What are your thoughts on developer's review/forum corruption?

Besides all the times I have read in forums, reviews, or even sometimes articles- it seems extremely common for developers to take negative reviews extremely personally. To the point of acting irrationally, unfairly, or in extremely biased manners.

I have seen this not once, not twice, but a boatload of times. However many a boat can fill, my point is clear: It happens a lot. In my perception (which could be exaggerated) it happens more often than not.

What will happen is this:

1. User will write negative review or post a negative comment in their Steam Discussion.
2. Developer will ban user from forum. (Censorship & Punishment).
3. Developer will petition Steam to remove negative review. (Censorship).

#1 can be criticism, complaint, dissatisfaction, or even sometimes a user replying to another person's question "Should I buy this game?" with a "No, because...[insert their reasons]
It's not just all these small time indies either. Even developers like Shroud of the Avatar are accused of this stuff. One criticizing post, or even just one total post count, and they're banned permanently with or without warning.

And even if you believe that it is justifiable for someone to be permanently banned for writing a bad review or posting a negative thread... in some reviews I even read people claiming they never even posted & are banned for their review (Developer going out of their way to prevent them from EVER posting, since they had a negative review). IMO, it is never justified to ban anyone for speaking out. Silencing people is horrible, and should never happen to any legitimate user. By legitimate, I mean anyone who isn't simply spamming Cash4Gold / WorkFromHomeGetRichQuick spam. Even insulting users should not be silenced, as there is any developer can simply say whatever they want is "insulting" or "harassment". And we all know how thin-skinned many users can be. (Recently I was accused of harassment by a mod because I reported them to the administrator for having inappropriate behavior. Only the admin/mod could see this personal message to the admin, so he made the judgement "Reporting me is considered harassing me." A great example of this slippery slope interpretation of "breaking the rules" to justify a ban.)

If you google the issue, tons of things pop up. It's all kinds of games too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/2q89cv/dead_state_developer_trying_to_get_critical/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/2m8fav/lifyo_development_team_censoring_negative_critic/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/3xc2u6/indie_developer_permanently_banned_me_for_posting/

It is even so bad in the "community" that people have begun to immediately jump to conspiracy theories on some products (which is reasonable theory when this is an actual problem developers do consistently.)

or ranting about how scum-bag developers participate in this behavior

and

users being banned for linking to threads which point out corruption


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As a gamer, this disturbs me.

As a developer, this is embarassing.

As a moral developer who wants to hold higher standards in the gaming industry, this infuriates me.

However, this level of censorship can even extend beyond a single video game and directly effect businesses themselves. What if a website where you host your devblog were to ban you because they dislike your game, your attitude, your posts in another part of the community, or simply for no reason other than the mod is in a bad mood? A single permanent ban from a forum where you have 10k+ views on your devlog could hurt you financially. And what can you do to retaliate? Nothing. You are powerless. And are there people there to protect you or defend your right to have a fair, unbiased judge or reasonable (not excessive) punishment? Rarely. Usually the mods are not only highly susceptible to circle-jerk (loving one another's actions & being good friends with each other- thus not having any checks or balances) but also sometimes there is only 1 or 2 there anyway. So good luck with that.

Yes, this doesn't happen often. However, it's a possibility. The fact it is possible is very scary, especially when some of the same people in authority are known for being corrupt, biased, or irrational SJW's. What if your game pissed off a SJW's feelings of what is "right", and that SJW was the mod of a popular site you host your devblog on? You may be censored from that site.

Yet as Edmund Mcmillen pointed out when talking about IGF judges, the indie scene is quite small & very clique-y. The same people are often involved everywhere and know one another. What if these people were BFF's across multiple major indie sites, competitions, etc., and all were in agreement that your game or person was offensive? That your game should be censored? That could bankrupt some indies who don't have a marketing budget. Just food for thought.

---------------------------

The entire idea of censorship for both users & developers disturbs & infuriates me. Both as a gamer, and as a business owner.

This may not be the biggest issue in the gaming industry, but IMO any form of corruption is bad for both gamers & even more so for developers.

It also makes you think: Why not also remove the positive reviews that aren't "real reviews"? Only the negative ones are reported for not being "a real review".

What are your thoughts?

 

I think you're making a mountain out of molehill.

The "corruption" is rare and infrequent event.
When developers have section dedicated to the game, they're the ones making the rules there. In steamcommunity a lot of active users are downright insane, so banning them would probably be the right course of action.

You can launch your own website for your own product.and use your own rules there.

 

As a general rule be nice to mods. You are entering their world on the forums. And they choose to let you play. Treat them with respect and you'll do fine.

The Internet has a ton of places you can comment and post reviews without censorship. Try those instead.

 

I'd rather let the gamers speak. I'm not in the slightest bit interested in dev politics.

 

I would be interested in what these posts are that the Mods are deleting. Is the poster being crude or disrespectful? Are they legitimate posts from people who actually bought or used the product?

I think a lot depends. I have had posts deleted from Steam from a developer who sells items here. It is not fun..but to be fair, it was an item that is also sold on steam as well as elsewhere, and I did not buy it on Steam.

So..I don't know...maybe Steam should not allow posts from people who bought the game elsewhere if they are going to allow them to be removed.

 

It all depends I guess. If a person is simply writing "Not worth it! For $1 yes but not for $10" and then gave an accurate list of reasons... I don't think deleting or banning for that is right in any way.

But from what I see on Steam is many of the users are like bloodhounds. They will post some flaming comment. It gets deleted. Then they post about their comment being deleted. That gets deleted. Then they post again about OMG you deleted my last 2 comments. And I see that like well idiot, stop commenting then. Are you on a personal crusade to bring the dev down or what?

So... I think a person needs to be careful in jumping to one conclusion or another. There are some devs clearly in the wrong. There are some users clearly in the wrong. If people learned how to be civil in general we'd probably see less cases of deleted comments and bans.

 

I loosed one minute of my time reading this post , i could better invest it

 

It depends. If you're talking about huge studios, they pay money for reputation. Millions of money. You think it matters to them if someone gets angry vs 5 people read bad review? You think what you wrote matters to them even a little? The only care what general user would see. If you don't want that, start your studio, grow into AAA and fight them in gamedev field! That's like only way of doing it right.

Another case: someone wrote a review "You're **** in **** and your game is ****". Deleting it caused effect written by GarBanjamin. Now I want to ask you same thing reversed: Don't you feel embarassed as gamer? Doesn't it distrubs you as developer? Don't you get angry as moral human?

Summary: it all depends on who moderates. Moderation in moderation is good, but who can control moderator?

 

Well sometimes users will write reviews to criticize things, that were never advertized in the first place. I've seen it happen. Other times it's competitors buying a product just to leave a bad review. Other times reviewers are not criticizing the work of the maker, rather than his personal integrity (which in some cases makes sense, but is walking on a fine line aswell) -- all good reasons to delete posts.

Of course some people just can't handle critique and will delete virtually anything that says something even remotely bad about their product, but when someone gets perfect reviews only, you pretty much know, it can't be.

 

Yeah that one bit about competitors. That is the dark side on the Indie thing. I remember someone posting on these forums about receiving messages to remove the bad ratings if they paid x amount and so on.

It's crap like that from all of the obsession over money that I dislike. And never seen that kind of thing until the last several years. At least not nearly to the degree. Basically brought a bunch of low life people into this sector who previously never considered it.

 

I've deleted abisive comments from my YouTube channel. Comments that say 'this didn't work for me' are fine, I leave them up. They get drowned out by the comments on the tutorial itself.

But comments that are actively abusive? Nobody needs to see those.

 

I just moderate with the ideal of "does this post negatively affect other users?" - so a loudmouth which might intimidate other users is not welcome, but someone who has strong opinions who isn't affecting other users is perfectly fine by me.

 

No, no, and no.

The user has no power, so it doesn't effect me one bit. My problem is when those with power use it against the powerless, censorship in general, etc. A user cannot censor a developer. A user cannot ban a developer.

Except in the case I proposed. When a user does have power over a developer, then yes, yes, and yes.

It's all about that corruption. If they have no power, they cannot abuse it.

Exactly, definitely agree.

 

This is simply not true. Uncommon? I could concede that. Rare? Absolutely not. I see this in a large portion of steam discussions or reviews.

It is so frequent and common, it is easy to find post after post of people making these claims. All different games. All the links I found were easy to find, with plenty more if you look.


Overall, this entire thread is very disturbing. It is really worse than I thought. I do appreciate all the honesty though. I imagined there would be more 'gamers' here than 'developers', although in hindsight the replies all make sense. I think it is easy for people to lose sight of what it is to be a gamer when they become a developer, since being a developer comes with tons of knowledge and insight into what it truly means to make a game. Our views change so much, from "Just press the 'Make MMO button'" to "Wow, making even a simple game is extremely difficult."

IMO, deleting that negative review, or any form of censorship, is bad for gamers and good for developers. When developers hold the power to censor, abusing that authority is easy. Humans are so easily corrupted, and so I have strong beliefs against all forms of censorship. Even when I disagree with them, I don't want them censored.

 

A user can spitefully run a developer out of business just because they want to. Not for any valid purpose. Also essentially, the store is the developer's store. If you go into a high street store, and start shouting, you'll get removed. This does not mean you can't complain elsewhere though.

It's bad for gamers if it's done with malice as the developer probably will be affected by it and then so will the gamers.

It's wrong to give gamers full power and wrong to give developers full power. Nobody forces someone to buy a game, decide they dislike it and leave a trail of hate. That's not welcome at all.

 

I don't want to read abusive reviews. Nor do I want my kids to read them.

Why do you think there are so many people out there who send abusive, trashy reviews or IM's or post in forums? They do so because it is becoming part of the culture!!

Bash the game because the developer didn't listen to your idea and didn't put it in the game. Call him all kinds of nasty names because well..it makes the guy feel more powerful.

Bash the other gamers because they don't play the way you do. You should see some of the really vile, nasty and sexual, and otherwise, just frightening messages I get as a role player.

Scream at the person who posted a good review because..well, they are wrong, you are right. Throw in a few choice swear words.

Completely forget that the person behind the computer screen is a human being, and that abuse is not always directed toward the developer, but anyone who might disagree.

Often, the verbal abuse involves racism, sexism, homophobic attitudes, slurs against anyone different. Sorry, but when we excuse this due to the "danger of censorship" we help to create a very negative and damaging environment. We teach our kids that they can verbally abuse others, that it is okay, as long as it is in typed words.

No...I don't want that. I don't expect angels in a gaming forum, but I do believe that the moderators AND the developer have a right to delete such posts.

I agree that just not "agreeing" or "strong opinions" are fine and even a very good thing! But abuse, no. Ironic to me..the statement about "humans are so easily corrupted". Corruption also comes from looking the other way while people are abused with words. We become a community where we can treat each other with disrespect and that is okay.

Added..if I have a game on steam, I will delete those posts. I don't want those people in my game.

 

You are on a developers forum...

 

Well, and just because we are both gamers and developers, it doesn't mean we can't see through the haze. I never felt differently as a gamer about this issue than I do now as a developer.

 

It is rare. Large numbers. Divide number of of censored posts by total number of posts left concerning the product. Resulting percentage will be waaaaay lower than 1%. You'll be looking for 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10000s.

What you're experienceing is an effect similar to "vocal minority". When a small group or an insignificant event, given enough exposure, creates impression of being big or significant.

Assuming that someone who disagrees with you is in "evil developer camp" is not the right idea.
Most people that post here are both developers and gamers.

IMO, that event has zero significance. If the game is VERY bad, few deleted reviews won't change the situation. People will still find out that the game is bad and the information about that will spread through outlets beyond developer's control. However, as a developer you'll want forum dedicated to your game to be nice and friendly. So if you have some psycho crusading against you, then banning him will be the only right choice.

Speaking of hostile reviews.... metacritic bombing became a frequent event, to the point where reviews became completely unreliable. One sufficiently crazy person can actually tilt (or attempt to tilt) the review average, via power of multiple accounts.

Reviews those days are incredibly unreliable, and due to the number of nutcases on the internet in general, it became very hard to adequately gauge game quality. So, when dev bans few dozen of users, it is hardly surprising and it is hardly important.

 

How?

 

You have clearly lost sight of the fact we are gamers first. Many of your posts reflect this. Unless you make games but dislike playing them? Then I guess it doesn't matter (can't lose something if you never cared to have it. Then you're just a businessman, and no one would complain you are treating it exclusively like a business.)

For all the other posts users have made, we'll have to agree to disagree. I feel strongly about censorship, but clearly othera here do not. Not much to discuss. I am just disappointed when developers forget they are gamers. We should be gamers first and remember what it is like to be on the outside.

I will end this discussion, because it seems those who are continuing to participate are entirely lacking in understanding of the entire point. (ex. Slippery Slope, relative perception & developer bias as to what consittutes "insulting" or "poison" or "inappropriate"). It seems everyone is under the assumption that if banned or censored, they were 100% deserving of said censorship. That under no circumstance do any legitimate reviews or legitimate criticisms get censored. That somehow all who are found guilty, are entirely deserving. Hell, one person here is in denial the problem even exists, so why argue?

Here is my end piece:

-----------

This is a discussion of ethics and the implications of not holding people accountable for corruption. It is unethical to censor people who have legitimate criticisms or complaints. When you allow an authority figure to ban anyone they want for any reason they want, then it becomes dangerous (in the context of unethical censorship).

By allowing the censorship of "the bad apples", you allow corruption. At any moment, the authorrity figure could target a legitimate review or a legitimate, civil criticism, and exert their power over them to censor their content. When asks, they need only say "It was poisonous" or "I found it insulting". The developer could act in an uncivil manner, then when receiving a response reply "I banned them for being uncivil." Or in the real case I presented in the OP: Declare that reporting an authority figure to a higher authority constitutes harassment, and thus is a bannable offense (which is just a lame way of censoring those you dislike).

Where this is mostly happening is not on the developer's website or their store. It happens on Steam. A company which mutually benefits from said censorship. A company which holds the power, and then gives that power to the developer which alleviates guilt from any corruption. "WE didn't act in a corrupt manner. We empowered developers, and THEY were corrupt." They can deny any wrongdoing if it ever happens (as they have done) but do nothing to prevent this because it benefits them to allow it.

 

Really? Unless we are okay with rude, crude, unhelpful, nonconstructive criticism on a review/discussion board, so much so that we don't think it should be deleted, we have forgotten how to be gamers?

I know you are not the definitive word on this so not too worried about it. Gamers come in all flavors, as do developers.

But first and foremost, we are human beings and if we don't get why others should not be abused, then we have forgotten something, but it is not that we are gamers.

Besides...there is no freedom of speech on a private forum.

 

Through spreading bad reviews, posting negatively anywhere they can, perhaps running a stresser constantly at the dev's website or database hosting, in the case of app stores, use as many devices as they can to download and negatively rate and review the app... there are a huge number of ways a hellbent user could try to sabotage a game. Might not work, but then again it might have enough of an impact on a smaller company to quite literally put them out of business!

 

What about the "Censoring legitimate reviews or civil criticism"? I truly do not understand this. Most in this thread seem to be under the incorrect assumption that the only people censored are those who are incredibly toxic. And what of the slippery slope?

This is exactly my point, and potential for a huge problem for the industry (censorship, deceptive practices, unethical treatment). As much as people want to gloat "These are private companies.", they have a moral obligation to not treat their consumers in unethical ways.

Negative reviews & low metacritic scores do not do much to actually hurt games. WAR Z is a perfect example of this. It has one of the worst metacritic scores of all time and was abhord as a huge scam, broken game, and horribly unethical business practices. It even had a deceptive name change. However since Steam perpetuated this, combined with its high marketability, it made something like $42 million. So much for metacritic scores, game journalism, or personal reviews.

In fact, all the bad press they got from scamming people resulted in an INCREASE in sales. There is no such thing as bad press. So anytime someone goes on a personal crusade against a game, they are more likely to increase sales because they are giving the game bad press. There is no such thing as bad press, so it's just more exposure. (WAR Z is not the only example, but it's a great one with evidence to back it up.)

In the end, a single user is powerless even if they were to go on a personal crusade to hurt a small company. How many people truly care what some nameless guy thinks of some random video game? Even if they weer able to negatively effect a business, they would be quite powerless and unless they obtained more power (became a collective, got support from someone with power like a blog, journalist, or youtuber) then they could certainly do very little damage to a developer.

 

This may be true in that case, but in general, and considering games which haven't gained enough traction to become a "success", there is definitely an impact, and not a good one, from a pile of bad reviews. Bad reviews on google play, especially ones that get pushed into the featured section are devastating to games which desperately need to gain downloads fast to get into the higher rankings of "new" apps, and can infact have a severely negative impact on chances of a user downloading the app - even if the review isn't true!

PS post number 999 boutta crack the 1k mark... better shut up a while haha

 

If I understand you correctly, your argument then is "Powerless users can sometimes negatively effect powerless developers." In which I must say: Of course I 100% agree.

My problem is not when the struggle of power is equal or balanced. My problem resides exclusively when one side has all authority (all power) and the other side is powerless. That, and censorship in general. (And of course the underlying problem in the industry, where all authority is given to private companies, not public ones. Even this forum is run by a private entity who could, at whim, ban & delete all devlogs, forums, etc. You are at their mercy. The obvious solution being a "public" website or a private community run with full intention of remaining entirely neutral, blind, or simply not participating but merely facilitating. No such site exists, as all seem to have some form of moderation and thus some capacity for corruption.) BUt that's a completely different topic, and a problem in our society in general (imagine if google just deleted everything and "quit" the internet completely. Even governments would be effected.)

Congrats on the 1k mark!

 

No, a small user can cause untold trouble, particularly as it's often far too expensive to get them to stop. They can report your google content, they can spread lies, etc... this is preposterous and nonsense for a big developer, but an indie? Indies are often individuals, and yeah, it's possible for one individual to cause a lot of problems for another. Ultimately sales will suffer. I mean Phil Fish gave up, even if his sales didn't.

I think you're severely underestimating what people can do. If the game really is at fault, it only takes a single reddit to cause a lot of problems, and those easily blow up with just a few people complaining. If it's just one discordant voice, then perhaps there isn't a problem with the product.

 

Err...

Imagine you've come to someone house as a guest, and start loudly criticizing house decor and inhabitants.
Then you write review of the house (and inhabitants) on nearby wall using permanent marker.
Chances are you'll be removed from the house and your review will be erased.

Same thing applies to any forum. It is their place, their forum, they own it, they're the one making the rules. If you misbehave, you'll be removed.

Here's the thing.

Freedom of speech is often misunderstood. It only protects you from government reacting to your statement, but doesn't make you immune to reaction of individual people and private companies.
You go to private company's forum, you play by their rules, because the forum is their property. And yes, you can be permanently removed from there because of something you said/posted.

Morality and ethics are subjective thing. Therefore, you can't really use morality or ethics to justify anything.

Instead, you have agreements and local laws.

When you sign up to any forum, you accept EULA of some sorts. And said eula grants host of the forum permission to remove you for any reason whatsoever. You agree to that, when you sign up, on pretty much any service.


So, the bottom line is, if you want a soapbox, you need your own website, or your own blog. In THAT place, you can freely express your opinion.

 

Great point on Phil Fish and a single user (or a few) demoralizing a developer into quiting. (Although most find that silly in the first place, it IS a very valid point.)

The reporting of serious legal issues is also a huge issue, especially with places like Youtube (major players being banned for 3x infractions, at the whim of youtube). Although that is another issue entirely (and not all disconnected from the problem in the OP).

However I have never seen any evidence that negative reviews in any way harm developer's sales. I have, however, seen empirical evidence of the OPPOSITE. That even "bad press" is good. Evidence to support the truth of "There is no such thing as bad press."

But I already conceded that a powerless user could do damage to a powerless developer. In that case, I have no problem with the circumstance. It is when the powerless are censored by the powerful. (A powerless developer having to account for their unethical actions is great! A powerful developer doesn't have to account for them though, because the powerless user has no power against them.)

In the end if there is anything I have learned studying games and how they sell, (excluding mobile, as I have no study in that market) it is irrelevant what the reviews are. A game sells based on how good it is, who is releasing it (Bethesda/Blizzard titles will sell no matter what), when it releases & what time it releases, and how marketable it is or its marketing budget/strategy. Even game journalists are mostly powerless to stop bad devs, and only help them when creating "bad press".

TLDR: Agreed. A powerless user's "power" diminishes very quickly as the developer increases in power. But just because powerless developers get punished (assuming they do), that doesn't make it okay for the powerful to get away with unethical treatment.

 

You could make the same argument when defending Pay2Win games, scams like WAR Z, or even child molestation.

Thankfully we have a general consensus (most would agree) that it is unethical to ban users for creating legitimate criticism or appropriate, accurate negative reviews.

Also, there is no need to be pretentious, explaining that "freedom of speech is often misunderstood". Most of us are fully capable of understanding freedom of speech. Although I found this comment strange when I am taking a stance of "Don't censor people." and didn't even mention freedom of speech. I replied to a statement about the lack of freedom of speech, talking about censorship, deception, and unethical treatment. The acceptance that "FoS" doesn't exist implies understanding of it- otherwise I would appeal to the US government rather than to indie developers. (Hence why it seemed pretentious to explain such a thing. And if you don't mind- with that, I will use the ignore feature on you now. That is something I am strongly in favor of. Instead of bans (censorship), there are great solutions to the problems that remain by protecting speech. If someone is toxic, a developer can simply hit "Ignore" rather than "Ban". Problem solved without censorship.)

 

Might I also remind others here that reviews of video games are NOT meant to be constructive criticism for the developer. They are meant to share the user's thoughts and opinions on the game; To be read by other users who are interested in buying the game.

The developer has absolutely no connection to the reviews themselves. They are not required to read them, nor are they meant to. To contact a developer, that is what comments, emails, or forum PM's are for.

So if a Review states "This game is S***ty, boring, and made by what seems like a crappy developer. I do not recommend!" that is an appropriate expression to other users what they think. So why does anyone believe this justifies a ban, even if they used those horrible "curse words"? And if they are banned for using curse words, then why are positive reviews like "This game is F***ing AWESOME!" not also banned? Why do arbitrary rules only apply to negative reviews, but not positive ones? This is my point, and something I feel should be reiterated. How can a review be "toxic" or "poisonous" if they are exclusively for the consumer, not the developer?

 

Actually, no. Developer is actively interested in keeping community polite and friendly.
So default reaction to toxic behavior is ban. Because toxic people will attract wrong kind of public to the community and scare away anybody decent.

 

I am with @CarterG81 on this one. Censorship of ANY kind is bad and only those who spam with scams should be banned. If I ever read any "abusive" comments on my game, I'll only write "I'm sorry you're feeling this way" or something to that extent. Win for me, because no one can say I'm censoring people AND I'm coming out as a good person on top of that, while abuser comes as huge jerk he is where my sane and friendly replies only help underline that.

You can't get trolled if you don't let yourself get trolled - trolls when replied with polite, friendly replies first get pumped up, post ever more to try and get rise out of you and then, when you continue to answer them politely they're ragequitting, while showing themselves to the world as huge a-holes. It's as much fun to do as it is to watch, by the way. Dealt with many trolls in that manner. Fun times.

 

I guess it would depend on the personality of the dev and how much time they sunk into there project. But I looked at the screenshot about deadstate, and I see that the user played the game for 84 hours and he told people not to buy it... Because he as a user disagrees with them finally releasing there own game. How long were they supposed to work ones here on game for even after its no longer profitable

I mean maybe by kicking the game out of early access it will get a boost in sales and allow them to get an injection of cash they might need in order to finish up the game.

 

Could you perhaps list what developers get away with unethical treatment as last I checked, nobody's got away with it.

 

Speaking of censorship...

 

Yeah works both ways. You inserting images into your text in order to swear on this forum is not clever is it? That's not censorship, it's removing materials you posted, that you agree not to when you participate in these forums.

 

Word starting on the letter S, noun for a fecal matter is not by any means a swear. Not by a long shot, @hippocoder.

 

What do you mean nobody's got away with it?

I already mentioned one of the worst offenders in gaming history. There are also thousands upon thousands of arguments online about ethics in the gaming industry. Everything ranging from Pay2Win, whales, purposefully lying to consumers, literal scams (Got your money, but no game!), sexism & the objectification of women, corporate greed, tons of ethics relating to business in general (which transcends gaming industry, but includes it), copyright infringement, shameless cloning, piracy, etc. I even listed a personal example of corruption that no one would argue against. (Imagine if I reported a Unity mod to the Unity admin in a private message, and then was banned by the mod I was reporting, for "harassment" of himself, with the only "harassment" being that PM reporting the mod to the admin.) There are even articles coming out at this very moment with accusations that a kickstarter dev is being sued by his ex partners who spent all their money on booze & strippers.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of topics on ethics. If you want to pretend that the only unethical thing is whatever you want it to be at the moment, that's fine.

However what am I to do? Give you an exhaustive list of easily found accusations like I did in the OP? Give you a perfect example like I did with Sergey Titov? Point out there are entire subreddits surrounding the topic of censorship & corruption in the game industry?

To say nobody, not even a single perrson, has got away with anything unethical, is absolutely ludicrous (even for someone who has a very loose definition of ethics).

 

Do you have articles/proof? I mean I'm not aware of any small developers/indies who *have gotten away with it* rather than being brought to task over it?

Genuinely interested as it seems to me that if you know about it, they didn't get away with it.

 

Ugh, I'm out. Forgot to put on my tinfoil hat this morning. Good luck guys.

 

I honestly am having a hard time understanding what you mean / how you define some terms. What defines "unethical" for you? What defines "gotten away with it"? If someone was accused of it, they technically didn't "get away with it", even if the accuser is powerless to do anything but speak out off-site. If they truly did get away with it (deleting a negative review with no accusations, no statements, and truly silenced the user.) then there would be no evidence.

So I'm really not sure what you want. My best advice is to simply google some of the bad stuff Titov did (which includes accusations of deleting comments, banning users, etc. This guy did pretty much everything possible unethically), or click some of the links and try to find some games that may have one of the worst offenders, go into the Steam reviews, and skim them to read about people being banned for their negative reviews (even when not posting).

It takes a bit of research, but if you're interested, it won't take long before you begin to find the accusations (and then, some proof). Although the "proof" part is a little more difficult for comments, since if they are deleted they don't exist anymore. The reviews usually aren't deleted though, so that's where you'd want to look.

 

I said this:

The slippery slope goes both ways. The more we allow reviews or any other public forum as a place to abuse others or to extort money in return for removing review or demanding payment for good reviews, and the more competitors use reviews as a place to knock out a developer, the more we go down another slippery slope.

Do you really read the reviews and trust them these days? No..you read between the lines. You eliminate those that seem to be a personal whine, or those that are obviously based on user error, or those that make it obvious they never played the game. You also probably weed out those that say stuff like "Amazing!" and that is all.

Instead, you look for the ones that are meaningful, detailed, and often constructive. Those are the ones that you use to make your choice on whether to buy the game or not.

Of course, remember, there are dozens of other places to get information other than the Steam forums. In this age of information, we are inundated with everyone's opinions, good or bad. They mean a lot less to us now they they used to in the past.

Today, my kids watch Youtubers whom they respect and that is how they make decisions on games and books and music. They rarely read forums. I read Amazon reviews before buying products...and I toss out most of them because they are just stupid....what..can't figure out how to turn on the coffee pot?

I am as liberal as they come, trust me...but I don't see censorship of Game forums as the next big problem. There are plenty of more serious issues out there today.

Now..if you are worried about people being able to march on Washington to speak their mind, or the newspapers spreading propaganda, the government being able to get our library cards or check which books we read, well then...yeah, we can talk.

 

Yeah, I somehow missed that one. lol

 

There is no reason to be pretentious or needlessly insulting. If you don't like the thread, just opt out of it rather than replying with childish insults/insinuations.

Even if you don't find this to be a big deal, no one else has stated it is either. However it's the topic to discuss ethics in this "insignificant" or "petty" context. After all, this is the video game industry. It's not like we're oil corporations or medical doctors. What constitutes a meaningful discussion in art?

It is far from a conspiracy theory either. There is plenty of evidence to suggest this is happening quite regularly. I provided plenty of links in the OP, but you seem to want to just disregard them? (as well as my statement there are plenty more out there; and even more that were successfully censored)? That is just childish. Either participate or don't- there is no need for pretentious insults or mockery.

 

Could you please explain to me how the slippery slope goes both ways, when one side has all the power and the other has absolutely none?

A slippery slope tends to only go in one direction. (There could be multiple slippery slopes, but each would have its own context.) I am a bit confused as to what the context is on this second slippery slope, where powerless users somehow....blackmail?...developers?

Also we cannot assume that all people and in all circumstances, agree that only very specific reviews are influential. In fact, this is logically incorrect when all reviews total to form an average "Mixed", "Very Positive", "Overwhelmingly Positive", etc. That is something a lot of people pay attention to, and is noticed very often before they even click to read the reviews.

So because it's not a serious issue, that somehow means it's not worthy of even acknowledging?

By that same logic, should we ignore all petty thefts because of grand larceny?

Should we ignore all assaul charges that don't result in first degree murder?

I honestly do not understand this in any way. You are saying that we cannot talk about this ethical problem because there exists greater ethical problems.

That it is not appropriate to talk about ethics in video game industry, because our political reality is more serious? This is not a political forum. Last time I checked, it's a forum about video games.

 

How do indie gamers on Steam have all the power? I would say that the reviewers have more power in some cases then they do.

And if they do not read the reviews, then they are really getting no information. Positive could mean that everyone who likes the opposite types of games you do like this game. Negative could very well mean that is the perfect niche game for you.

Sorry, but we can't protect people from being lazy.

I really truly admire your passion about this issue. But honestly, I can't get excited about it. As a gamer, reviews have never been something that interested me all that much. I am not a mainstream gamer. I like "different", so popular games were never my forte. I happen to think that reviews like on Steam and ratings just encourage people to follow the crowd, be cool, hip, whatever.

As I said before, we are bombarded by so much information. It is absolutely impossible to separate the good from the bad through forum posts. Nice reviews by knowledgeable critics are probably better...but then again, who is paying them for the reviews? Who advertises on the sites?

But after all, it is a game, not a house or a car, or a neighborhood, or a job interview. It is just a game.

 

Honestly, and since you don't like censorship, you will read my reply with an open mind.

You posted, most people here disagreed, and you tried to make us feel like we were horrible people for disagreeing. I don't think Bored Mormon is any less pretentious or insulting here.

On the other hand, it is your thread.

 

I wonder what sparked this thread.

It's been a while since I've seen this kind of desire to "smite evil" anywhere on the internet.

 

I edited the above reply to you with a second part. This conversation happened a bit too quickly for me, hehe.

Because the developer can ban users, petition to remove their reviews, and silence any criticism on their steam discussion forum.

The user can do nothing. In fact, if the user tries to do something- they will be silenced (banned & deleted).

How does one side that can obliterate the other through a click of the mouse NOT have the power?

And your argument is that the user has power because they can write a negative review? This doesn't hold any validity because the requirement is to have already posted a negative review.

The problem only arises AFTER the negative review has already been made. So what can the user then do? They cannot write a second review. They cannot post because they are banned. They are literally powerless. The developer has the power to both petition to remove their review AND ban/delete their existence from the discussion.

No one is trying to, and laziness plays no factor in any part of this discussion.

Well lol, that's fine, and thank you

No problem. I also applaud your consistency. As a gamer, you don't find this to be a big deal. That's fine. Not everyone will have a problem with negative reviews being removed or "review corruption". If you don't care about reviews, then it's not a problem for you.

However, does it not bother you that the industry may encourage unethical behavior?

You're 100% right about Steam Reviews being pretty useless anyway. That's not really the issue I'm bringing up though. It's more about how it is unethical. In everything I've studied, the metacritic score and user reviews are nearly meaningless. They truly don't seem to effect sales on any meaningful level. Word of mouth is probably (arguably) the most important, and a developer is powerless to stop that (good or bad).

I just don't like when people abuse their authority. It really irks me, especially in an industry I love & am involved in both as a consumer and as a content provider.

Indeed it is, and I agree there are an infinite number of 'real issues' to discuss. Real issues that actually hurt people in real ways. But this is a game forum, so it's a bit limiting in conversation. Plus with you being liberal like many of us, we would all just agree that death is bad, real world corruption is harmful, etc. Hehe