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Is just me or are some of the reviews on this site completely ridiculous?
I've seen a lot of reviews with more focus on the distribution and price, rather than the game itself, and it's starting to piss me off. People giving games one star just because it's cheaper somewhere else, or they didn't distribute it with a certain source port, and similar.
Of course, they could release the games with a source port, but the point of distributing it with Dosbox is to make it as similar to play as when they first were sold.
So what do you think? Should reviews about the distribution method, price, etc. be part of reviews or should it be about the game itself? And should GoG do something about the reviews that take the focus away from the games?
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sheepdragon: And should GoG do something about the reviews that take the focus away from the games?

Censorship: BAD.
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sheepdragon: And should GoG do something about the reviews that take the focus away from the games?
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michaelleung: Censorship: BAD.

OK, valid point. I can agree with that. But even so, the games should be rated fairly regardless of price. Like adding a footnote or something, saying that you can purchase the game somewhere else cheaper, or that a source port instead of dosbox would be nice or something.
I have seen very, very little of what you describe.
Also, pricing is a legitimate concern for almost any potential buyer, so it's only natural for reviews to mention it too.
To mention nothing else makes it a pretty worthless review though.
There IS the was this review helpful to you Y/N option, seems like the kind of thing you want for those sort of reviews
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frostcircus: I have seen very, very little of what you describe.
Also, pricing is a legitimate concern for almost any potential buyer, so it's only natural for reviews to mention it too.

Might be that I'm great out randomly picking out the games that have those review...
Anyways, I started to think about Arx Fatalis (Not UK_John's conspiracy theory...);
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/arx_fatalis/Price_match_/0
That was back when it was $9.99, and Steam had it for 5.99. Because of that, he gave it a rating of one star, without making any references to the game at all. It's fair enough to point it out, and even retract some points for it, but when such a low score is given a reason should be made, apart from that.
The same goes for highly rated reviews as well. Writing stuff like "This game is awesome! You should buy it now!", with out giving any reason is practically pointless. When that's all you have to say, you could just have rated it highly, and left it at that, as it would still add an indicator if the game in question is worth your time.
EDIT:
@Alias:
I've used that Y/N button at times... and I'm probably going to tap it some more.
Post edited March 04, 2009 by sheepdragon
<shameless plug>Yes well I won a review contest a few weeks ago with one for In Cold Blood, my review was probably as long as all the others combined and I felt like I'd only written a brief overview.</shameless plug>
Maybe I'm weird in thinking that people want to read about all the aspects of a game but thats the kind of thing I've always liked. Perhaps some people just love to read things that validate what they already think.
I have to agree with Sheepdragon, there should be some quality control. Useless comments are better reserved for the forum.
Minimum reviw length maybe? Has to be at least 250 characters?
While I do write a few negative points when I review. I also mention the good.
I would like to see some people put in more effort than one or two sentences. And the random lolz reviews to go, they are not that helpful.
Quality Control != censorship (usually :P ). But I understand some people don't want things to go. If that's the case, we need to make better use of the YES/NO helpful review option.
I think the main thing gog need to do is make it so "no" on if you agree with this review actually shows up. At the moment it only has the number of users that agree with the review and no mention of how many disagree. It should do the amount of agreed views and then the overall votes so something like 15 of 23 people agree with this review. Then display the reviews in order of which has been overall most helpful to users that have rated it so far. The community would then be able to filter out the crap and any bad reviews would sink to the bottom.
Two excellent suggestions, minimum character amount (should have some form of spam control, so that people just write one or two lines, then just adds gibberish so that they can post it), and what Ralackk said... improved Y/N or whatever I should call it.
I think that reviews should give a written view of how the gameplay and other parts of the game works and unfold, without any spoilers. Things like how things are put together and interact with each other and such.
However few reviewers, even amongst 'professional' manage to do that.
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@Ois:
Having both negative points and positive points in a review is a very good thing, as it gives you a better perspective if you have not played it yourself, and makes it easier to decide if you really want it at all.
Post edited March 04, 2009 by sheepdragon
Maybe they should sort the reviews in order of usefulness vote score. But they'd also need to put new reviews in at the top or they'd never get voted on.
Removing stupid reviews wouldn't be censorship, but it'd be a hard path to start down because there'd be a lot of people whining.
I wish they'd put more than 3 reviews on the page by default. Be better to show all the titles imho, and let people click to expand them.
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soulgrindr: Maybe they should sort the reviews in order of usefulness vote score. But they'd also need to put new reviews in at the top or they'd never get voted on.

IIRC, the reviews are sorted that way. On the game's main page you are shown the most recent reviews while if you click on the "show all" link, the reviews are sorted by usefulness. The problem is it is not terribly obvious, since I believe the usefulness of the review is determined not just by how many people agreed with it, but also factors in how many people disagreed with it, which is a number we never actually see. So Review A that shows that 20 people agree with it might actually be lower on the list than Review B that only 9 people agreed with. This is because 40 people disagreed with Review A while only 1 person disagreed with Review B.
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sheepdragon: And should GoG do something about the reviews that take the focus away from the games?
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michaelleung: Censorship: BAD.

Requesting quality is not censorship.