Steam No Longer Counts Review Scores from People Who Didn't Pay

[Shawn Zipay]

Have you received a game for free on Steam? Did you then review that game? If so, your review score no longer counts towards the game's overall score on Steam. Valve pushed out this rather substantial change to the Steam Customer Review system yesterday as a follow-up to changes they made back in September.

With the changes we are making now, the review score (shown at the top of store pages and in various places throughout the store such as search results) will no longer include reviews by users that received the game for free, such as via a gift, or during a free weekend. Reviews can still be written by customers that obtained the game in any of these ways, but the review will not count toward the overall review score.

It should be important to note that games received as a gift will no longer count towards the overall review score. While this may suck for those that received a game from a friend, it's a good counter to some developers and publishers that try to "buy off" good reviews or a Steam Greenlight vote by gifting out their games to people.

Valve said that they began this change earlier this week and the rollout to all games should be completed in a few days. During this time you may see the scores change a few times as the updates occur. Valve also notes that this change does not affect games that are listed as free-to-play on Steam, only those that cost money.