Steam is introducing a new “app system” for reviews, and here's how it works

After a sneak peek for the past few days, Valve has finally officially released the changes Application system review of users SteamIt aims to highlight the most informative and conversely hide the less useful. The new setting is now active by default for all users

As explained in a post on Steam, the reviews were ranked based on the number of “helpful” votes previously given by other users. The problem was that it was soon noticed that some users were using the ratings to create drawings in ASCII, write jokes, memes and other content that might not be very useful for those looking for information about a game at the point of purchase. Steam curators are making significant changes to how the system evaluates whether a review is actually useful or not, while not hiding funny posts entirely, relegating them to secondary status.

Here's how Steam's new review app system works

As Steam says, “User reviews identified as invalid For potential customers, for example, single word or ASCII diagrams or mainly consisting of memes and jokes Ordered after other reviews on the store page of the game”. Those who like this type of posts have the option to enable the special option to appear during navigation.

But how do you determine whether an assessment is effective or not? We targeted them first,” explains Valve, explaining that it's “a combination of techniques including user reports, careful scrutiny of multiple reviews by the Steam moderation team, and some machine learning algorithms that help human judgment to more easily spot many unhelpful reviews.” He also noted that reviews also take some time to rate.