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Sony Appears to Be Dabbling with Written User Reviews on the PS Store

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Reviewing a video game is a sacred act that previously only a select few individuals were called to, but it seems like all of that could be about to change. Reports of civilian PlayStation users being sent an email link to pen a review of a game purchased digitally have begun to trickle in. This could mean a bold future in which the unfortunately authoritarian PS Store looks more like Valve's egalitarian Steam, with reviews written for all the world to see.

On Reddit, user cusman78 detailed the occurrence in a thread in which they described being sent an email link to "write a review" on Playstation.com, specifically for Helldivers 2. For now, it only appears to work directly from the link, on the website, and for games owned digitally, in some kind of limited test. Last year, a five-star rating system was rolled out, perhaps a tentative first step.

 

[feynoob]

Should have been allowed long time ago. Tons of games have less info. A review would have been helpful, considering how awful their refund policy is.

 

[Bojji]

Should have been allowed long time ago. Tons of games have less info. A review would have been helpful, considering how awful their refund policy is.

Sony will censor those reviews for sure. They are not steam.

Edit: looks like steam will do that first, lol

News - Looks like Valve is introducing a new review system to filter out "unhelpful" reviews

Valve looks to be introducing a new filter system to help players sift out user reviews not deemed "helpful." As spotted by a member of the Steam subreddit, Valve appears to have briefly activated a "helpfulness system" that essentially hid joke or silly reviews from view. The system has...

www.neogaf.com

 

[Damigos]

Hopefully in the future we ll be able to see trophies earned for each game on the store WITHOUT downloading it

 

[Punished Miku]

Sony will censor those reviews for sure. They are not steam.

Even Xbox Store has written reviews, and they are helpful. No one should take them as 100% accurate but if you like looking at more obscure games, it's often a great way to quickly learn more about it.

 

[Bojji]

Even Xbox Store has written reviews, and they are helpful. No one should take them as 100% accurate but if you like looking at more obscure games, it's often a great way to quickly learn more about it.

Yeah it's all good stuff but I have no doubt Sony won't allow "bad" reviews. They don't want to damage relationship with publishers.

 

[BlackTron]

I actually do look at the reviews on Xbox sometimes because they are obviously, sometimes hilariously, unfiltered. But that is the first step to getting to the bottom of the truth of course.

 

[jm89]

Yeah it's all good stuff but I have no doubt Sony won't allow "bad" reviews. They don't want to damage relationship with publishers.

They aren't gonna be censoring stuff just because of a bad review.

Otherwise this is pointless.

 

[Fake]

You can't even gift another person with game. Take like ages to add favorites function. PS4 store still don't have a favorite tag.

 

[nial]

Sony will censor those reviews for sure. They are not steam.

Edit: looks like steam will do that first, lol

News - Looks like Valve is introducing a new review system to filter out "unhelpful" reviews

Valve looks to be introducing a new filter system to help players sift out user reviews not deemed "helpful." As spotted by a member of the Steam subreddit, Valve appears to have briefly activated a "helpfulness system" that essentially hid joke or silly reviews from view. The system has...

www.neogaf.com

Best. Timing. Ever.

 

[Bojji]

They aren't gonna be censoring stuff just because of a bad review.

Otherwise this is pointless.

We will see of course but my bet is that they will (or remove function all together after some time).

 

[yurinka]

Nice. But let's hope they take measures against review bombing, as seems Steam will start to do.

I think reviews from players who haven't played a certain amount of hours shouldn't count for the score. Same goes for those who put a bad review and continue playing for many hours that game.

I think it would be good that in addition to saying if you liked the game or not they'd allow you to add a handful good and bad points to allow you do things like to say "this game is great but has this handful of awful things" or the opposite.

On top of that it would ba also nice to include AI based recap of the reviews like in Amazon.

 

[Killer8]

"an review"

 

[ManaByte]

Even Xbox Store has written reviews, and they are helpful. No one should take them as 100% accurate but if you like looking at more obscure games, it's often a great way to quickly learn more about it.

This. I use them ALL the time. Very helpful.

 

[Topher]

Sony will censor those reviews for sure. They are not steam.

Edit: looks like steam will do that first, lol

News - Looks like Valve is introducing a new review system to filter out "unhelpful" reviews

Valve looks to be introducing a new filter system to help players sift out user reviews not deemed "helpful." As spotted by a member of the Steam subreddit, Valve appears to have briefly activated a "helpfulness system" that essentially hid joke or silly reviews from view. The system has...

www.neogaf.com

That's not censoring reviews.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Sony will censor those reviews for sure. They are not steam.

Edit: looks like steam will do that first, lol

News - Looks like Valve is introducing a new review system to filter out "unhelpful" reviews

Valve looks to be introducing a new filter system to help players sift out user reviews not deemed "helpful." As spotted by a member of the Steam subreddit, Valve appears to have briefly activated a "helpfulness system" that essentially hid joke or silly reviews from view. The system has...

www.neogaf.com

That's not really censoring reviews tho, it just to stop meme reviews from being highlighted too much.

 

[bitbydeath]

Sony should include the reviewers ‘time spent’ on the game too, that would help us understand how realistic the review is, and not just someone downvoting/upvoting after playing for 5mins.

 

[Frwrd]

Sony should include the reviewers ‘time spent’ on the game too, that would help us understand how realistic the review is, and not just someone downvoting/upvoting after playing for 5mins.

I want to add a bit to this.

It should show the amount of time spent in game/percentage of game completion *at the time* of said review.
I believe that would help quite a bit when taking into consideration whatever it is being said about the game.

Also, reviews like "gAymEz ThRaSsH, giT eXbOx bEtTer" or whatever the fuck these bozos write nowadays should be completely disregarded in its entirety from the system, and this should apply to every platform available, Xbox, Nintendo and PC.

These lame-ass virgins losing their shit over a fucking videogame platform and going to great lengths in order to cause some damage control or review bombing a game just because it's on "the competition's" platform is some of the stupidest shit anyone can do.

 

[Esca]

Good. I use steam reviews a lot for those games that just don't have much info about them and they help a lot asking with the 2 hours to play before requesting a refund

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

 

[ManaByte]

Sony should include the reviewers ‘time spent’ on the game too, that would help us understand how realistic the review is, and not just someone downvoting/upvoting after playing for 5mins.

Oh now we want to protect against review bombing.

 

[Fake]

They probably gonna edit some reviews thats for sure.

 

[[Sigma]]

Yeah I received an email requesting that I make a small review of Helldivers 2.
I have over 500 hours in the game. However it wouldn't let me actually review it and instead ask me to choose an edition. Like ratings, physical owners are left out.... or so it seems unless it's bugged for some games as some people who claim to have physical versions of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth said they could.

 

[EDMIX]

I think reviews from players who haven't played a certain amount of hours shouldn't count for the score.

I agree. I think it should only be open after a certain amount of time or after 50% or more of the game has been completed, like a trophy check point or something.

Same goes for those who put a bad review and continue playing for many hours that game.

Well....I don't really agree with this so much.

Someone can put a bad review of a game and then continue playing, as you must still factor we are talking about video games here.

They can have a house hold with lots of people playing that same system. So someone who put in that review could be different then family member that is playing it or something. So I feel your first point is solid, an amount of time or getting to some point of playing the game should open up reviews, but playing after shouldn't remove a review that is bad.

Someone can still play a game they gave a 2 out of 5 or something for lots of hours, merely means what they feel they are playing isn't really 3 stars or more, that doesn't not actually mean playing it opposes their point or negates it or anything of the sort. I've said this before btw, I play lots of games that are clearly 6/10 or 7/10 and that is completely fine, I rarely play a 9/10 or 10/10 game.

So If i'm buying like 14 or so games this year, maybe 2 of those games are 10/10 or 9/10, I'm still playing lots of hours of those games I feel are not perfect scores.

So playing 100 hours of something by default simply cannot be this idea of ineligible for bad review.

For all you know, they normally play lots of RPGs that are long, but that doesn't mean all RPGs completed are good. Playing something is not conceding to some opinion on a score, as you could play a game you know is a 4/10 and complete it.
I mean, after all, I completed Cyberpunk 2077 =) lol

 

[LavitzSlambert]

Any other features we can get back? Sick of this "move fast break things" mentality that has simple features on the chopping block, backwards progress every new generation.

 

[Dirk Benedict]

Nothing burger. Why bring it out now? When a lot of other platforms are censoring comments... I wouldn't expect this to last long, but I would LOVE to be proven wrong, in the long term.

 

[PixelatedBeast]

Valve better watch out! Psn store coming for that top spot after they add a new refund policy...

 

[Zathalus]

Valve better watch out! Psn store coming for that top spot after they add a new refund policy...

Still missing dozens of features for it to be that good.

 

[yurinka]

Valve better watch out! Psn store coming for that top spot after they add a new refund policy...

Sony already has a proper refund policy: when you buy some game or dlc that doesn't work they refund. Happened to me twice, one of them without asking for it.

To allow player refund any game without any reason and with a two hours limit that Steam doesn't verify and allowing players to abuse the system using it to play games for free isn't a refund policy. Valve is the one who should fix their refund policy.

Publishers devs lose on average 15-20% of their "70%" cut of Steam revenue because of refunds, which is insane compared to the other storefronts.

 

[fart town usa]

Even Xbox Store has written reviews, and they are helpful. No one should take them as 100% accurate but if you like looking at more obscure games, it's often a great way to quickly learn more about it.

For sure. I really hope Sony gets this for all games. It'd be super helpful for tiny games and PSVR2 games. Many VR games are review bombed, most games improve due to patches though. It'd be nice to potentially see reviews from people who know the current state of the game.