I dont think it matters how long they played it. I think if they liked it, thats enough honestly.

I don't think most game reviews are, in fact, "boosted", but there is a bias towards positivity just by nature of the way the system works.

You can't review a game unless you buy it. You're not going to buy it unless you think you're going to like it, and once you do buy it you now have a bit of sunk-cost invested into it, which may predispose you to want to try and like it, even if deep down, you don't.

End result is there's a definite bias on the positive end of the spectrum for reviews.

Look at Suicide Squad, for example. Pretty much universally panned, but it launched right out the gate with 83% positive reviews. The only thing is, those 2,700 people who reviewed it positively were basically the game's entire player base, and not even they stuck around. Multiple orders of magnitude more would have reviewed it negatively, but they didn't buy the game. Then as time went on after a few steep discounts broke the cost barrier for a few people who were curious enough to maybe check it out, the game started to receive more negatives, until we get to where it is today at "mixed", which is still a pretty heavily inflated review score.

This part is also true...

Originally posted by Emperor Chungus:

I dont think it matters how long they played it....

Isn't 2 hours enough time to know if you like most games or not? Maybe not something like BG3 but but other genres.

You have an existing thread on the same topic.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/discussions/forum/10/601911983259875381/

As for this thread:

Originally posted by Scamdiver:

If you look at the reviews, there are a lot—and I mean A LOT—of reviews from accounts with 150+ positive reviews and less than two hours of playtime at the time of posting.

Can someone not reach a conclusion within two hours? Of course they can as that is their personal experience, and there is no set rule that states only games played XXX amount of hours can be reviewed.

Originally posted by Scamdiver:

Why are most steam games review boosted?

Like… seriously, most games start off with 'Mixed' and 'Mostly Positive' ratings. It's not that common to see a game rated as 'Mostly Negative'.

If you look at the reviews, there are a lot—and I mean A LOT—of reviews from accounts with 150+ positive reviews and less than two hours of playtime at the time of posting.

It kinda makes the rating and review system feel completely irrelevant.

As I stated in your previous deleted thread...

Aug 5 @ 1:01pm - Discussion

Originally posted by Scamdiver:
Review boosting and publisher networks

I've seen a lot of dirty tricks used by big publishers, such as review boosting, gaslighting people who criticize the game, and even game moderators banning normal posts that shed bad light on the product.

These things not only affect the reputation of those publishers but also the entire marketplace, and they drastically affect the motivation to make purchases.

I genuinely hope that Valve doesn't get a cut from any of these.

Grounded 2 is not paying for review boosting.

People always wonder why I quote OPs. This is why. So i can look at my Comment History and find it.

It is irrelevant

Originally posted by Emperor Chungus:

I dont think it matters how long they played it. I think if they liked it, thats enough honestly.

It does though.

Some games have a ton of depth that are targeting specific niches or even the inverse with brain dead gameplay.

Even professionals ♥♥♥♥ this up. Long ago, Dynasty Warriors was repeatedly shat on by white ppl for being what it was....yet they keep selling. There is a massive audience for RoTK and the brain dead beat em up combined with it. Many Asians, including myself, loved this ♥♥♥♥. White folk? Not so much.

On the flip side, consider Siralim Ultimate. This game should be OVERWHELMING POSITIVE if you are their target audience (insane depth, brain dead grind, brain will hurt from theorycrafting), if you play this blind you need 10+ hrs before you notice patterns in things opening up.

Notice the length and justification of my post: this is not how the average review looks like on Steam.

Now if a game is bugging out and crashing in the first 5 min....lol

The proper way to review anything is to ask "what is this trying to accomplish and did it succeed?"

Congratulations you've discovered the twitch streamer. They often play a game exactly once for a single stream, and will post a review to expand their media presence. They'll often enough post a review live on their stream.

As for reviews in general being mostly positive. Most shoppers are actually fairly sophisticated. At the end of the day we can spot bad games. Without having to waste our money playing them. As such we tend to pick mostly good games, and frankly as prices come down the value improves.

A game that is a poor value at seventy dollars. Can become an incredible value at five dollars. In other words the review scores ride up with wear. Until the game gets so old that it stops working. At which point the review will go over the cliff.

Anyway that's the answer to your question. Streamers race to post their reviews, and most of us can spot obvious trash titles. So we end up playing games that are good. Even if they aren't say our particular cup of tea. We'll still recommend them, because mileage may vary.