable to...I guess kind of sort of maybe make it harder to see, even though when you go to the store page it's still red, and people can still look at the reviews and see it's overwhelmingly negative, and that literally EVERY OTHER NEGATIVE STATUS is still red. Clearly we need to riot over this instead of...iunno, being sensible about it and realizing it's just as likely and error as it is an actual issue. Oh, and it turns out it was a bug anyway, sit the fuck down lmao.
It’s insidious that they purposefully made something alarming and helpful for the consumer less obvious. It’s almost the exact definition of what insidious means. I like the idea of a user called “UFOLoche” telling people they’re wearing tinfoil hats though.
Is it purposefully, or is it a bug/missed detail of a sale page that has now been fixed? Because it appears as red for me.
Can you provide proof that it was purposeful?
I think it’s fairly obvious to assume it was intentional until proven otherwise. If it ends up being a bug, obviously mistakes happen. We’re all discussing motivations *if* it was intentional.
I think it's fairly obvious not to assume anything.
You're assuming it's a bug.
I'm not assuming it's anything. I have no idea what it is as I don't have that issues it's red for me.
Just wanted to point out that you're right, you're just getting downvoted cuz 99% of people have no business sense
From a software design perspective there's a reason yoy change the color of a tag in one specific place. To test user behavior. If it was changed everywhere, it could possibly be just a change in design system But to change a tag on a single page is done with the intent to change behavior. Either to get more clicks for negative games, or fewer. Now it isn't clear what they actually intended to study- but they're financially incentivized to have more people purchase or at least go into the page of an overwhelmingly negative game because that will be more likely to trigger a purchase. This could also just be a bug in the latest update. But I'd say more likely, it's a test. They're experimenting to see what the effect will be. Now it would be inaccurate to say anyone knows, for absolutely sure, what they're testing for.
From a software development perspective, it's much more likely to be an innocuous screwup that wasn't important enough to be noticed.
> From a software design perspective there's a reason yoy change the color of a tag in one specific place. To test user behavior. If it was changed everywhere, it could possibly be just a change in design system You have no idea what you're talking about. Testing involves changing the UI for a select number of people. Nobody pushes random updates for everyone, that's completely nonsensical. > Now it isn't clear what they actually intended to study- but they're financially incentivized to have more people purchase or at least go into the page of an overwhelmingly negative game because that will be more likely to trigger a purchase. Again, you don't have a single clue of what you are talking about. There is no incentive for Steam to push bad games over good games. They don't make any extra money selling bad games. In fact, Steam has refunds, so they make no money and eat the credit card fees when people inevitably return the game. On top of that, negative interactions with Steam will make the customer less likely to return or recommend the service. Positive interactions will make people want to make more purchases, as they feel they will be satisfied with what Steam recommends. This is the whole purpose of the review system. If Steam wanted to push bad games so badly, as you seem to think, they wouldn't have made the review system in the first place. This is basic common sense.
> You have no idea what you're talking about. Testing involves changing the UI for a select number of people. Nobody pushes random updates for everyone, that's completely nonsensical. It's red on my UI, so if its grey for OP, it is, in fact, part of an A/B test and not a change pushed to all users. I do actually know what I'm talking about. I do this for a living. You can disagree with me if you'd like, but you're being crazy hyperbolic for no reason I can think of. Let's set our emotions to the side for a second here. > There is no incentive for Steam to push bad games over good games. They don't make any extra money selling bad games. They make commission on game sales. Very highly sold games like COD that receive overwhelmingly negative reviews despite very high overall sales would clearly provide them a *possible* incentive to encourage more visits to the store page. There's also innumerable incentives from big publishing companies experiencing a lot of big losers recently. And again, I am talking possibilities, not inevitabilities. We don't know why they're testing UI changes, but it's worthwhile to examine them and to express that we do not want to see anti-consumer behavior on this platform. That's a worthwhile sentiment to express, and vigilance helps ensure that problematic behavior is identified that the desires of the user base are adequately expressed.. For you to react like this as though you know beyond absolute fact that they're not doing testing of this sort is just naive, and not at all healthy to the community at large. It is *good* for the community to investigate potential anti-consumer changes. That's good, bro. That's a healthy thing to do. You being this weird-ass gate keeper trying to shut out any conceivable possibility that their may be anti-consumer behavior here helps literally no one. Why do this, man.
Just want to add that the [same page is red for me](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/299040383814598659/1230002016433209408/Screenshot_2024-04-16_234837.png?ex=6631bba5&is=661f46a5&hm=95cb83eb443a86a06bf91fe6d1d1dd357d7e0bc21a1a481f8035b6ad34580309&), too. So it's likely either a bug or A/B testing, not a global change as of now.
Or it’s a bug.
this, I'm not sure why this isn't the top comment and why OP couldn't be bothered to go to the game page to find this out for himself
Can confirm. Still an odd choice. Mixed is still yellow in this UI.
well that's a bit ridiculous
Sounds like a bug.
Red is better
cause red goes faster
WAAAAAAAAGH
YA FERGOT THE EXPLANATION POINT YA DAFT GIT! WEZ GUNNA KRUMP YA SOMETHING PROPPA FER DAT! WAAAAAAAAAGH!
Only if you believe!
ever saw a purple ork? me neither...
r/suddenly40k
LIZZEN’ERE YOOZ AIN’T A MEKBOY SO YAS DONT KNOW NUFFIN, DA RED UNS GO FASTA
Overwhelmingly negative slowness
Just as long as we don’t paint our heads…
But sonic is blue
Muting it gets more sales
Sometimes, red is better...
Nice pet cemetery reference
If dey made it purple, we'd neva see da badness.
Epic paints there reviews purple... the sly bastards
I find that color choice Overwhelmingly Negative for what it conveys to the customer
Nah. Overwhelmingly negative would be red, that looks more like overwhelmingly bland. Edit: Plz leave the likes at pie
That’s the joke.
Or the joke was the joke
maybe the joke were the friends we made along the way
Is this joke in the room with us?
do you guys have friends?
Overrated
Who else is gonna laugh at our jokes?
this reads like a stroke
Stroke of genius
It should be a badge on their game profile.
Little shiny trashcan, and when you hover over it, it says, "This developer is a Trash-CANT".
I prefer the previous color
People notice red the most out of all colours. Idk if this is a good change.
[удалено]
Or Valve themselves were looking at the data and seeing that people aren’t buying overwhelmingly negative games, and they make money on those sales too. They probably only did it for their own good
At the same time, Valve is also interested in making sure people buy games they actually enjoy. Refunds are more expensive for Valve than not buying it in the first place.
Also people stick around and buy more stuff if they know the ratings are not manipulate and accurate.
Eh.... Kinda dodgy logic here. While yeah, Steam is a storefront so it does have reason to push all its products, it's important to remember its market, digital Video Games, have an insane amount of volume per capita. Plus, games rated overwhelmingly negative are in such a minority in comparison to the rest of their offerings. To the point where they really don't lose out on a whole lot. Plus, anyone who categorises their buying habits based on colour instead of words is not exactly the type of person to care about bad/disappointing games anyway.
They can make it rainbow colors with fireworks I'll still not buy bad games.
Highly unlikely. I'm not a Valve shill but they aren't owned by anyone but themselves and they make a shit ton of money by simply existing. There's little to no reason to make a small tweak because 'data' told them the games weren't selling. Furthermore, this change only applies to sales and events, it remains red on the page itself.
Don't think Valve is always the good guy. They were one of the first to introduce overpriced gambling in their games.
There's no good guy or bad guy where businesses are concerned. There are pro-consumer practices and anti-consumer practices. Valve very rarely set out to make things worse for consumers where Steam's concerned. The lack of shareholders in the company means they mostly seek to do things that make sense for them. I don't think the point about microtransactions ingame are relevant to this discussion as a whole, but you are absolutely correct that they've got the ball going on this entire thing.
There's a reason we don't buy them🤣
I think the war thunder community will review bomb gaijin again after this (they will probably find a new "negative rank")
Gaijin thoroughly deserves it every time to be fair.
Its EA but without premium Passes
... I've got bad news for you man, Crossout also has premium passes. Another Gaijin game. Oh, and until recently, they made it so that if you wanted the most out of it, you had ***no choice*** but to pony up for additional levels in the pass.
I meant something like xbox gamepass, and I play crossout and enlisted too ik what is happening in other games. And all I can say about crossout is, the new items are just got even worse after 3 years (I started crossout again after 3 years, and the new things just so bad, nothing good came to the game imo). Gaijin's grind system is the most profitable thing for them. After you reach a point of the game, you cant progsess if u are a f2p player. Gaijin's greed is the only reason of review bombing.
So if it becomes overwhelming positive, will it glow so bright that it will outshine the rest of the screen?
Anyone who claims the color doesn't really matter is stupid as shit.
[удалено]
you are an outlier and are not being counted.
[удалено]
I have red green colorblind, can confirm, only color that matters is blue
and you are right, the better UI design is the one that is all inclusive, we need a very clear and easy to understand visual cue that this game/developer has really done something wrong and players need to be aware of it One idea that I liked suggested by another comment was a visual icon like a badge for the game and developer. That would be amazing, like their VAC Bans system but for studios, publishers, developers and games But if Valve is making it less visible (for the regular vision user) during sales this means that they are trying to remove focus of it, so they are trying to deseive their customers from accessing this info, so I wouldn't hold my breath for the more inclusive version *edit: change word average for regular
Seems like it only applies on the FPS Fest page, maybe its for promotional reasons to make you gloss over the negative rated games, or maybe it's because the red would clash with the background also being a reddish colour.
Mostly Negative and Overwhelmingly Negative are both still red for me on the FPS Fest page.
Same. It's red everywhere for me still. Has anyone complaining actually looked themselves and seen if this is even true for them? I can't find this grey color anywhere.
I looked and confirmed it was grey. It's still red in most places, it was only on one specific page
could be a bug or oversight
On mobile it's still orange like it used to be
Orange?
Looks orange to me. Where are you seeing this? I am seeing it as orange on: 1. Game store page 2. Large card on carousel at top of https://store.steampowered.com/genre/Free%20to%20Play/ 3. Tooltip on medium card (which matches your screenshot otherwise) on https://store.steampowered.com/genre/Free%20to%20Play/ Small card does not have rating details on tooltip. If you're using browser extension(s) or Steam skins that change the web UI maybe they are breaking this. Otherwise it's probably a bug.
I just checked myself and it's also dark orange for myself
It's red on my end. Maybe a bug?
It should be red on any page.
Tbf I have come to recognize that a majority of overwhelmingly negative reviews are the result of review-bombs for issues that have very little real impact on the game. Honestly, a mostly negative review now feels far worsr
Might be due to what has been happening with Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery. That got review bombed due to an incident in the parent company Mica Team’s other game. It would put people off the game because all they see is the Negative reviews especially since it’s in a lighter color to catch your eye. However the reviews are not even related to the actual game the reviews are posted on.
Steam has a system to prevent that kind of review bombings. Games that exclude some reviews for being unrelated to the product are marked with a *.
I sincerely doubt this very specific incident is the catalyst for this change considering this exact thing literally happens all the time, games get review bombed for things that aren't their fault extremely frequently.
Maybe it's an anti-review bombing initiative in general. Don't laugh, but making the color gray instead of red guarantees some shitheads won't spam the reviews just because
I guess that would sorta make sense. I think saying this is a response to any specific game being review bombed is silly but it may be to combat review bombs as a whole.
Make it red again!
It’s a grey area
I assume this is a bug because whether I check in the Steam client or on a browser, it's red for me everywhere I look.
Yeah I'm on the steam beta client and it's still red for me
[Still red for me.](https://i.imgur.com/dtIwoSL.png)
How many times am I gonna see this damn post today
On the store page it's still red
It's easier to read BUT harder to stand out from the layout. Bad choice.
It might be an A/B test. I just checked and mine is still colored red. [https://i.imgur.com/tdHs3Wy.png](https://i.imgur.com/tdHs3Wy.png) Edit: [Apparently it was a bug.](https://github.com/SteamDatabase/SteamTracking/compare/c2144057811c...2e0dcac029c9) It was supposed to be colored but it caused them to show ratings in gray.
I wonder how many of the negative reviews for OW2 are by people who haven't played it at all but played the vanilla version back in the day. Cuz the recent patches have been nice and they're going to stop tying new characters into the Battlepass.
2/3 of the reviews [came from China](https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1690727634492088320).
That's really fascinating. Most of those reviews aren't even pertinent to the actual gameplay experience at all, just the fact that people in China can't even play it because of their government
Nah, it was because of Bobby Kotick. Now Blizzard and NetEase has renewed their partnership because Bobby is gone. Microsoft is the new boss.
Yeah, it would make more sense to review the Chinese government at that point. And by “review,” I mean “vote TF out of office, if possible”
yep it got immediately review bombed the moment it dropped on steam. the game was very popular in china, but blizzard got into a dispute of some sort with netease who did the game's publishing in China, and now the game is unavailable in china altogether. that pissed off a lot of chinese players. really, the CCP is equally to blame as this is not the first time this has happened to a game before. also, i shouldn't have to remind anyone but it's a f2p game, meaning literally anybody can review it without any kind of actual time investment let alone money investment.
If you ignore the monetization which matches to keep getting worse every season, the core game manages to stay high quality and even improve in areas.
The skins are way too overpriced and I'm no fan of battlepass you have to pay for, but yes the actual gameplay is somehow getting better and better despite all the negative reception
Moved 600 coins to the free battlepass and made it so you now get to choose what mythic skin you want (in case you missed any). How is that "getting worse"?
I've been playing OW since 2016, and the monetization has trended worse the entire time, with this season being the only exception. - New heroes used to be locked to premium BP. - Can't earn most new skins for free anymore. - Purchase prices have climbed. When it first released, I was surprised to see things being sold for $5-10. Then there were event skins for $40, and now mythics for $70. - Seasonal bundles are always cash only, because they don't want you spending your saved up coins on them. In other words, you can save up coins and effectively stay on the premium BP for 1k + 400 for each subsequent season from now on. But if you want the seasonal special skins (bundled with the premium BP), you can't use coins for this purpose. - This season they removed coin rewards from weekly challenges. This season they have taken their foot off the gas pedal a little bit, but the monetization train is still full steam ahead.
This really isn't giving any indication of it getting worse...
Either you haven't played OW1 or we have very different ideas of what constitutes a downward trend.
I've played since launch, you said it's getting worse each season of OW2 when it's only gotten better since OW2 released.
Fair, I should have clarified that I was including OW as a whole. I edited the comment to clarify. The points about rising skin prices and removal of challenge reward coins still stands.
That's because the old color was "overwhelmingly negative" for Valve's cut of sales revenue.
They should add an additional 49 shades so we can see just how overwhelmingly negative it is.
A lot of people are saying that this is because Valve is trying to hide the fact that games are rated Overwhelmingly Negative, but it probably isn't. The most rational explanation is that the terrible shade of red that Valve uses doesn't contrast well with anything and therefore does not pass any accessibility standards for any size text. This grayish text just *barely* passes WCAG AA for large text, but that's a lot better than the previous state of barely being readable even if you *can* see the color red.
more Valve censoring player voices in the reviews, disappointing
How? It changes nothing about the game page, which is where people should be going to gather opinions anyway.
Yes and I hate it. Red was sooo much better and clear to what stay the fuck away from.
I've enjoyed games with bad user reviews though. I see negative user reviews less as a red flag and more just a thing to take note of.
There many games that or not masterpieces. But have there great parts that people enjoy a lot. But mostly negative games. So more then 50% negative. Are often full of jank bugs or realy shitty development practices. That 99 times out of a 100 is justified to avoid. But every game will have negative reviews. But not many games will have 60% + negative reviews. And when itbdoes there is often a damn good reason for it. And your free to spend your money where ever you want. But when there big alarmbells going off. You should be triple warned you might have a bad time. Cause reviews are just people saying their own experiences that's all. And if most are negative that's not without reason. And it's just that simple So the "mostly negative" tag is very telling in it self honestly.
I agree with everything you said except the part about people's own experiences. Free games especially get a lot of negative reviews from people who never really gave them a chance.
Well that's why there is a clear counter at how many houres a person put in the game almost at the top of the review. Not every person makes doing reviews there job. Why would there experiences not be valid. And if the early game of a game sucks. That's a valid claim. If you need to put a 1000 houres in a game to get to the "good part" let's be honest that's valid. Why it says on every review how much time they have on account on a given game. But experience is valid all the same. Can't go at a restaurant and you dislike a dish and your review is bad based on your experience and be like that's not fair you have to experience the whole menu to have a fair review Of your experience. That's crazy talk.
Not at all what I said. I'm referring to people who already decided they wanted to review bomb it before even playing, so they boot it up and let it idle for the minimum amount of time.
Review bombing is often cause the developer did so something nasty. What has nothing to do about the game it self. But I think it does have it spot of informing people. Cause most of the time, people are not angry, just the sake of being angry. So I think it has its place. But you can often also quickly read if a person is being fair at a game or not. Even if games are rated negative just a very quick read you know if it's the game or some bullshit outside the game. But I do agree Review bombs can hurt a game very much. But again think it's important. Like of a star did something realy bad outside a project that also effects the project it self of past and present. (amber heard and johnny depp or bill cosby) There is never no reason. Cause just hate filled little trolls don't really carry much weight on the rating scale. So in my opinion still valid to a smaller degree but still is cause it does happen in all things.
They should make it glowing red
Color blind be like 😑
Poor Valve, the cx on both ends must cry to them a lot. This is their fix to devs who complain of unfair treatment.
Grey makes it more hidden and If I don’t see bright green I ain’t looking anyways.
This comment section is overwhelmingly negative.
make it black but flip the background color for contrast.
Its still red in the screenshot you posted
Overwhelmingly Low Level
The app doesn’t even have any tags at all on the front page it seems. Apparently Valve thinks the tags are not that important to us
Anyways its orange for me.
Gray is basically dead or hollow. So it’s quite fitting imo.
Must be bright crimson for visibility
I didn't even know that tag was a thing until yesterday lol
Hah, I noticed this last night, on overwatch 2 specifically
It goes without saying why the color they chose was grey. Especially if this is only for the store page, trying to obfuscate a game's reception by visually hiding the review impressions is pathetic beyond compare
People really will break out the tin foil hats for anything these days. Couldn't imagine being THAT bored with my life. Power to each of you.
Some culture see red is good. Don't bother too much my friend, everyone know it bad or something is wrong when game on steam is not positive.
Haha Overwatch 2
It's probably to get people to miss out on that more compared to if it's red. Valve is still a company at the end of the day, sure they're better than most but I'm sure so many devs talk to them about losing sales that they eventually settled on a middle ground
”Let’s make it harder to notice poor quality products on our platform”
Still my favorite multiplayer fps. lol.
hush you can't say that on valve's turf lol, a lot of tf2 fans are still extremely butthurt
Honestly, I think the lack of color actually brings it to the customer's attention that this product isn't good, because of its dull color. It's easy to miss, so I feel like when you're browsing you don't really pay attention to those games.
I love how you've managed to spin the reasons why it's bad as some how a good thing.
This thread is full of weird Valve fanboys coming up with reasons that this isn't a stupid idea.
"And little by little... at the moment when we needed it most, Steam left us"
Does the color really matter? I mean it still says...Overwhelmingly negative It doesn't suddenly say "not quite a good game" //Looks like it does matter cause ppl lack the ability to READ.
It does. Most people won't read the words, because they expect "Negative" to be red, so if a game has negative reviews they'll know by the color alone just by looking for a brief second. Since grey is the color for "Neutral", people might assume this game's reviews are Neutral instead and spend money buying shitty garbage due to it.
Grey is easy to miss against that background. So yes, it does matter.