Steam’s new language-specific review scores highlight Japanese players’ tendency to leave only negative reviews. Gamers fear this might affect Japanese language support for future releases
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Why would a developer want to get into the Japanese market? Simple really. Cold hard cash. It’s why we have anything really. Including games.
So, if a dev were to decide not to localise for the Japanese market, they’ve made the decision it’s not worth the cash. In that case, what’s your problem with said decision?
Did you also read the rest of the article, where it mentions that this is becoming a problem for Japanese devs? And even the jap players understand this is a problem that needs to change?
It’s that no news is good news, and bad news is news. Seriously. Open up any news source. Unless something is fucking stellar it won’t be reported on. Why anyone needs flowery words to do their job to earn money sounds silly to me.
When did reviews become ‘news’.
But I’ll offer a suggestion to fix the problem of these butthurt developers. Petition Steam, or other review sites, to change the way scores are done.
As I noted in my previous comment, yes something in the system needs to change. It can be from any of the parties involved. The platform, the devs, or the gamers. I don’t really care which, since it doesn’t affect me. Though if we were petitioning steam, it’d be nice if they could add a frigging neutral option to reviews.
butthurt developers.
Based on everything in the article, everybody seems to be reacting very calmly. You’re the most butthurt person so far.
This will be my last reply to you because it’s tiring having to educate people on how the world works.
So, if a dev were to decide not to localise for the Japanese market, they’ve made the decision it’s not worth the cash. In that case, what’s your problem with said decision?
Yeah that’s their choice. But if they’re doing it solely because of the risk of a bad review, that’s just pathetic. Which was my point and your seemed to miss that.
When did reviews become ‘news’.
That’s all a review is. Someone’s news about the game. Ie reporting. Reporters report news.
As I noted in my previous comment, yes something in the system needs to change. It can be from any of the parties involved. The platform, the devs, or the gamers. I don’t really care which, since it doesn’t affect me.
Another person crying about a problem yet offering zero realistic feedback on fixing it, suggesting even that an entire culture change so game devs aren’t afraid of reviews. No. The only thing that needs to change is how the reviews are done, and that is Steam’s, or whatever other service’s, problem to fix. Or you know, people could find a reliable reviews source from outside Stream and go by that. God forbid people do research that involves five clicks before spending their hard earned money.
Based on everything in the article, everybody seems to be reacting very calmly.
By reacting very calmly do you mean pulling completely out of a game market by no longer localizing games or running betas there? Yeah, super chill reaction. Totally rational to just ignore so many people without spending a day brainstorming solutions and actually following through with implemented changes that address the problem.
You’re the most butthurt person so far.
Yes. It sucks to take it upon yourself to educate people on the workings of the world. I wish I didn’t care that people were idiots, but unfortunately for me I do as I have to share earth with them. And it hurts me so. In the butt. Other places too, but the pain in my ass is the worst.
Grow up before you melt, snowflake.
Guyincognito, out.
Edited because I don’t know how to close quotes
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This is the first I’ve heard of this reviewing trend.
if you look at japanese restaurants in google maps, most of them are rated at 3 stars. japanese never give 5 stars at most its 4, and they will give lower for even the slightest inconveniences. if you see 4 stars above then that means there’s a lot of tourists frequent there.
source, i’ve been there twice and was dumbfounded
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if you look at japanese restaurants in google maps, most of them are rated at 3 stars. japanese never give 5 stars at most its 4, and they will give lower for even the slightest inconveniences. if you see 4 stars above then that means there’s a lot of tourists frequent there.
source, i’ve been there twice and was dumbfounded
Very weird, I had no idea about this! I guess I’ll keep it in mind if I ever find myself in Japan!
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Yeah if things are fine and I bought the game I don’t leave a review. Only if it’s exceptionally good, or I feel I need to warn others do I take the time to review.
Basically if I bought a game and put more then 5 hours into it and didn’t have anything to say, that is my positive appreciation signal
I’ve got 2000 hours in Factorio and haven’t left a review on steam…
You don’t leave a le funny review on every game? No cake recipe or a picture of a cat? Are you even a real gamer?
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if you look at japanese restaurants in google maps, most of them are rated at 3 stars. japanese never give 5 stars at most its 4, and they will give lower for even the slightest inconveniences. if you see 4 stars above then that means there’s a lot of tourists frequent there.
source, i’ve been there twice and was dumbfounded
This is the same culture that will absolutely not speak out or ask for a change in ingredients for fear of dishonouring the chef and the staff.
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You don’t leave a le funny review on every game? No cake recipe or a picture of a cat? Are you even a real gamer?
I’m not a real gamer, just an adult with disposable income and thousands of hours playing games, at least as far as steam tells me… so maybe I’m a problem gamer?
I have no idea about the whole steam point system, i totally ignore it… i just buy games on deep discounts… so while I have 6000 hours of play time, I have a backlog of games with 20,000 hours of possible play time, and I will die with steam games I’ve paid real actual money for that I have never, ever, ever played.
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if you look at japanese restaurants in google maps, most of them are rated at 3 stars. japanese never give 5 stars at most its 4, and they will give lower for even the slightest inconveniences. if you see 4 stars above then that means there’s a lot of tourists frequent there.
source, i’ve been there twice and was dumbfounded
This suspiciously sounds like the youtuber “JapanEats”.
It’s almost like a quote. -
Yeah if things are fine and I bought the game I don’t leave a review. Only if it’s exceptionally good, or I feel I need to warn others do I take the time to review.
Basically if I bought a game and put more then 5 hours into it and didn’t have anything to say, that is my positive appreciation signal
I’ve got 2000 hours in Factorio and haven’t left a review on steam…
didn’t have anything to say, that is my positive appreciation signal
Not saying anything is not a signal for anything. For indie games, I tend to leave at least a positive one-liner (unless it’s trash, of course, then it might be a negative one-liner).
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Why would a developer want to get into the Japanese market? Simple really. Cold hard cash. It’s why we have anything really. Including games.
I don’t know what planet you’re pretending to live on but here on earth there’s a pretty simple rule to understand about news. It’s that no news is good news, and bad news is news. Seriously. Open up any news source. Unless something is fucking stellar it won’t be reported on. Why anyone needs flowery words to do their job to earn money sounds silly to me.
If you read the article above it goes on to say that most of the bad reviews were justified in their criticisms.
But I’ll offer a suggestion to fix the problem of these butthurt developers. Petition Steam, or other review sites, to change the way scores are done. Change them to a percentage of players who played who gave poor reviews, instead of a percentage of the reviews. Boom, problem solved. Now instead of 20% of the reviews being bad, it’s 2% of the players. 98% don’t think it sucked, so it must be good.
Simple really. Cold hard cash.
Sounds more like investing in Japanese localization costs more then the return is worth.
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if you look at japanese restaurants in google maps, most of them are rated at 3 stars. japanese never give 5 stars at most its 4, and they will give lower for even the slightest inconveniences. if you see 4 stars above then that means there’s a lot of tourists frequent there.
source, i’ve been there twice and was dumbfounded
Japanese people understand that average means 2-3 stars lol
Rating things 4-5 stars, or 7-8/10 on average makes way less sense to me
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Yeah if things are fine and I bought the game I don’t leave a review. Only if it’s exceptionally good, or I feel I need to warn others do I take the time to review.
Basically if I bought a game and put more then 5 hours into it and didn’t have anything to say, that is my positive appreciation signal
I’ve got 2000 hours in Factorio and haven’t left a review on steam…
Honestly I’m not really a fan of how steam does it’s reviews with the requirement of text.
If it would just let me give a blank thumbs up that doesn’t show up, I’d be more willing to leave a thumbs up. Just that little bit of resistance after a day’s worth of work is enough to discourage me to do anything unless it’s something absolutely amazing.
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This is the same culture that will absolutely not speak out or ask for a change in ingredients for fear of dishonouring the chef and the staff.
Maybe face to face but of what I heard about the culture, talking behind the back is very rampant.
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You don’t leave a le funny review on every game? No cake recipe or a picture of a cat? Are you even a real gamer?
God I hate meme reviewers so much. Absolutely insufferable.
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if you look at japanese restaurants in google maps, most of them are rated at 3 stars. japanese never give 5 stars at most its 4, and they will give lower for even the slightest inconveniences. if you see 4 stars above then that means there’s a lot of tourists frequent there.
source, i’ve been there twice and was dumbfounded
When’s the last time you checked ratings on maps? I just looked at Sakata, a small city in Tohoku with no shinkansen line, and plenty of the ratings were above 4 stars. Seemed to be the same all over the place.
I don’t think japanese people are unique for leaving dumb reviews. Pretty sure you can find people in all countries saying shit like “store was closed when I went, 1 star”.
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This isn’t about Japanese games or devs. It’s about Japanese GAMERS.
People are always gonna people (be shitty) and that’s something thin skinned companies need to get over, and quick
Answer me this: Given the situation described in the article, WHY would any dev, indie or ‘AAA’, want to get into the Japanese market?
I’ve made the decision to never buy new games anymore because I’m too often disappointed. I hope the Japanese, and other gamers too, create enough aggregate reviews to help me enjoy the games I purchase.
Unfortunately, if you were relying on the Jap gamers, all you’d get is the number of negative reviews each game has as an indicator of popularity, since they aren’t leaving any positive.
Why is it so difficult to understand that the behaviour of the Jap consumers are breaking the review system as it stands? It doesn’t matter how great your game is, if there’s 0 chance for positive reviews.
I agree with everything you said, but I want you to be aware that the term “Jap” has some extremely negative/slur connotations that I don’t think you intended related to US concentration camps during WW2. It’s not just an abbreviation.
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This is the same culture that will absolutely not speak out or ask for a change in ingredients for fear of dishonouring the chef and the staff.
“Dishonoring” the chef makes it sound like there are still samurai running around. I don’t think substitutions at restaurants rise to that level.
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I agree with everything you said, but I want you to be aware that the term “Jap” has some extremely negative/slur connotations that I don’t think you intended related to US concentration camps during WW2. It’s not just an abbreviation.
Hmm. Doing a quick Google, that seems to be a US specific slur. Doesn’t seem to carry the same connotations elsewhere. That’s an interesting question, what is correct / expected behaviour with a term that is used normally and neutrally in some parts of the world, but is a slur in others?
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When’s the last time you checked ratings on maps? I just looked at Sakata, a small city in Tohoku with no shinkansen line, and plenty of the ratings were above 4 stars. Seemed to be the same all over the place.
I don’t think japanese people are unique for leaving dumb reviews. Pretty sure you can find people in all countries saying shit like “store was closed when I went, 1 star”.
its pretty impossible to say a statement that blanket a whole country, but there is enough evidence to form the opinion
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its pretty impossible to say a statement that blanket a whole country, but there is enough evidence to form the opinion
Maybe people near Tokyo are shittier about reviews? I dunno what to tell you. Guess I haven’t spent much time outside Tohoku.
First random city I scrolled to north of Tokyo (in Fukushima):
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Honestly I’m not really a fan of how steam does it’s reviews with the requirement of text.
If it would just let me give a blank thumbs up that doesn’t show up, I’d be more willing to leave a thumbs up. Just that little bit of resistance after a day’s worth of work is enough to discourage me to do anything unless it’s something absolutely amazing.
Having a middle option of ratings in common categories would be nice too, like what I’ve seen many reviews do in text.
