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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
If you have ever wanted to see an indie video game developer commit PR suicide, then 2016 is your lucky year. In what appears to be an attempt to outdo Hello Games and their No Man's Sky debacle, indie developer Digital Homicide has filed a personal injury lawsuit against 100 people on Steam for writing negative reviews and comments about their various games. As the 100 people listed in the lawsuit are identified only by their Steam usernames, Digital Homicide has also subpoenaed Valve, the company behind Steam, for the actual names of the 100 people that they are suing.
As if that wasn't enough, Digital Homicide is allegedly considering another lawsuit directly against Valve in an attempt to create a digital "safe space" for developers on Steam. This effectively means that on top of the $18 million that Digital Homicide is seeking in damages in their original lawsuit against the 100 Jane and John Does, Digital Homicide wants Valve to create an environment on Steam where developers are safe from things like "harassment, verbal and written assault, libel, and slander." Mr. Bob Lawsuitsfeedmyfamily, a retired legal advisor that specializes in the study of frivolous lawsuits, stated that the two cases will likely "force Digital Homicide to change their company's name to Digital Suicide." Even in a best case scenario where Digital Homicide somehow wins their lawsuits against Valve, "they will likely be ridiculed and hated for as long as the Internet can remember" Lawsuitsfeedmyfamily said.
Source: http://techraptor.net/content/kekraptor-digital-homicide-sues-valve-wants-steam-safe-space
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 19 2016, @04:37PM
Okay, how about a more on the nose example since you seem to be all about being pedantic today. Diablo III got and deserved pissed off reviews from people who did not buy the game for dropping LAN play, a key element of previous Diablo games.
But I'm sure this won't convince you. You do so lurve your safe spaces where you never have to hear anything that might upset you.
Except for here. You keep coming back here. Which tells me you don't need or even desire safe spaces at all and are full of shit from your toes to your toupee.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday September 19 2016, @08:15PM
For safe spaces to accomplish anything, you do need to get away from them on occasion. Otherwise, you have just set up an echo chamber,
That said, (as a corollary?), "safe spaces" must be limited in scope.
(Score: 1) by charon on Tuesday September 20 2016, @11:23PM
Then how are these reviews in any acceptable way? A review is a critical evaluation of an event or product by a person who has direct experience of it. The people protesting LAN capability by flooding their 1 star "reviews" had no experience with the game and couldn't even begin to tell me whether or not I would enjoy it. It was widely known before release that LAN play wasn't included, and any aware potential purchaser would know that. And if not, caveat emptor, right? What did the tons of 1 star ratings by non-purchasers bring to the table? And so in the larger discussion, if my sister's boyfriend's nephew's roommate had a bad experience at the local diner, why should I be entitled to leave a 1 star review at yelp?
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 21 2016, @11:25PM
Yes indeed, "buyer beware". The buyer should be wary, and to do that they must be aware. Wouldn't it be great if we had some way for others to leave information about a product somewhere that potential buyers could find it before making their decision? Sort of a review of the product, perhaps...
Same reason you're entitled to make a big sign about it and stand out in front of the restaurant all day.
I can find plenty of places which state that a review is a critical evaluation. I'm not finding a single one which includes the "direct experience" part. The part of the definition you choose to emphasize isn't actually part of the definition at all. You don't always need direct experience to evaluate something.
(Score: 1) by charon on Thursday September 22 2016, @07:21AM
It doesn't make any sense to call such a thing a review then: it's hearsay. When you read a review of a movie, do you not expect the reviewer to have seen it? Sure, they can say, "I heard it sucks", but to leave out the "I heard" part is inherently dishonest.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday September 22 2016, @11:18PM
So is every single comment on this website! We read an article, we consider what we've heard/read, and we respond. I still think there's some value in that. And as far as the retailer is concerned it doesn't matter because all reviews are hearsay anyway -- they *might* be able to verify that you're an owner under certain specific circumstances, but they certainly can't ever verify your experiences. Furthermore there are many aspects of a product which simply cannot be reviewed in any other way. I'd find a link to a report about the labor conditions of a company's factory to be very useful in guiding my purchasing decisions for example, and I'd love to see that included in a review, even though the person writing that review probably doesn't have direct experience working in that factory.
There's far more to any product than just the color and style. I'd even be interested in reviews for totally different products (ie, how does this company handle support requests *in general*; how does this class of product perform *in general*) before I'd be interested in the ubiquitous "the color isn't exactly as displayed on my monitor!" or "this product that's a tenth of the price of the nearest competitor is a cheap piece of crap!" reviews. Because you don't need to read someone's review to figure that out. Good reviews say something you can't already deduce from the product page; truly great reviews say something you wouldn't have known even if you went to a shop and handled the display model. Where that information came from isn't particularly important, assuming it's accurate.
(Score: 1) by charon on Friday September 23 2016, @03:45AM
My argument is not saying you shouldn't have the information you want. What I am saying is when I read customer reviews, I already have my crap filter tuned extremely high to pick out the useful info. Adding another axis for misinformation is not helpful to me, and I seriously doubt it would be for you either. I barely trust a customer to tell me that the item in their hands is functional, you think I am going to trust them to tell me how many breaks the sweatshop workers get?
I certainly see the utility in having all the extra, non-product-related, information you are asking for, such as labor conditions, company reputation, customer service, etc. But if you're really interested in labor conditions before you buy, that information is available from trustworthy sources, not from xXgUnShOwXx1999@aol.com.
It may very well be we are talking about different types of review here. I mean the three line blurbs on consumer websites (e.g. "Works great, would buy again, A+++++++++", "Was delivered on saturday instead of friday, would give zero if I could"). You may be talking about long-form reviews where it would be expected that a reviewer has some experience with using similar products, writing coherently, making relevant information understandable, and giving a nuanced opinion. And yes, actually having direct experience with it.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday September 23 2016, @07:45PM
I see you have already found the best possible solution -- having *your* crap filter tuned high. Because your crap filter and my crap filter aren't filtering the same things. The problem with reviews isn't that there's too much crap, the problem with reviews is the retailers don't generally give us any useful options for filtering them to get to the information we want.
I'd love to have that information from more trustworthy sources, but retailers aren't going to put that on their product page, and there's no single unified source to go to. Reviews are a good solution, particularly if the issue got some public visibility at some point. If there's twenty different companies making the same product, I certainly might take xXgUnShOwXx1999@aol.com's word for it and just go grab a different one. If there's only one or two options, I might thank them for the tip and go look into it further. Either way I may not know if they hadn't posted a review. Even if you don't trust the reviewer, they still give valuable information about which trustworthy sources you should be looking at next.
Those aren't extremely valuable alone, but they're certainly useful in aggregate. If I'm just buying something for myself, I'm just gonna look at the average number of stars or whatever that such reviewers give. If I'm trying to scientifically determine which company is better (possibly as part of a consumer protection study, or a study by the company or its competitors for example) then it might be worth looking at. One person saying it was a day late is no big deal; a hundred people saying that indicates a real problem. Likewise, if most of the reviews are just totally satisfied A++++, then your product works but isn't particularly engaging or interesting. I'd rather have the information in case someone wants it and just hide it for those who don't instead of trying to cut it off at the source and discarding it entirely.
(Score: 2) by cykros on Sunday September 25 2016, @04:30AM
We read an article, we consider what we've heard/read, and we respond.
Wait, when did we start reading articles here? Last I knew it was all about the headlines, and if you were lucky, some had read the summary. This is starting to sound like homework...