Should Users Even Be Allowed To Rate/Vote On Titles/Articles And/Or Should User-Review Systems Be Changed?

[ToxicOffender]

If you were ever really reading USER-REVIEWS, no matter if on Steam, Amazon, Metacritic etc. and regardless as to what articles, games, books or any other titles, you probably noticed more (many or most) USER-REVIEWS are pretty much worthless and of course some platforms are having this "problem" more while other´s aren´t so.

"Good" reviews are (at least trying) to be as objective as possible and that is where most users terribly fail, with their reviews either being limited to "Meh!", "Duh!", "Crap!" or "Good!" among a few other words in their obvious quantum-sized vocabulary. It is also mostly the case that those REVIEWS/RATINGS being the shortest, are quite often NEGATIVE, as like the user just wanted to do "vote something down" coz he had a bad day or coz he doesn´t like devs of a game or better yet....coz the users haven´t yet realized BLU-RAY-3D being DEAD but still review-bombing every title not getting its 3D-BLU-RAY release, regardless if that movie is a 5-Star All-Time-Favorite-Masterpiece.

Now there are probably no other articles in this world, being "wrongly accused of being mediocre or bad" (or being wrongly accused of being "Good!" when they´re infact mediocre to bad) when they are in fact better, as it´s happening in the gaming-industry.

Now one of the other tragic problem what gaming is having these days, would be having too many titles to choose from, so especially people who can´t afford each and every game these rough times we are living in, are more or less "dependent" on certain reviews, in order to decide where they spend their hard earned money.

But even when you´re not one of those people, you´re probably catching yourself always peaking at the user-review-bars showing up, even to the fact of being aware they´re "mostly trash" anyway.

I don´t even talk about review-bombings yet, but in times like this, users can easily really hurt devs, especially INDIES.

I´d say, it would be time to overthink the general user-rating systems everywhere (even if they are probably never doing it anyway) and it would be probably better to just let users speak, but not giving them too much power with such things as "POSITIVE" and "NEGATIVE" voting-options only, as Steam is dong since an eternity.

It would be also probably as well time, to just not show those 1-Word-Reviews anymore, as like "Meh!", "Duh!" and "Bam!" USER-REVIEWS, coz if a persons vocabulary is THAT limited and so probably his IQ in certain cases, you cannot trust that USER-REVIEW anyway coz it serves a self-righteous purpose with no objectivity after all.

And yeah, i am mostly talking about STEAM-USER-REVIEWS with that latter, yet steam thinks its system is perfect enough, that´s why those money- and influence-hungry powermongers still not giving them users a third voting-option (like "mediocre") as they´re asking for it since years.....NO!...instead Steam gave them another voting option for other user-reviews so now they can rate them "Funny!" along with making fun of them in a negative way by giving those "Jasper"-Medals, which is in my opinion, the same as "trolling" another user with it getting even "uglier" the more users thend to give "Jasper" to one and the same user, but then again if you "make fun of another user" with words rather than giving him a "Jasper"-Medal, you´re getting either a Warning or an Instant-Ban.

And so STEAM will probably never change anything on its user-review system and so INDIES are probably better off to just releasing their title on EPIC first, for it to have less chances of looking more "negative" or not getting "enough" ratings at all, for every other reason but being a "negative" title.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, Steam has a way bigger market share than Epic. You would get more exposure. Plus there are a ton of gamers in the Epic ecosystem that are only there for the free games. You don't have that as much with Steam. People are there to buy games.

But on the other hand, Steam has so many games that your indie game is going to get lost in the sea. So I'm not really sure what is best. I guess I probably do give some credence to reviews when I look at games on Steam. But most of what I buy is because of word of mouth and watching videos, rather than looking at reviews.

 

[DXCHASE]

I dont think they need a change, people just need to stop letting simple reviews influence their judgement so much. I can count on 1 hand with fingers to spare in how many times i got a game based off reviews alone. (My latest example would be Crusader Kings 3 and i was gonna get the game anyways with a bundle of games i already was gonna buy).

If youre not gonna get a game because a bunch of users wrote "ITS TRASH" then thats on you for being so easily manipulated. Its the internet, people are gonna have their views and whether they are harsh or not, they will not be stopped from stating their opinion online whether you change review systems or not. I dont agree with what Amazon did though recently by ''delaying'' reviews on their LoTR series. Plenty of other spots out there to find what people think, so for Amazon to do that is pointless.

I dont think its tragic at all that there are so many games out there. Since the software for making games has become so abundant, free, easy-to-use and access coupled with Steams early access/workshop, any small team or individual can do what they love and may or may not find success but at least Steam helps give them a platform. Yes there are probably many rules/regulations that should be adjusted but it at least allows these users to try and make it with their game.

 

[Brian Boru]

Anywhere you go where teens and younger congregate, you'll find more than the usual amount of trash—if it's almost all teens, it's almost all trash. Speaking from an informational or useful POV, not a kids being kids POV.

But… it is usually very easy to find the occasional grown-up contribution amidst all the monosyllabic dross. At least it is for me, I've been using player-viewer-reader-listener reviews for decades as a reliable way of finding good or bad entertainment.

There are problems such as review bombing and review stuffing, which again are not difficult to spot if you know what to look for.

Wisdom of the crowd provides perspective on this.

 

[ToxicOffender]

Oh, by the way, happened 2 weeks ago: Lord Of The Rings Amazon Series

But this only made it into the news because of the size of this franchise, what happend with LORD OF THE RINGS here, is happening as well to other articles/games/movies etc., the majority of people mostly just doesn´t notice and/or the "bombed" article ain´t well known enough.

If there is an INDIE game on Steam, with a total of 5 user-reviews and 3 "review-bombing" it coz they hate the developer, no one will care and neither notice, but the DAMAGE is probably done.

people just need to stop letting simple reviews influence their judgement so much.

Oh! Of course! The classic!

"They´re all so easy to manipulate, while I am in fact never falling victim to manipulation at all!"

Well....

If youre not gonna get a game because a bunch of users wrote "ITS TRASH" then thats on you for being so easily manipulated.

"Manipulation" works mostly on a subconscious level, meaning you (like it or not) have been "manipulated" for a thousand times and you still not being aware of it, so you claim "I am not easy to manipulate!" just as everyone else is claiming...including myself of course!

We are basically getting manipulated on a daily basis all the time without being aware of it.

If you suddenly get this feeling you wanna drink some fresh coke on a hot steamy summer day, you for sure think it´s you who wants it, rather than something was manipulating you of course, at the end it could have been those typical coke-commercials, where someone was drinking that fresh´n cold coke on a typical steamy hot summer day, now making you do the exact same, and that´s how "manipulation" works.

Now my exact point is, when you notice several "bad reviews" over and over again, on the same title, probably over a longer period too, you tend to get that "it´s bad!"-feeling on a subconscious level and your subconcious doesn´t care if this or that "bad review" was written by one dumb teen or a bunch of review-bombing trolls at all. So once you got this "It´s bad!"-feeling, "manipulation" has kicked in already and from that point on, it can way too easily happen that you make a decision being in fact based on that manipulation.

There are problems such as review bombing and review stuffing, which again are not difficult to spot if you know what to look for.

Now is the majority of people aware of what they have to look for?

But even when this review-bombing wouldn´t exist, too many reviews are just way off any objectivity to begin with and therefor not really having any value, yet again there is still this "manipulation-on-a-subconscious-level"-thing, making sure people tend to think "It´s real bad!" once they often enough see or read those "It´s real bad!"-reviews...and then of course...there come all the bandwagoners, just jumping onto the giving-it-a-bad-review bandwagon.

But how is actually the thing with BUGS of a game?

Is a rather good game with just too many bugs on its release-day in fact a bad game or just "bad" coz of too many bugs at the time of reviewing?

There are an endless amount of negative user-reviews coming from too many bugs of a title, but from an objective view, that title must not be a bad title at all, it just struggles with well....too many bugs for a certain time, while in certain other cases of course, devs never really made it to get rid of their bugs at all.

 

[SleepingDog]

No review is objective - it just can't be. So to treat them as such is illogical (but then again we are all human - any aliens reading this?).

As regards user reviews I will only look at those that explain why they gave the score they did and the date of the review (in comparison to the game's release date). Of course the Lemmings amongst us will do little or no research and then blame others for their failures.

I agree that we are all subject to some degree of manipulation though I think that certain pre-conditions need to exist. I would not drink Coke just because I saw an advert but I might if it was hot and I was thirsty. In this situation I will drink some-thing - the question is what?

So to answer the question - yes users should be allowed to leave reviews, even if it is drivel, but readers need to exercise caution and not act like Lemmings.

PS - I think that the 1st 3 episodes of "The Rings of Power" are superb. Production values are high, acting is very good and the scenery (including the cities) is superb.

 

[ZedClampet]

If you were ever really reading USER-REVIEWS, no matter if on Steam, Amazon, Metacritic etc. and regardless as to what articles, games, books or any other titles, you probably noticed more (many or most) USER-REVIEWS are pretty much worthless and of course some platforms are having this "problem" more while other´s aren´t so.

"Good" reviews are (at least trying) to be as objective as possible and that is where most users terribly fail, with their reviews either being limited to "Meh!", "Duh!", "Crap!" or "Good!" among a few other words in their obvious quantum-sized vocabulary. It is also mostly the case that those REVIEWS/RATINGS being the shortest, are quite often NEGATIVE, as like the user just wanted to do "vote something down" coz he had a bad day or coz he doesn´t like devs of a game or better yet....coz the users haven´t yet realized BLU-RAY-3D being DEAD but still review-bombing every title not getting its 3D-BLU-RAY release, regardless if that movie is a 5-Star All-Time-Favorite-Masterpiece.

Now there are probably no other articles in this world, being "wrongly accused of being mediocre or bad" (or being wrongly accused of being "Good!" when they´re infact mediocre to bad) when they are in fact better, as it´s happening in the gaming-industry.

Now one of the other tragic problem what gaming is having these days, would be having too many titles to choose from, so especially people who can´t afford each and every game these rough times we are living in, are more or less "dependent" on certain reviews, in order to decide where they spend their hard earned money.

But even when you´re not one of those people, you´re probably catching yourself always peaking at the user-review-bars showing up, even to the fact of being aware they´re "mostly trash" anyway.

I don´t even talk about review-bombings yet, but in times like this, users can easily really hurt devs, especially INDIES.

I´d say, it would be time to overthink the general user-rating systems everywhere (even if they are probably never doing it anyway) and it would be probably better to just let users speak, but not giving them too much power with such things as "POSITIVE" and "NEGATIVE" voting-options only, as Steam is dong since an eternity.

It would be also probably as well time, to just not show those 1-Word-Reviews anymore, as like "Meh!", "Duh!" and "Bam!" USER-REVIEWS, coz if a persons vocabulary is THAT limited and so probably his IQ in certain cases, you cannot trust that USER-REVIEW anyway coz it serves a self-righteous purpose with no objectivity after all.

And yeah, i am mostly talking about STEAM-USER-REVIEWS with that latter, yet steam thinks its system is perfect enough, that´s why those money- and influence-hungry powermongers still not giving them users a third voting-option (like "mediocre") as they´re asking for it since years.....NO!...instead Steam gave them another voting option for other user-reviews so now they can rate them "Funny!" along with making fun of them in a negative way by giving those "Jasper"-Medals, which is in my opinion, the same as "trolling" another user with it getting even "uglier" the more users thend to give "Jasper" to one and the same user, but then again if you "make fun of another user" with words rather than giving him a "Jasper"-Medal, you´re getting either a Warning or an Instant-Ban.

And so STEAM will probably never change anything on its user-review system and so INDIES are probably better off to just releasing their title on EPIC first, for it to have less chances of looking more "negative" or not getting "enough" ratings at all, for every other reason but being a "negative" title.

I love user reviews, and always check them before every purchase. You come across useless ones, of course, but you can get great information from the plenty of good ones you can find. The lack of a user review system is one of the reasons I rarely use Epic.

And, no, I'm not being manipulated or influenced subconsciously by lousy reviews, just as your impassioned post hasn't turned me against user reviews even in the slightest. You can quote this and repeat your theory that reading "It's crap!" makes me think worse of a game, but that doesn't make it true. Most people are not that easily influenced.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Oh, by the way, happened 2 weeks ago: Lord Of The Rings Amazon Series

But this only made it into the news because of the size of this franchise, what happend with LORD OF THE RINGS here, is happening as well to other articles/games/movies etc., the majority of people mostly just doesn´t notice and/or the "bombed" article ain´t well known enough.

One of the biggest complaints I've heard about the series is that they've made it "woke." But my brother is one of the most right-wing people I know, and he's loving it. He says he doesn't see anything woke about it. I haven't watched it, myself, so I'm wondering if it's more the media and fan stuff leading up to it that makes it appear more that way than the actual series, itself.

But then on the other hand, my brother has never read even one Tolkien book, and all he has to go by are the Peter Jackson movies, which he loved. I, on the other hand, am a huge Tolkien fan, and I think the Peter Jackson movies (all of them) are an abomination. I think he probably read them one time 50 years ago, and decided to make movies based on his memories of that one time he read them. So I think I'd probably end up hating this series for other reasons than it being "woke."

Maybe I'll give it a fair shot. No matter what, it isn't Tolkien, though.

 

[SleepingDog]

One of the biggest complaints I've heard about the series is that they've made it "woke." But my brother is one of the most right-wing people I know, and he's loving it. He says he doesn't see anything woke about it. I haven't watched it, myself, so I'm wondering if it's more the media and fan stuff leading up to it that makes it appear more that way than the actual series, itself.

But then on the other hand, my brother has never read even one Tolkien book, and all he has to go by are the Peter Jackson movies, which he loved. I, on the other hand, am a huge Tolkien fan, and I think the Peter Jackson movies (all of them) are an abomination. I think he probably read them one time 50 years ago, and decided to make movies based on his memories of that one time he read them. So I think I'd probably end up hating this series for other reasons than it being "woke."

Maybe I'll give it a fair shot. No matter what, it isn't Tolkien, though.

I think that we tend to forget the historical context of such great works as TLotR. JRR Tolkien wrote his books over a period with them being published in 1954-55. In those years the UK was not a multi-cultural society that it has evolved into over the past 50 to 60 years. (I agree there were enclaves where some immigrants lived but they were in the minority). It was a white male dominated society.

So not surprisingly a lot of what the world was like then bled into his work. Ask yourself this question "If JRR was writing these books today would he of given bigger roles to women and non-whites?" I believe the answer is yes - but that is only my opinion.

Updating is necessary so the messages or story gets to as many people as possible (and of course makes money). A more radical change is "I Am Legend" - the book came out in 1954 (got a read copy somewhere) and the film in 2007 with Will Smith. A pure copy of the 1954 book would of tanked in my opinion.

My advice is forget what anyone else has said, forget the original books and just ask your self (after a couple of episodes) whether you enjoyed it. Really that's all that matters.

P.S. I have two copies of TLotR (and The Hobbit) which I read avidly in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Now they feel dated but maybe I have changed?

 

[ToxicOffender]

And, no, I'm not being manipulated or influenced subconsciously by lousy reviews,

Have you ever been manipulated or influenced subconsciously by good reviews?

Have you ever been manipulated or influenced into thinking this or that title will be so great and then you ended up being terribly disappointed?

Have you ever been manipulated or influenced to vote for a certain president?

No, of couse you haven´t, as everyone else ain´t so easy to manipulate!(?)

Most people are not that easily influenced.

History is telling the exact opposite.

But i don´t even need good ole history to learn that lesson, I in fact just have to look at society these days, with so called "influencers" making a living with their millions of media-brainwashed followers, or how politicians are luring, influencing and manipulating people.

Yet of course, no one was ever manipulated into anything, all decisions people ever made and are making on this planet, are solely based on common sense of course!(?)

No review is objective

Then perhabs all reviews should be dumped as they´re being rather pointless drivel with not giving any valuable information.

But then again a PC-Gamer-Article reviewing a game is a lot more objective than a "Meh"-1-Word User-Review on Steam, and that´s what i was basically saying.

 

[Slasken]

I appreciate user reviews. It's easy to filter the bad from the good ones. Often I look for specific things about the game and concerns I have. I don't read just one review and make a decision.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I think that we tend to forget the historical context of such great works as TLotR. JRR Tolkien wrote his books over a period with them being published in 1954-55. In those years the UK was not a multi-cultural society that it has evolved into over the past 50 to 60 years. (I agree there were enclaves where some immigrants lived but they were in the minority). It was a white male dominated society.

So not surprisingly a lot of what the world was like then bled into his work. Ask yourself this question "If JRR was writing these books today would he of given bigger roles to women and non-whites?" I believe the answer is yes - but that is only my opinion.

Updating is necessary so the messages or story gets to as many people as possible (and of course makes money). A more radical change is "I Am Legend" - the book came out in 1954 (got a read copy somewhere) and the film in 2007 with Will Smith. A pure copy of the 1954 book would of tanked in my opinion.

My advice is forget what anyone else has said, forget the original books and just ask your self (after a couple of episodes) whether you enjoyed it. Really that's all that matters.

P.S. I have two copies of TLotR (and The Hobbit) which I read avidly in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Now they feel dated but maybe I have changed?

I completely agree with your thought that Tolkien today would have written his stories more inclusively. And I don't have a problem with modern-day writing being inclusive and diverse, as long as it makes sense to do that. There are certain situations where it is being pushed in ways that really don't make sense, though. But I do agree that if he would have written the stories today, the character roster may have looked differently.

But what I don't agree with is rewriting history. It's not ok to rewrite history to make it look like we think things should look today, if that's not how it was back then. 50 years from now, the way we are today probably won't be acceptable. That's assuming we having destroyed ourselves within the next 50 years.

 

[SleepingDog]

I completely agree with your thought that Tolkien today would have written his stories more inclusively. And I don't have a problem with modern-day writing being inclusive and diverse, as long as it makes sense to do that. There are certain situations where it is being pushed in ways that really don't make sense, though. But I do agree that if he would have written the stories today, the character roster may have looked differently.

But what I don't agree with is rewriting history. It's not ok to rewrite history to make it look like we think things should look today, if that's not how it was back then. 50 years from now, the way we are today probably won't be acceptable. That's assuming we having destroyed ourselves within the next 50 years.

Totally agree with not re-writing history except when it is wrong or missing parts by omission. However we are dealing with fiction. The novel and the TV series are not real so they do not have to be internally consistent. So I treat them as separate entities and do not worry if they do not agree. The book and the TV series are there to entertain me and to reinforce my beliefs in the triumph of good over evil (we all need hope).

I totally agree with you that morality or whatever you want to call it is flexible and changes over time. I mean people thought slavery was ok in the Roman and Greek Empires but then life could be short and brutal which is not so much the case in the West nowadays. Different viewpoints, different expectations of life experience leads to different moral outcomes.

PS I think the Italian cider has gone to my head.

 

[Colif]

Amazon was hiding its ratings for 72 hours after release of the show. Thats scummy. So if you can't see what other people think, you might think its a fine show... the critics loved it (not being very critical, are they). Aamazon said 25 million people watched in first 3 days, actual figures show closer to 2 million. Hype.... lies.

Users/viewers/buyers should be able to review the product or you get sold on hype and can't tell if the "reviews" are real. Games are the last place who should just listen and believe.

So review bombing is bad, but boosting is okay? No one ever complains if you give them 10, even if that is skewing reality as well. 10 or 0 is normally unrealistic. When ratings are based on ideas and not what is actually in the story/game then you get reviews you can't trust.

 

[Brian Boru]

what I don't agree with is rewriting history

"Poor Neville will come badly out of history. I know, I will write that history"—Winston Churchill

And a couple of Napoleon's:
"What is history but a fable agreed upon?"
"History is a set of lies agreed upon."

From bits of history I've looked into in some depth, my guess is that the vast majority of history needs serious rewriting.

10 or 0 is normally unrealistic

I find better results in the 4-8 range [or 2-4 in 5* system], filtered for confirmed purchase and recency. Check the 'shape' of the ratings chart—ideally it'll taper down from 5-star [most] to 1-star [least]. Watch out for 1-star being more than usual, that may mean a product which is good when works but too often is DOA.

 

[Colif]

History is written by the winners, so whether its necessarily accurate is questionable. But it helps if people at least agree on some points in the "story"

History is being rewritten now as its easy since most of its digital. Glad I have some books as they harder to edit after printing. If you can't believe what was done in the last 150 years, why trust any of it? We only had civilisations for 14k years? Sure, whatever you say. Is anything real? Oh wait - link

I don't read reviews. I watch videos of whatever to see what I think. I rarely buy anything so its just as an observer.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

History is written by the winners, so whether its necessarily accurate is questionable. But it helps if people at least agree on some points in the "story"

History is being rewritten now as its easy since most of its digital. Glad I have some books as they harder to edit after printing. If you can't believe what was done in the last 150 years, why trust any of it? We only had civilisations for 14k years? Sure, whatever you say. Is anything real? Oh wait - link

I don't read reviews. I watch videos of whatever to see what I think. I rarely buy anything so its just as an observer.

I've seriously considered collecting some hardcopy books that are in danger of being censored or banned.

 

[ToxicOffender]

It's easy to filter the bad from the good ones.

You see a title getting 1000 user-reviews with 70 percent negative on Steam while 30 are positive....you consider reading through hundreds of user-reviews an "easy way to filter the bad from good ones"?

Or is there another way how you can spot them? Probably easier and faster than reading through probably several hundreds of pointless and crappy, completely valueless "rants" rather than "reviews"?

Yes, Steam marks times with potential review-bombing happening, but it´s about lousy/bad/pointless reviews happening on Steam and those are happen all the time regardless of any review-bombings happening and as a matter of fact, those bad/lousy/pointless "reviews" are not marked in any way.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Personally I think its very easy to scan user reviews and see genuine common complaints as well as common praise. Its easy that way to see any review bombing, because there'll be lots of one word reviews or lots of common phrases used so you can see somethings been up outside of the game itself.

When I'm picking as game to buy there's a lot of things I take into consideration. Genre, Metacritic, individual reviews or features from journalists/reviewers/influencers who've liked similar games to me, buzz from communities of games I already love, the developers previous games, video footage, friends opinions. Then you add in price on top, is it buy at release or wait?

Most of the time its wait. User reviews on their own don't convince me of anything, I think that's true of most people, more or less.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

From bits of history I've looked into in some depth, my guess is that the vast majority of history needs serious rewriting.

Everyone has the right to their opinion, but I disagree with this. We don't need to erase and rewrite history just because we're uncomfortable with how some things happened. What we need to do is learn from history and become better people because of it.

Also, I don't believe in completely writing a person off, including all of the good things they did, just because they also did bad things. Obviously there is a balance there. But every person in this world has done bad things that they're ashamed of, or that have offended someone else in the world. Nobody is perfect. And it seems like each person expects grace, mercy, and forgiveness for themselves, but they are unwilling to extend the same to others.

If you can't tell, I'm very much against Cancel Culture.

 

[ToxicOffender]

We don't need to erase and rewrite history just because we're uncomfortable with how some things happened. What we need to do is learn from history and become better people because of it.

That is exactly what "historians" are telling people over and over again...so what is the Internet doing today for example?

They ban "Swastikas" in every possible way, regardless of the context it is posted in, they even ban them on books (THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, etc.) and also started to ban them on covers of certain movie-covers, while as strange as it is...movies never had any problems with Swastikas to this point.

It seems like they´re all on the best way of making everyone forget that something like the "Swastika" (in terms of WWII, not the "Swastika" as sign of "luck") happened along with those terrible things happening during and before WWII.

And "people forgetting about history" is the worst thing that can happen while that is as well what historians are saying.

Fun-Fact: Germany was censoring Swastikas and everything "****-Related" in VIDEO-GAMES through dozens of years, they even had to rename the "Nazis" in WOLFENSTEIN to "Wölfe" for the german release.

Now a few years ago, germany happily dropped that paragraph so we are now finally able to get our hands on uncensored WWII games...and what is now happening everywhere else? It seems other countries are all of the sudden starting with that crap, censoring Swastikas or altering them into any other kind of wird/funny "Crosses".

So DISNEY is also doing a great job with making people forget, as for example they were censoring/altering the Swastika in "Marvel´s WHAT IF..."-Series, at least in those stories set in WWII.

EDIT: OH MY! I just realized PC-Gamer is censoring the short term for nationalsocialist????? WTF? I thought only Steam is doing that?

EDIT#2: I don´t get it, i actually just noticed that evil n-word for nationalsocialist is censored in that one sentence, while it ain´t in the one below....hmmmm....

What words are going to be censored next? "War"? "Swastika"? "White"?

 

[Colif]

i didn't know Germany dropped their censorship.
I guess they don't need to if everyone else is doing it for them.

Maybe because too many get offended on their behalf now that they can appear to be reasonable when really there is little chance anyone will release a game with them in it. Soon the only people who will be allowed to be evil are Zombie and they get rather boring to kill after a while. Or Americans but you don't see many games where they are the baddies... I wonder why

 

[WoodenSaucer]

EDIT: OH MY! I just realized PC-Gamer is censoring the short term for nationalsocialist????? WTF? I thought only Steam is doing that?

EDIT#2: I don´t get it, i actually just noticed that evil n-word for nationalsocialist is censored in that one sentence, while it ain´t in the one below....hmmmm....

I think it might be because the second instance was the plural form of the word. But now that I've pointed that out, they'll probably add it to the list of censored words.

There is a huge difference between painting something bad from history in a good light and making it look like a good thing, and remembering something bad so we can learn from those bad things. Using swastikas as a positive thing is bad (unless maybe if it's in the context of the Hindu symbol). Using them to remember a horrible atrocity so we can learn from history is not a bad thing.

Here are a couple of examples: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is an amazing, gut-wrenching movie that gets you to see how horrible concentration camps were, and it does a great job of making you feel it. Should that be banned just because we don't like what happened in history? I don't believe so. It can make us better people to learn and gain wisdom and compassion.

Or a big one is the book Uncle Tom's Cabin, which has actually been banned in some places because we don't like to think about how slavery actually happened, and also because people don't want to admit that some slave owners were much more compassionate than others were. But Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the book to bring to mainstream the understanding of how badly slaves were treated, and she was an avid abolitionist who did a lot to help lead the movement to free the slaves. People ban the book now because they don't want to confront the idea of slavery, and they want to rewrite history, but the book actually did a lot toward helping the slaves be freed.

I know we've kind of hijacked the thread, and I'm sorry for that. But I'm just a very firm believer that it's much more beneficial to learn from history than to erase it.

 

[ToxicOffender]

I know we've kind of hijacked the thread, and I'm sorry for that.

For christ sakes YA DON´T HAVE TO BE SORRY!

I don´t care about community-standards as well as guidelines and all that virtual-good-behaviour crap (while people at the same time behave like asses in the real world -so much for hypocrites!). I am as well not so easily butthurt as the majority of "internet-people" are these days (most of all those cute lil teenie-keyboard-warriors calling for moderators once they feel like someone ain´t sharing their opinion, like its happening in certain ugly forums these days).

Discussions have that thing to suddenly change direction and that is something totally normal to happen, so i am the last one to cry "Bwwaaahh wwaaaah stay on topic!" as well as i would never go crying like "Close that thread!".

How and where a discussion is heading, doesn´t absolutely matters to me and so i also don´t care about what´s happening in my own threads as well.

 

[Colif]

We like to keep threads somewhere near the topic they started on, its one of the reasons there isn't an anything goes forum as they get out of control too fast.
You might not easily be offended but others aren't so tough. Most of the regulars here are toughened by years of life. Not many here that get offended easily but I am sure they have their limits. I get offended by stupid people. But I don't do anything about it apart from shake my head.

its not an echo chamber here but you know. Have to have some rules.

I am not going to do anything about it, if the op is still active in discussion, I let it live