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Conan Exiles News - Funcom CEO Rui Casais would like to see Steam user reviews to be region locked. He cites that sometimes games get "review bombed" by disaffected users who may be having issues that are not present in other regions. Casais spoke with GamesIndustry.biz about a recent spate of "review bombs" launched at Conan Exiles by Chinese users as his case-in-point.
Comments
FunCon logic...such a shady company.
I've never had an issue getting my moneys worth out of their products.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
The curator system Steam is pushing may be a good solution. This is where popular content producers (e.g. community leaders, YouTubers, media outlets) are able to recommend or not recommend games directly through the Steam platform. Many of these make more balanced arguments, or at least have a stable track record - if you usually agree/disagree with an outlet, you can trust their judgement on a new game.
I'd like to see the curator system expanded, at the expense of the Steam review number generated by the community. As it stands currently, Steam places too much value on player's collective ratings, making it the primary visible metric of whether a game is good or not.
I totally agree on the curator system. I'd like to see them throw away the Metacritic-like user review system.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They got review bombed because of Denuvo, for one I don't trust Denuvo, I purchased Conan Exiles, and removed it from my drive as well as wiped my drive to be sure I got rid of it all together.
Denuvo left their servers wide open to people to access private emails and other files as seen in this news article, anyone who contacted denuvo including myself within a certain time perioid had personal emails and files leaked.
https://kotaku.com/report-denuvo-website-leaks-private-company-emails-1792023955
This is why I don't trust Denuvo as part of a DRM in any game, and that is excluding performance issues and having Denuvo in a game itself causing a game to take more resources than actually needed to play a game.
When it comes down to it I respect developers and I buy my games I don't pirate, but there is no way I am going to line the pockets of Developers by purchasing their games with Malicious 3rd party DRM, that said I know discussing piracy on these forums are not allowed but generally speaking I am seeing every Denuvo game get cracked within 5 days - 2 weeks of release at max so the only customers its hurting are those who are funding the developers, pirates don't have to worry about Denuvo because they can play it DRM free but us as customers are stuck with a game taking extra resources and having to have access to the internet to verify once in awhile among other things is not something I want to put up with.
Yes I would leave Sonic Mania, or any other game such as Conan Exiles negative reviews just because they use a malicious DRM, there are other legitimate DRM that can be used such as "Steam" "Origins" or "Uplay" these do not impact performance, or encrypt a game in a VM system the same way that Denuvo does which is the problem with Denuvo and why it raises concerns.
Generally speaking "The Witcher 3" made millions and they didn't use any DRM, but also generally speaking about being a pirate, not naming any games to download a 30GB game for example with multi-layer Proxy's would take me no more than 8 Real Life hours which is why DRM is useless and why the developers need to drop Denuvo all together and support its paying customers such as myself.
I respect developers are great people and without them we wouldn't have good games so I believe in paying for their works, talent, and time but I am not willing to pay for Denuvo.
You have presented no evidence the Steam review bombs are due to Denuvo, in fact didnt you say Steam doesn't use it?
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
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And often, especially with MMOs, issues in one region do affect regions that are behind. I don't know how western devs do it for asian releases, but many asian games suffer from bad maintenance procedures, not enough servers etc. And they care this *over* to the west. Nothing has changed.
I also think it's impossible due due fair region locking. In his example, the guy from New Zeland gives the game a bad rating because the servers are far away, and the one in Gemany gives it a good rating because the servers are close. So far so good. But what if they actually play together? Or at least on the same *physical* servers, even if the game instances are different?
He also forgets to say that it works the other way round as well. Game is *the bomb* in one region - "overwhelmingly positive". Gets released with half the content, double the price and still uses the overseas servers in another region? Well, reviews say "overwhelmingly positive"; so no one will even try to find out that stuff.
I vastly prefer a simply majority vote like Steam does, or the user reviews on Metacritic. The opinion of any single person is unlikely to always be my own. And major gaming magazines have shown over the last couple of decades (!!) that they are not capable on giving earnest reviews. Whether it's because they can only afford to play each game 2-3 hours, they are incapable of seeing faults, they don't want to..no idea. But i know that it doesn't work.
Replacing these people with Youtube stars doesn't change anything.
12k votes might not actually meet my personal opinion either, but especially over time it averages out. And if they just pulled a fast on in China it might not affect me directly and/or immediately, but it's certainly good to know.
At best i can imagine seperating the votes (Which i still don't like) but the moment they hide other regions votes, it's over. If they can get away with doing shit in one region and repeat it in another because nobody knows, they'll do it. I've seen *price differences* of 400% between Germany and the US. Heck, i've seen it between Germany and the UK. I've seen the UK paying less than e.g. Romania. Thats not taxes, spending power or anything. It's greed, and knowing they can get away with it.
Tl;dr: Worst idea ever.
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high
And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll
Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde
And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
MAGA
OR -- instead of a single review rating breakdown at the top of the page, put regional ratings together:
NA - xxx recent reviews mostly positive
xxx overall reviews mostly positive
CH - xxx recent reviews mostly negative
xxx overall reviews neutral
Or something like that. Then people could dig around and find out why there are discrepancies, if any.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This region locking proposal by Funcom is with hope that in your area you won't see negative reviews and buy the game.
If they change it for Funcom they should change it for all games cause it would be unfair if they don't.
The real problem here is that they are selling copies in a region where people can't play it.
Ratings based on the presence of Denuvo is rubbish in fact there should be a rating section where they should place those Denuvo ratings because they have nothing whatsoever to do with the game quality itself.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
Not to mention the "rebranding" shenanigans and using TSW ratings and reviews for the new crap on all over the internet, as @TalulaRose said above. Oh, the irony...
(who knows, maybe 2-3 years from now one of their beancounters recognize how's the population of China, do the similar calculations they did last Spring with TSW, according to Tilty, and they will make a Conan Exiles Legends China edition )
Developers who have their games published on Steam are free to choose the availability of their game by region. They are even able to make available multiple versions too if need be.
Had Funcom released an Eastern Version and a Western Version restricted to their audiences, they would have gathered the opinion needed from its gamers. However, they stuck with the idea of releasing a single version and that is exactly what happens when a nation of over a billion people make their opinion over a western-released game. OF COURSE it is going to APPEAR TO be like a Bomb!
Realize that the population of Men and Women in China who are part of the working class... Each Gender = More than the total population of people living in the U.S.
So yes!
Congratulations on being THAT GUY!!!
The guy who says "I can't stand how Asians deliver to the West such games with BAD PING and crappy localization!" and then turn around and DO IT YOURSELF by finally making a game available to the East and finding that their main complaints are server performances that Eastern Gamers have......
I couldn't find fault in blaming Chinese people as a whole as they were given the same basic rights as others on steam. Since MMORPGs are Guild-Based and Cultures of the Far-East are more Group-Oriented in their recreation and work within their culture, it is only COMMON for ENTIRE GROUPS that would have launched as GUILDS playing from their own NET CAFEs and LAN Parties connecting to the net.... Would LOGICALLY complain together...
So the question is "What is NOT to understand?"
The choice to make a global release means that opinions received will be at the global level.
A piece of advice:
"If you want to make friends in this world, let go of all your damned preconceptions and start to learn how a people truly are... forget the worthless stereotypes and do some soul searching. You might be surprised."