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I disagree with the idea of leaving negative reviews just because a game doesn’t support a specific platform. It’s the same toxic fanboy wars we see if a game d

I disagree with the idea of leaving negative reviews just because a game doesn’t support a specific platform. It’s the same toxic fanboy wars we see if a game doesn’t come out on a specific console or available on a specific store. Doing so costs money for a small portion of the community. Ultimately these studios are businesses and have to make financial choices. I do fully recognize that this is a chicken and the egg problem. But proton is not a perfect solution and I even had to install Windows on my steam deck to play some of the games I want to play. At the end of the day I’m a gamer first and a fanboy second. I want to play the games.

sickofparadox 3y ago
Leaving a negative review of the product because it doesn't work where you want it to work is absolutely not "toxic fanboy" behavior, its called being an advocate for your own interests. As the person paying up to 70$ for the game, consumers deserve to have their voices heard. Besides, is anyone actually worried about the rampant "toxicity" in the reviews section on a games steam page? Seems a bit pearl clutch-y.
- falcolas 3y ago
  > Leaving a negative review of the product because it doesn't work where you want it to work is absolutely not "toxic fanboy" behavior You can also call it free market research. Here's someone who wants to play your game enough to go through this extra effort.
- nerdjon 3y ago
  Um... "review bombing" is a thing that is often talked about. So... yes people are worried about it... You knew what the game did and did not support when you bough it. If you choose to do something outside of what it says, it's your problem not theirs.
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    Personally, I think using aggregate review scores to make decisions is foolish - and this was true even before user scores and review bombing were a thing. To paraphrase George Carlin - the average reviewer is dumb and half of the ones Metacritic is aggregating are even dumber than that. Why do you give equal weight to their opinion? My approach: Find someone whose opinion/taste I trust. Make decisions based on the full text of their review. Ignore Metacritc/Rotten Tomatoes/Steam User Reviews like the plague.
  - sickofparadox 3y ago
    And review bombing is almost always a legitimate outcry by fans that have very little leverage against an industry riddled with anti-consumer practices. The only people that are worried about review bombing should be the creators of the games, and they should do their best to avoid making decisions that force the fan base to resort to tanking their game's score.
gumballindie 3y ago
I paid for a product and I expect that product to at least not intentionally restrict use on proton. If you intentionally restrict its use on whatever platform i see fit then you are getting a negative review. The wine folks and valve have put serious effort into patching your product to work on linux, but when you actively undermine their effort and intentionally limit its use - either by banning players on linux or hacking your game to not work - then that's not nice. There is no fanboying in wanting to use a product whichever way I see fit. It's mine.
- lolinder 3y ago
  The problem is that the more people buy Steam Decks, the less understanding the average Linux gamer will be of bugs. For every hardcore Linux gamer who would leave a negative review on a game because it's not available on their platform, there will be several regular gamers who would leave a negative review because it doesn't work well on the Steam Deck. Enabling Linux support without actually working at supporting it for real is a risk that game studios rightly avoid. Steam could probably help with this by giving you a way to bypass the publisher's recommendation with lots of warnings (and maybe disabling negative reviews if you do), but that that doesn't exist is on Steam, not the publisher.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    >the less understanding the average Linux gamer will be of bugs. Linux gamers have NEVER been tolerant of bugs. They are the exact people who make bug reports to niche indie developers on an ultra specific, custom configured system that some small part of the game doesn't work, and get extremely entitled and pissed when the dev says "I literally can't afford to take the time to fix that, even if I knew what the hell in your system is borked".
- nerdjon 3y ago
  I partially agree, however considering you are mentioning banning players I think that when we are talking about an online game it is entirely within their right (and we should expect them too) to ban someone from playing in an unsupported manner. Cheating is a problem with online games. If they feel like (wether or not the community agrees doesn't matter) that configuration is not secure they don't have any obligation to support it. However, when you paid for the product you should know how something is supported. If you buy it to do something that is not supported you should not leave a negative review. You are punishing them for your choice. There needs to be a serious discussion about what exactly steam did with the steam deck and proton. They put out a new platform and basically told developers, it's now your job to support this. Yes a lot of the work is done by proton but it is not a silver bullet but normal consumers don't understand this. If your game breaks on proton most likely the company just doesn't consider it a platform to test, which is perfectly valid when they never said they supported it int he first place. Yet consumers go to the developers to complain? That makes no sense.

sickofparadox 3y ago

Leaving a negative review of the product because it doesn't work where you want it to work is absolutely not "toxic fanboy" behavior, its called being an advocate for your own interests. As the person paying up to 70$ for the game, consumers deserve to have their voices heard. Besides, is anyone actually worried about the rampant "toxicity" in the reviews section on a games steam page? Seems a bit pearl clutch-y.

falcolas 3y ago
> Leaving a negative review of the product because it doesn't work where you want it to work is absolutely not "toxic fanboy" behavior You can also call it free market research. Here's someone who wants to play your game enough to go through this extra effort.
nerdjon 3y ago
Um... "review bombing" is a thing that is often talked about. So... yes people are worried about it... You knew what the game did and did not support when you bough it. If you choose to do something outside of what it says, it's your problem not theirs.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  Personally, I think using aggregate review scores to make decisions is foolish - and this was true even before user scores and review bombing were a thing. To paraphrase George Carlin - the average reviewer is dumb and half of the ones Metacritic is aggregating are even dumber than that. Why do you give equal weight to their opinion? My approach: Find someone whose opinion/taste I trust. Make decisions based on the full text of their review. Ignore Metacritc/Rotten Tomatoes/Steam User Reviews like the plague.
- sickofparadox 3y ago
  And review bombing is almost always a legitimate outcry by fans that have very little leverage against an industry riddled with anti-consumer practices. The only people that are worried about review bombing should be the creators of the games, and they should do their best to avoid making decisions that force the fan base to resort to tanking their game's score.

gumballindie 3y ago

I paid for a product and I expect that product to at least not intentionally restrict use on proton. If you intentionally restrict its use on whatever platform i see fit then you are getting a negative review. The wine folks and valve have put serious effort into patching your product to work on linux, but when you actively undermine their effort and intentionally limit its use - either by banning players on linux or hacking your game to not work - then that's not nice. There is no fanboying in wanting to use a product whichever way I see fit. It's mine.

lolinder 3y ago
The problem is that the more people buy Steam Decks, the less understanding the average Linux gamer will be of bugs. For every hardcore Linux gamer who would leave a negative review on a game because it's not available on their platform, there will be several regular gamers who would leave a negative review because it doesn't work well on the Steam Deck. Enabling Linux support without actually working at supporting it for real is a risk that game studios rightly avoid. Steam could probably help with this by giving you a way to bypass the publisher's recommendation with lots of warnings (and maybe disabling negative reviews if you do), but that that doesn't exist is on Steam, not the publisher.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >the less understanding the average Linux gamer will be of bugs. Linux gamers have NEVER been tolerant of bugs. They are the exact people who make bug reports to niche indie developers on an ultra specific, custom configured system that some small part of the game doesn't work, and get extremely entitled and pissed when the dev says "I literally can't afford to take the time to fix that, even if I knew what the hell in your system is borked".
nerdjon 3y ago
I partially agree, however considering you are mentioning banning players I think that when we are talking about an online game it is entirely within their right (and we should expect them too) to ban someone from playing in an unsupported manner. Cheating is a problem with online games. If they feel like (wether or not the community agrees doesn't matter) that configuration is not secure they don't have any obligation to support it. However, when you paid for the product you should know how something is supported. If you buy it to do something that is not supported you should not leave a negative review. You are punishing them for your choice. There needs to be a serious discussion about what exactly steam did with the steam deck and proton. They put out a new platform and basically told developers, it's now your job to support this. Yes a lot of the work is done by proton but it is not a silver bullet but normal consumers don't understand this. If your game breaks on proton most likely the company just doesn't consider it a platform to test, which is perfectly valid when they never said they supported it int he first place. Yet consumers go to the developers to complain? That makes no sense.