Jawmuncher
Member
Steam down or is it just my app?
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STEAM | September 2016 - Good job doing previous stuff, let's do new stuff
- Thread starter MRORANGE
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TerryLee81
Member
Down for me too
dave is ok
aztek is ok
Origin bought Steam
The Dear Leader
Banned
I'll let everyone know how it's either a complete shit show or the first sign of Microsoft's takeover of PC gaming.
Dusk Golem
A 21st Century Rockefeller
Steam did in fact go down, timing~
NingenJanai
Member
down here too
Crimsonclaw111
Member
Yo it's not even Tuesday
Dusk Golem
A 21st Century Rockefeller
Back up for me as well.
The Dear Leader
Banned
It's Tuesday somewhere.
Jawmuncher
Member
Looks like it's just community down nos
AHA-Lambda
Member
Okay, so I've got a question related to that, and I totally don't know enough about Steam's backend, sooo...
Calling JaseC.
This change does disproportionately hurt Kickstarter games, due to KS devs giving Steam keys. Is it possible for devs to gift games directly to a user or set of users? JaseC's answer above says no, but we know that press accounts are gifted complimentary copies of games. Could a developer feed Valve a list of Kickstarter backers so that Valve could gift them complimentary copies of a game?
Or do I have this all cocked-up in my head?
Okay, so I've got a question related to that, and I totally don't know enough about Steam's backend, sooo...
Calling JaseC.
This change does disproportionately hurt Kickstarter games, due to KS devs giving Steam keys. Is it possible for devs to gift games directly to a user or set of users? JaseC's answer above says no, but we know that press accounts are gifted complimentary copies of games. Could a developer feed Valve a list of Kickstarter backers so that Valve could gift them complimentary copies of a game?
Or do I have this all cocked-up in my head?
Press (and Valve) accounts "purchase" items from the store at no cost, and previously publishers just elected to include their games in the Press Master sub. Valve could oblige requests to have gift copies added to inventories, or even just manually register them to accounts, but this seems like something destined for the Too Hard Basket unless it could be automated -- and even then, there would be still be the matter of verifying that the owners of the accounts actually backed the game, which Valve couldn't do independent of the developer.
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Okay, so I've got a question related to that, and I totally don't know enough about Steam's backend, sooo...
Calling JaseC.
This change does disproportionately hurt Kickstarter games, due to KS devs giving Steam keys. Is it possible for devs to gift games directly to a user or set of users? JaseC's answer above says no, but we know that press accounts are gifted complimentary copies of games. Could a developer feed Valve a list of Kickstarter backers so that Valve could gift them complimentary copies of a game?
Or do I have this all cocked-up in my head?
I'm no JaseC, but I'm pretty sure all or most press subs were phased out a few years ago with Valve telling developers to simply generate keys using the regular methods and distributing them to press entities as they saw fit. Even Valve's own "master" sub used for their employees is no longer used, meaning they presumably have to buy the game like the rest of us mere mortals or go through some internal process of generating their own keys. Or "buying" at no cost.
A developer can't generate Steam gift copies of their game, and I doubt very much that Valve would be interested in engaging with all the kickstarter developers out there in order to facilitate this in a way that would be beneficial to the developers or, ultimately, the backers.
Okay, yeah, so what I was thinking is kinda possible, just probably more effort than they want to go to, even if they do automate it. Cool... It seems like something that would actually endear Valve to developers a lot after this, though, so maybe they'll try for it? I'd like to hope, anyways, but seems unlikely.
Do you mind if I copy/paste your reply on the GIBiz article? Mind get people thinking a bit.
Booo... That sinks my hopes even further.
Also, your avatar gave me a double-take - watching Stargate Atlantis in the background.
Tizoc
Member
HEADS UP STEALTH AND TENCHU FANS
Aragami is releasing on October 4th on PS4 and PC
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1278460
http://store.steampowered.com/app/280160/
Aragami is releasing on October 4th on PS4 and PC
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1278460
http://store.steampowered.com/app/280160/
Atraveller
Banned
Playing Dawn of War 2. Does the gameplay gain much variety later in the game?
I don't think it'll happen, primarily because Valve has no way of verifying that the owners of the nominated accounts actually backed the game. It'd create something of a loophole for crowdfunded titles (I've ninja-edited this into my previous post
).Do you mind if I copy/paste your reply on the GIBiz article? Mind get people thinking a bit.
Gopher it.
I swear I've seen the BG:EE and IWD:EE on for cheaper or as cheap on gog.com. BG2 is the one you want to play if you've never played any of the games, though.
Technically, it depends on the game, but the amount of titles that don't support offline achievements would be nothing more than a rounding error at this point.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
I agree that crowdfunding is definitely a situation where developers don't exactly rig reviews, but they benefit tremendously from the launch PR associated from early external key reviews. But it is worth noting that key activations make up an extreme minority of Divinity OS's reviews, and they'd be Very Positive or higher with or without them.
There is obviously an ethical responsibility associated with presenting data. However, I think there are ways that you can make yourself more or less responsible. For example, making normative claims about what you present clearly implicates you more ethically. Presenting data selectively clearly implicates you more ethically. Refusing to comment when people draw inferences you know to be incorrect implicates you more ethically. And indeed, Valve has already commented by directly accusing developers of review-buying campaigns, they simply didn't name the developers.
Allow me to make an inference. Suppose we set aside the number of reviews, arguing that due to bundles, third-party site purchases, and yes developers giving out review keys, there are any number of innocuous reasons why the bulk of all reviews would be external purchases.
Suppose we focus only on the differences in score. To do this analysis, what we'll do is assume that one type of reviews (say, external reviews) are the honest truth, and then ask how likely the internal reviews are, given that. So, like, you know that if you flip a coin 50 times, you're going to get around 25 heads, right? So if you get 25 or 27 or 24 or whatever, you're probably going to say "yeah, that's a fair coin". But if you flip a coin 50 times and you get 2 heads, you're going to say "that's very suspicious". It's not impossible, obviously you could get 0 heads, but it's very very very very very unlikely, right? Well, the way we would calculate this is treating each coin-flip as a "binomial random variable", with a p=0.5 chance of being a "success" (heads) in each trial. Then, it's possible to figure out exactly how likely an event like only getting 2 heads out of 50 is. Well we can do the same thing for events that have a different probability. Like, suppose you have a 6-sided dice, and you roll it 50 times, and you roll 45 "1s". The probability of a 1 isn't 50%, but we can still use the same math to calculate how likely that outcome is.
Okay, so let's assume that the external reviews are the truth about the game and simply ask "given that the external key reviews are completely honest, what is the probability that we would see internal reviews be this different?".
Take the top game on SteamSpy's list--the game with the widest score differential: Simple Ball Extended Edition. With 7 internal reviews, it has a 14 percent positive review rate (1 positive review). With 51 reviews including those 7, it has a 88 positive review rate (45 positive reviews). As a result, we know that 44/44 external reviews are positive, and 1/7 internal reviews are positive. This is a problem for our assumption, because the tools of probability actually break down in cases where you get a 100% probability of something happening and it doesn't.
Let's say we do it a different way. Let's assume that the internal reviews are real, so Simple Ball above has a 14% chance of being positive. What's the chance that 44/44 external reviews are positive? 0.000000000000000000000000000000000006 percent chance. Hmm. Hmm indeed. It is very unusual that the external reviews would be so dramatic.
Take the second game: Lands of Devastation. 2 positive internal reviews of 12, 143 positive reviews total, 141/154 external reviews positive. Okay, this time we can use my original design. Assuming the external reviews are true, what's the probability that chance alone would give us such bad internal reviews. The external reviews are binomially distributed with a 92% chance of success (a positive review) What is the probability that the internal reviews were generated from the same process? 0.00000005 percent. There is a 0.00000005 percent chance that it's a statistical fluke that explains the difference between the reviews. Or we could be generous and calculate the chance that the difference is at least that big--i.e. the chance that we'd get internal reviews at least as bad? 0.00000006 percent chance. This is a thing that makes you go "hmmm".
These developers should definitely play the lottery, because the odds of winning are way higher than the odds of these bizarre statistical flukes happening. They should definitely avoid getting brought in for murder charges, because the odds of a perfect DNA match being wrong are way higher than the odds of these bizarre statistical flukes happening. These calculations, by the way, are conservative in the developers favour, because they assume that each review is totally independent of other reviews. In reality, there is a bandwagon effect for a few reasons. So the independence assumption actually raises the odds that totally divergent reviews occur by inflating the variance of the binomial process.
I'm not saying they cheated. I'm not saying they bought reviews. Who would do such a thing and what incentive would there be to do such a thing? I could never imagine why that might happen. What I am saying is that I am very certain that the internal reviews and the external reviews were not generated by the same process. Maybe that means that they're totally different groups of players reviewing the game from internal and external purchases and each has a different set of values. Maybe the reviews took place at different times and the game got patched substantially in between. But something is going on in these games and we can safely rule out that random chance is the cause of their big change in status.
Since I believe in "I report, you decide", here's a link to Simple Ball:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/487530/
Lands of Devastation:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/467560/
For Simple Ball, here is a review from the key redemption section, which is positive:
Here is a review from the purchases section, which is negative:
You can feel free to draw your own opinion about those games, and whether or not it is likely that the developers engaged in (or benefited from unknowingly) review rigging.
(BTW, you can see an example of a developer who benefits from this change if you check Elves Adventure, a game mostly reviewed from bundle keys and widely considered to be terrible. Some of the very few internal key purchases gave the game positive troll reviews--one positive review talks about wanting to drink bleach--and because there are so few internal reviews, the score looks very positive now that all of the honest and negative bundle reviews are removed. This is not a case of key rigging. It's a case of an orchestrated troll campaign working in the game's favour. LOL.)
Ucchedavāda;216881893 said:
There is obviously an ethical responsibility associated with presenting data. However, I think there are ways that you can make yourself more or less responsible. For example, making normative claims about what you present clearly implicates you more ethically. Presenting data selectively clearly implicates you more ethically. Refusing to comment when people draw inferences you know to be incorrect implicates you more ethically. And indeed, Valve has already commented by directly accusing developers of review-buying campaigns, they simply didn't name the developers.
Allow me to make an inference. Suppose we set aside the number of reviews, arguing that due to bundles, third-party site purchases, and yes developers giving out review keys, there are any number of innocuous reasons why the bulk of all reviews would be external purchases.
Suppose we focus only on the differences in score. To do this analysis, what we'll do is assume that one type of reviews (say, external reviews) are the honest truth, and then ask how likely the internal reviews are, given that. So, like, you know that if you flip a coin 50 times, you're going to get around 25 heads, right? So if you get 25 or 27 or 24 or whatever, you're probably going to say "yeah, that's a fair coin". But if you flip a coin 50 times and you get 2 heads, you're going to say "that's very suspicious". It's not impossible, obviously you could get 0 heads, but it's very very very very very unlikely, right? Well, the way we would calculate this is treating each coin-flip as a "binomial random variable", with a p=0.5 chance of being a "success" (heads) in each trial. Then, it's possible to figure out exactly how likely an event like only getting 2 heads out of 50 is. Well we can do the same thing for events that have a different probability. Like, suppose you have a 6-sided dice, and you roll it 50 times, and you roll 45 "1s". The probability of a 1 isn't 50%, but we can still use the same math to calculate how likely that outcome is.
Okay, so let's assume that the external reviews are the truth about the game and simply ask "given that the external key reviews are completely honest, what is the probability that we would see internal reviews be this different?".
Take the top game on SteamSpy's list--the game with the widest score differential: Simple Ball Extended Edition. With 7 internal reviews, it has a 14 percent positive review rate (1 positive review). With 51 reviews including those 7, it has a 88 positive review rate (45 positive reviews). As a result, we know that 44/44 external reviews are positive, and 1/7 internal reviews are positive. This is a problem for our assumption, because the tools of probability actually break down in cases where you get a 100% probability of something happening and it doesn't.
Let's say we do it a different way. Let's assume that the internal reviews are real, so Simple Ball above has a 14% chance of being positive. What's the chance that 44/44 external reviews are positive? 0.000000000000000000000000000000000006 percent chance. Hmm. Hmm indeed. It is very unusual that the external reviews would be so dramatic.
Take the second game: Lands of Devastation. 2 positive internal reviews of 12, 143 positive reviews total, 141/154 external reviews positive. Okay, this time we can use my original design. Assuming the external reviews are true, what's the probability that chance alone would give us such bad internal reviews. The external reviews are binomially distributed with a 92% chance of success (a positive review) What is the probability that the internal reviews were generated from the same process? 0.00000005 percent. There is a 0.00000005 percent chance that it's a statistical fluke that explains the difference between the reviews. Or we could be generous and calculate the chance that the difference is at least that big--i.e. the chance that we'd get internal reviews at least as bad? 0.00000006 percent chance. This is a thing that makes you go "hmmm".
These developers should definitely play the lottery, because the odds of winning are way higher than the odds of these bizarre statistical flukes happening. They should definitely avoid getting brought in for murder charges, because the odds of a perfect DNA match being wrong are way higher than the odds of these bizarre statistical flukes happening. These calculations, by the way, are conservative in the developers favour, because they assume that each review is totally independent of other reviews. In reality, there is a bandwagon effect for a few reasons. So the independence assumption actually raises the odds that totally divergent reviews occur by inflating the variance of the binomial process.
I'm not saying they cheated. I'm not saying they bought reviews. Who would do such a thing and what incentive would there be to do such a thing? I could never imagine why that might happen. What I am saying is that I am very certain that the internal reviews and the external reviews were not generated by the same process. Maybe that means that they're totally different groups of players reviewing the game from internal and external purchases and each has a different set of values. Maybe the reviews took place at different times and the game got patched substantially in between. But something is going on in these games and we can safely rule out that random chance is the cause of their big change in status.
Since I believe in "I report, you decide", here's a link to Simple Ball:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/487530/
Lands of Devastation:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/467560/
For Simple Ball, here is a review from the key redemption section, which is positive:
Here is a review from the purchases section, which is negative:
You can feel free to draw your own opinion about those games, and whether or not it is likely that the developers engaged in (or benefited from unknowingly) review rigging.
(BTW, you can see an example of a developer who benefits from this change if you check Elves Adventure, a game mostly reviewed from bundle keys and widely considered to be terrible. Some of the very few internal key purchases gave the game positive troll reviews--one positive review talks about wanting to drink bleach--and because there are so few internal reviews, the score looks very positive now that all of the honest and negative bundle reviews are removed. This is not a case of key rigging. It's a case of an orchestrated troll campaign working in the game's favour. LOL.)
Baron_Calamity
Member
Naa, I think the amount of good stuff vs crap is just mirrored of what is going on in steam. Its just when you are getting 8 games at once, its more obvious. Plus there are quite a number of decent games that are worth only a $1 or $2 instead of $10 or whatever steam is selling them so the bundles look less attractive because they are the "right price" and not such a deal.
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derExperte
Member
Lashley
Why does he wear the mask!?
NingenJanai
Member
they have their whole IT department working on it, that one guy...
It happens thousands of years after DOS 1, I think this is between Divine Divinity and Divinity 2, or maybe between DD and Beyond Divinity, I'm not sure, so don't worry about spoilers. The trailers say that The Divine is dead, and he's not a character in DOS 1.
Lashley
Why does he wear the mask!?
abracadaver
Member
Is it safe to unlock achievements now or will they not be saved online?
PLASTICA-MAN
Member
Isn't the fourth Dead Rising a remake of the first one?
oh no wonder i can't play anything online right now lol
pretty done
Member
Most games have offline support. I played Darksiders 2 Deathinitive Edition offline, and even a trash port like that had offline cheev support.
abracadaver
Member
What do you mean with offline support? Will they show up in the activity feed once the servers are back up?
pretty done
Member
I am going to side with Valve on this. There are absolutely negative things about this approach, but considering the medium and the problem, there's not currently a more efficient way to correct it.
If you browse for stuff on Amazon, especially things with tons of options (i.e. laptop covers), you come across tons and TONS of reviews that stipulate "I received a free/discounted item in exchange for my unbiased review". Of course, as someone who actually bothers to read reviews, those are instead red flags and I honestly wish I could filter those out from my results on Amazon. I've read dozens and dozens of items' worth of reviews with those "unbiased reviews" and all but one or two of the reviewers ALWAYS give 4 or 5 stars across the board, except for exceedingly rare situations.
Even if Steam adopted a policy where you had to fess up about if you got a free key, they can't enforce it, there's no way to track that. There's actually laws about it which is probably the only reason we see disclaimers at all on Amazon but in the digital realm it is rarely, if ever, upheld. That could be changing, as the Machinima now has to adhere to FTC oversight, but that's a media network, not random jackasses on Steam.
Even in more media-centric/public places, you get mixed levels of disclosure. Kripp tends to be very open about when he's doing sponsored streaming or videos, but there are other streamers who don't.
This is definitely a case of a few bad eggs ruining the batch, but the ruination isn't all that bad... yet.
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