Steam Keys are not so hard to get, especially for game reviewers. Other people can get ahold of them too, and even can get paid for it. I’m not going to go into the specifics, because it’s a repugnant thing, and it is with this change that I hope it will if not be killed, slowed way down. Because Steam updated how their Review System works, and after reading through it once or twice, I think it’s terrific. I’m going to quote it, and it is found here:
“An analysis of games across Steam shows that at least 160 titles have a substantially greater percentage of positive reviews by users that activated the product with a cd key, compared to customers that purchased the game directly on Steam. There are, of course, legitimate reasons why this could be true for a game: Some games have strong audiences off Steam, and some games have passionate early adopters or Kickstarter backers that are much more invested in the game.”
The long and the short of it is, there are shady developers that are giving away keys and/or paying people to hype their game. That just puts a huge damper on what we as gaming journalists do: We aren’t paid by the developers. At least not on this site. We’re paid by our bosses to be honest. I was told by DizzyPW when I started “If it’s ass, say it’s ass! Don’t lie to the people”, which I had not planned on doing in the first place. People on Steam are going to be able to filter reviews from where the game was acquired: Whether they bought it on Steam, acquired a key, et cetera. Also, Steam Key reviews won’t be included in the score anymore! Those people being given codes to spice up a game that might not have a lot of heat behind it? Those fucking days are over. #praiseGaben
