First it was the 2014 forum, now it's the review system..

[AndyM77]

*sigh* This is why people are losing respect towards Railsimulator.com...

What's the point of having user reviews if a developer can just minimize the impact of user reviews?

I saw a review today about Train Simulator 2014 that was minimized and nothing shown (until you opened it) except a note, in bright orange no less, by Steam that says "The Developer has marked this review as Off-Topic"
Here is the link to the review:
http://steamcommunity.com/id/venomet...scn=1386198847

Complete thread is here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s ... ?t=3205438

Legitimate reviews are being 'Flagged' as Off-Topic even if it's a constructive review ( http://steamcommunity.com//profiles/765 ... ded/24010/ & http://steamcommunity.com//profiles/765 ... ded/24010/ ) What will be censored next?

Unfortunately this puts them into the same bracket as 'Day One: Garry’s Incident' devs & 'Infestation: Survivor Stories' who ban YouTube "Critiques" under the DMCA even when the video was a parody -

Dean Salter ‏@DeanoSalter 18 Nov
“@torrentfreak: Defending the ‘Little Guy’ from Bogus DMCA Takedown Bullies http://dlvr.it/4LPt39 ” Article about me and my podcast friends"

Bad show IMHO...

[VeraTheMage]

I've sent an email to RSC's "social media" and "support" addresses concerning this...here's hoping there'll be a response that won't be boilerplate.

For a company so persistent with winning "hearts and minds" through social media, censoring reviews seems like a curiously self-defeating thing to do.

[mckenziejames04]

This censorship of opinions and reviews is disgusting. Guess RSC are gonna love feeling the Streisand effect hitting them in the face once again.

[VeraTheMage]

Dear Sir,

Thank you for contacting the Railsimulator.com customer support team with your feedback and suggestions regarding Train Simulator. This is very much appreciated.

You can find full details about the Steam review system here: http://store.steampowered.com/reviews/

There is currently a discussion thread running on the Train Simulator forum which also relates to this matter and maybe of interest to you. In it we explain how reviews are moderated and why. Please feel free to join the discussion where our social team will be more than happy to answer any questions you have. You can find the thread here:

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/disc ... ppid=24010

We appreciate your taking the time to let us know,

Please reply to this email rather than generating a new email, this will avoid any confusion, it also enables us to read the history of all correspondence in order to provide you with quicker assistance and better support.

Keep an eye on the Train Simulator 2013 website: http://www.railsimulator.com or Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/railsimulator for all the latest news and details about upcoming releases.

Regards

Rail Simulator Support

Usual boilerplate reply...

Oh, and my name is Vera, which I think would lead one to use the female title...

[Merlin75]

This RSC censorship has led to a steam group forming that is anti RSC. This group has gone as far as reporting RSC to steam and will do because they feel that there should be good and bad reviews and forum topics without being banned by RSC to give a fair and honest opinions to new customers before they start on what can be a expensive hobby.

Not working out Vera is a female name says a lot for RSC's support team.

[callum1122334455]

.....Not working out Vera is a female name says a lot for RSC's support team.

It's probably a template email that they just cut, snip and edit

[smarty2]

I'm gobsmacked that the RSC devs can do this on a public forum! ( I know their icy tentacles reach into fora but blimey) Definitely not cricket chaps, one must take the bad with the good! Glad I don't pay full price for their wares anymore.

[220389]

The community forums on the community hub, had to be cleaned up due to the ways it was going and what had happened, although i didn't see it.

The reviews bit am surprised at, as nearly all of them were legit as well. For them people will always disagree what the context are of them, but a dev' shouldn't go on the censorship method of things, unless it is libel things being mentioned. Relic didn't even do that with the massive amounts of flak they got from Russian gamers due to how they are shown in Company of Heroes 2. But things like that show Meta Critic up badly, also as mentioned in that thread with Amazon stuff etc.

Most the games i have, i have done steam reviews for them. I haven't done TS/Railworks due to it being rather hard to do one for it.

With War Z (Renamed - Infestation: Survival Stories) Main reason for that being taken off steam was due to complete false advertising and banning anyone from the actual game who said anything negative, so people lost all access and the money they paid for it.

Other games are getting lots of flak from other dev's anyway, such as Forza 5 (Not seen/ looked at forums to see what dev's view is) and the recently released information about GT6.

[AndyM77]

It now appears, (for now) that the Steam team has gone through the posts marked as "Off-Topic" and made them visible again, undoing RSC's attempt to hide the critical reviews. There is one marked abusive that most definitely would fall under that category.

Hopefully the Steam guys will have a stern word with RSC over this, otherwise the same will happen again some time in the future...


Edit: Page full of thumbs down, due to the actions of RSC and subsequent reshowing by Valve (Steam) http://steamcommunity.com/app/24010/reviews/ Had they left it well alone, the page would be mixed with recommended / not recommended !

[rkk01]

This censorship of opinions and reviews is disgusting

I know. I come across it all the time...

[Merlin75]

It now appears, (for now) that the Steam team has gone through the posts marked as "Off-Topic" and made them visible again, undoing RSC's attempt to hide the critical reviews. There is one marked abusive that most definitely would fall under that category.

Hopefully the Steam guys will have a stern word with RSC over this, otherwise the same will happen again some time in the future...


Edit: Page full of thumbs down, due to the actions of RSC and subsequent reshowing by Valve (Steam) http://steamcommunity.com/app/24010/reviews/ Had they left it well alone, the page would be mixed with recommended / not recommended !

Interesting that owing to the fact RSC clam steam were the ones that marked them all off topic in the first place and it was nothing to do with them.

[AndyM77]

It is indeed interesting.. from the official BETA Review FAQ

Q. Can I write a negative review?
A. Yes. If you are unhappy with the product, or don't believe that it is delivering on what it promises, you may write a review and tell other customers why you do not recommend it.

So Steam (Valve) permit negative reviews, if the Developer doesn't like it whomever they may be then it's tough luck. Of course the really offensive / nonsensical reviews will or should be removed by Steam.

Q. I'm a developer. Can I delete reviews of my product?
A. Not directly. If you find abusive or offensive reviews written about your product, you can flag it as spam/abuse. The review will continue to be listed on your store page, but in a collapsed form and marked as spam until a moderator can either delete the review or remove the spam flag.

Thankfully the above process worked this time, no doubt spurred on by the negativity in the forum / Steam community that this issue was getting.

http://store.steampowered.com/reviews/ in case anyone missed the information that I've quoted from that was released on the 25th November 2013

Edit: just found this from TomB a Valve developer to back up the above infomation

Reviews that are flagged by a developer are still visible on both the store and community hub. They appear in a collapsed form on the store or with a big black box on the community hub. They still maintain their sort order, their comments, and their helpfulness votes.

That said, we have reviewed some of the reviews that were flagged and have cleared the flag status on some of them.

Direct link - http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/f ... 6440983408
Thread Link - http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/f ... 885878603/

[styckx]

RSC not being transparent, not being honest and not allowing transparency on media they have control of?? I for one am SHOCKED.. This has never happened before!! They've always been so honest and direct in the past.


STOP GIVING THEM YOUR MONEY. Why do so many dump money into a company that is either pretending they can't hear you or shilling more product.

[faedundee2]

Other games are getting lots of flak from other dev's anyway, such as Forza 5 (Not seen/ looked at forums to see what dev's view is) and the recently released information about GT6.

I have had a look at the Forza forums for a while during the run up to the release of Forza 5 and following release and the moderators on the forum(they are not necessarily developers on that forum) seem to have tried to quell much of the upset around some critical points of the game such as lack of content, GT6 seems to have had some flak for various issues however their developers have been quite open about taking feedback be it both positive or negative without trying to quell either sides opinion...