Elite: Dangerous Steam review score successfully manipulated from "Recent: Mixed" to "Recent: Mostly Positive"

Case and point on why you can't trust Steam reviews: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/5nc63s/elite_dangerous_still_has_a_mixed_rating_on_steam/

Elite Dangerous is one of most amazing games I have ever played. It is polished, sounds amazing, and has an impressive amount of content & much more of it on the way.

The fact that it is a 6/10 on Steam, with global & current reviews rated as "Mixed" blows my mind.

Please consider reviewing it on Steam. I think Frontier has embarked on a grand journey in order to make the best space sim out there, and they deserve our support.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/359320/

Edit: I'm being told that this game is not polished. I realize that some of us might have a different a different opinion on what that word means. By polished, I meant it feels quick and responsive (in the menus & in-game) - The attention to visual and audio details are amazing. Even the damn maps look amazing. Some devs have poured their heart and soul into this game, and it's tangible. No one here is saying that this game doesn't have a lot of bugs left. it sure does - but to me, that shouldn't solely decide if this game is polished or not.

Edit 2: I'm also being accused of "manipulating" or "inflating" the game's score on Steam. I'm not. I am simply asking people to re-consider their initial the reviews. This game has come a long way. It deserves to be re-considered.

Edit 3: FRONTIER YOU DID IT! NEW RECENT SCORE = MOSTLY POSITIVE ! HOLY SHIT! WELL DESERVED! I hope you guys never stop working on this game. It only gets better and better.

When I pointed out what he was trying to do was vote brigading, the poster wanted to argue with me about how there was nothing wrong with what he's doing. The edits are what really take the cake on this one.

You guys ever seen anything like this on other games? This is the first time I've had it happen right in front of me like that.

I think you're reaching a bit. All he asked was for people who own the game and enjoy it to consider leaving a review; that hardly constitutes vote brigading. Generally speaking, people unhappy with a product appear to be much likelier to leave a negative review, so I really don't have a problem with encouraging satisfied customers to also make their feelings known.

don't trust steam reviews because most steam users are frothing at the mouth reactionaries who only view things in black and white.

@conmulligan: 500 people turning the rating around in 9 hours is reaching? What is vote brigading, then?

Hardly worth getting hot and bothered over.

Thread title successfully manipulated from "let me give a reasonable assessment of the situation" to "how about I go for some unnecessary hyperbole."

If the devs or publisher or investors had been the ones out there encouraging their biggest fans to give positive user reviews, there is an argument to be made that that's manipulative or at least kinda unethical or something. If the game's biggest fans are encouraging the game's biggest fans to give positive user reviews, that's the user review system working as intended. Internet user reviews are always bogus and easily swayed by brief campaigns to inflate/deflate the score. This is nothing new.

@freedom4556: When people engage in vote brigading, they're usually trying to illegitimately disrupt or manipulate something. I don't think someone rating a product that they own and have put time into comes close to meeting that description. I mean, if Jeff sent out a tweet asking people to rate the Bombcast on iTunes or like a Quick Look on YouTube would that be vote brigading?

@freedom4556: Why do you care? How does a games rating on steam effect you in any way? From everything I've seen and heard about Elite, it does seem to be a very well made game.

This feels like a confusing and misplaced overreaction.

A fan rallied other fans to leave positive reviews, i see nothing wrong. If they were getting paid in some way maybe..

I'm more concerned by you finding his enjoyment of the game wrong then I am with him trying to get others to enjoy it and review it as such.

Games should be re-looked if significant changes happen, and in a perfect world reviews would also update to reflect that. A lot of now decent games are still thought of as poor in the public eye because all the reviews were from a period where the game wasn't too great.

I don't really see anything nefarious about this.

It's not like he or the company got a bunch of disinterested people to vote on something they don't care about.

These are people from an Elite Dangerous fan page. Nobody is forcing them to leave a good review. If they all liked it then if anything it makes the review score a more accurate representation of people's enjoyment of the game.

Besides, plenty of people in that thread are either saying that they meant to write a review before and this has reminded them, or that they are going to leave a negative review.

I agree that Steam reviews should always be taken with a grain of salt and are prone to herding. But maybe that's just called a consensus.

Shocking revelation! Don't trust random user reviews!

Considering Valve's size and financial well-being, it is astonishing how poorly the Steam store is organized and its content presented.

This. It's becoming a hobby of mine to go and laugh at negative reviews of people who have over 500 hours in the game and say it's not worth the money.

I don't know about others, but when I saw the thread title my immediate thought was that the developers/publishers had a hand in messing with their steam rating. This is nothing compared to what can actually happen OP.

It isnt that bad as long as they arent lying.

Ultimately every individual is responsible for their own review. If they saw his post and agreed with him (based on updates to the game or whatever), enough so to change their score I don't have an issue. If the developer pressured Valve to eliminate reviews or change scores without people's consent, then that would be a problem. If this is a concern for you, then you probably shouldn't consider such a fickle thing as user reviews when buying products, be they games or otherwise.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

mr. secretary: do you mean to tell me i can't implicitly trust USER REVIEWS?

sarcasm aside- treat steam reviews like the unmoderated comments section it practically is and suddenly everything makes sense.

I mean, I totally agree with you that you can't really trust steam user reviews.

That being said, there is also totally no problem with this excited fan encouraging other fans of this game on the game's fan reddit to rate the game well if they enjoyed it. Psychology tells us that unsatisfied customers are far more likely to leave bad reviews than satisfied customers are to write good reviews so honestly this is basically a fan doing the effort to try and make the user review system work as intended.

Users reviewed a game honestly, and this is the outcome. No one who hated the game would have been swayed by the post to lie.

Get angry about things that actually matter, this is not something that does.

I don't see the issue in the first place, but what evidence do you have that suggests the positive reviews posted after this Reddit thread were influenced by it? How do you even know who of those new reviews had even read that Reddit thread, let alone had their opinion swayed by it?

I don't see the poster saying something like 'if you leave a positive review, I'll give you 100 bucks' or something. How are people going to be swayed to vote positively when they otherwise wouldn't have in the first place? I think you're reaching.

Additionally, there isn't even anything wrong with asking people to give their opinion on a game.

Or maybe the game has evolved and improved or people have overcome the learning curve and enjoy it more now.

Ultimately, who cares? They reviewed a product and the general "svore" improved. He never asked for positive reviews directly, just to reconsider or to add to the pile

@cmblasko: I do not buy the hate against Steam on that front. Try the same thing on any other platform. Steam gives more tools to users to find what they are looking for. It's easy to browse for new and interesting games, or find one you specifically have in mind.

Navigating the PSN Store or Xbox store or Origin store, it's all god awful. Steam on the other hand is fine, people just seem to expect the games they will like to magically fall into their laps. Not sure exactly how you feel it fails but discovery seems to be what most people complain about.

I'm sure the steam store isn't perfect but it's quite good. And I wouldn't hold user reviews against the platform. They are a generally useful tool to gauge roughly the quality of a game, to be used in conjunction with other tools.

This is probably my favorite game. It's the only game that I always go back to for hours and hours, whether it's new content or just because I miss it. I never gave it a rating and now realize I probably should since I have enjoyed it so much and put so much time into it. Maybe that reddit post made other people realize the same thing? Not sure what the problem is.

User review aggregates are still dumb.

Maybe the ones who have stuck with Elite are the people most likely to still enjoy it?

It dropped to Mixed in the first place since it was "vote brigaded" by people that didn't understand the concept of Horizons being a season pass.

But yes, as others have mentioned, user reviews are generally dumb/reactionary and you shouldn't base your purchases off of them.

Why can't we all be reasonable human beings and do research? You don't run out and buy a TV without doing research about TVs. You don't buy video cards without reading up on them, right? Am I crazy?

Why does stuff like this keep happening?

Edit: Also...this is is how elections are won.... Terrifying.

Mostly positive seems more accurate.