Steam differentiates between user reviews by language

For many PC gamers, the user reviews on Steam are the first port of call when researching a video game. Valve has now introduced an important change to the calculation of scores: The overall score is now only calculated from the reviews in the player's own language, provided there are enough user opinions to do so.

This means that different overall scores could now be found for games in different languages. “However, Steam's increasingly global presence means that customers in different regions of the world may have completely different experiences with the same game,” explains Steam developer Valve in a blog post.

Missing translations and “cultural references”

Examples cited by Valve include poor or missing translations that only affect certain languages and therefore have no direct relevance for people from another language area. However, “different cultural references” can also lead to misleading review scores, Valve explains. This is likely to refer to Chinese gamers, among others: they are the second-largest country group on Steam and their preferences sometimes differ greatly from those of Western gamers.

According to Valve, the new system means that the respective language target groups will receive more meaningful ratings. The prerequisite is a sufficient number of reviews: According to Valve, a game must have at least 2000 publicly visible reviews, of which at least 200 must be in the respective language to be displayed. Steam refers to the language set in the client: If you live in Germany and have set English, you will see English-language reviews.

Option can be switched off

“We are aware that every time we make a change in the context of user reviews, we are met with a certain amount of skepticism about our motives,” writes Valve. “We want to be as transparent as possible, as trust in the system is crucial to us.”

If you want to see the overall reviews, you can click on “Breakdown by language” on the store page to see a more detailed view including the old overall rating. Alternatively , Steam's new rating system can simply be switched off in the store settings.

For interested users, the new features offer an insight into how differently different language areas rate video games: “Black Myth Wukong”, developed in China, is recommended by 96 percent of players worldwide, for example, while in Germany “only” 89 percent give it a thumbs up. Meanwhile, German players like “Anno 1800” more than average: it is recommended by 81 percent internationally, while 88 percent like it in Germany. Other titles are likely to show even more significant differences.

(dahe)