Steam Separates Reviews by Language — New Scores Aim to Curb Review Bombs
Valve is changing how Steam surfaces user reviews: from now on, the platform will factor in the reviewer’s language when calculating and showing review scores. The change aims to give players more relevant sentiment in a global catalog, and it kicks in only for games with a lot of reviews.
- What the language-specific review score is, how Steam will show it, and when it appears
- Why Valve says the change matters, and the thresholds that trigger it
- Examples of why language and culture have driven review storms, including Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
What’s changing
Previously, Steam showed either the most-voted reviews or the most recent reviews depending on your setting. Now, Steam will also calculate a language-specific review score and surface reviews with language in mind. In short, players will see review aggregates that better reflect the expectations and experiences of people who share a language.
How Valve explains it
Valve posted the change in a blog entry. In a blog post, the company points out that Steam has become a global platform and that different audiences care about different things. The post includes this explanation:
“There are a variety of reasons this may happen for a particular game, including translation issues, cultural references, poor network connections, and many others; things that the Overall Review Scores haven’t been able to capture until now,” the post reads. “Calculating a language-specific review score means that we can better distill the sentiment of these different groups of customers, and in doing so, better serve potential customers that belong to those groups.”
When the new scores show up
Valve set thresholds so the language-specific score only appears when there’s enough data. Specifically, the change will apply to games that have at least 2,000 reviews in any language, and Steam will separate language sentiment once there are at least 200 reviews in a specific language. As Valve puts it:
“We purposely made these thresholds higher than the 10 reviews required to calculate the Overall Review Score; this is because we wanted to be pretty confident in the language-specific score before showing it to users,” the post reads.
What users will see and control
Reviews in other languages won’t vanish. Rather, Steam will default to showing language-appropriate scores and reviews, and you can click to view other languages. In addition, users can change their settings to permanently display all languages if they prefer.
Why this matters — examples from the wild
Language and culture have already driven several review storms. For example, some Chinese players review-bombed Wuchang: Fallen Feathers over its depiction of historical figures. Later, the developers released a patch that reportedly made it so players could no longer permanently kill specific enemies and adjusted some writing. Then, Western players pushed back, calling the changes a form of censorship. The top English review currently cites the patch, saying:
“Plot change[s] made the story completely different, and even make some of the characters motivation[s] pointless,” the user wrote.
Similarly, translation problems and cultural differences have prompted review bombings in other cases. For example, discussions about language and censorship around Helldivers 2 and other titles have shown how audiences in different regions can react very differently; translations have also prompted review bombings in other games, as reported by Kotaku. Translations have also prompted review bombings.
Bottom line
In short, Valve is trying to make review scores more relevant by separating sentiment by language when there’s enough data. The change is limited by clear numerical thresholds, reviews remain accessible across languages, and you can always opt to view all languages if you want the full picture.
