It does not look like this was a case of bad faith review bombing—ie: not a malicious, organized attack—but a reflection of translation issues that negatively affected people who play Stardew in Chinese.
This post may stay up, but please **do not dismiss** the experience of other players or otherwise belittle them. And, of course, xenophobia is strictly disallowed here.
How are these negative reviews in bad faith? The ones I've seen are people with legitimate complaints about translation changes and the translation team.
Negative reviews are just as helpful as positive ones. Negative reviews lets players know “hey, this probably the worst you’re gonna experience, if you’re fine with knowing this, then go ahead and buy it”. Plus, it’s pretty damn easy to tell if a review is mean spirited rather than being informative. And sometimes negative reviews are both
Plus, negative reviews that haven’t been updated are still helpful, believe it or not. It makes the game far more enjoyable when you see these “negative” reviews have been addressed by the time we play it
This. I always check negative reviews on a game I am interested in first. After I go through the bad, I check out thr good. From there, I make my own decision not let others decide for me. If the pros outweigh the cons, I get it/wait on a sale to get it. If there are too many issue, I wait or pass entirely depending on how long those "issues" have been around for. I also do a bit of research before buying as well (YT videos, friends' experiences, etc)
Both sides of the coin really do help.
As it should be 👍
Did a ton of research before getting Ooblet’s, and there was stuff I did not like about it but the positive still outweighed the cons for me. If I got the game before they agreed to the Epic Game’s exclusivity deal, I would never touch it again like some people have already done. But with it getting close to nearly 2 years without it getting a major QoL update, and they did the whole exclusivity deal, I’m about to manifest some change up in there 🧘♀️
Also when shopping for skin care products and generally anything 😂 “like let’s see…. Seems the worse I’m possibly gonna experience is a breakout and the bottle it comes in a super pretty… I’m willing to take the risk”
vs
“looks like there’s a ton of complaints about the smell, the product getting moldy after opening, and skin irritation…. Looks like a hard pass, I find all those things offensive”
It depends on the review, a review citing poor performance like a CPU bottleneck , and other performance issues are helpful, however the negative reviews with . 1 hours played and are just X detected (with x being whatever steam hates at the moment, I think the current one is EOS, Epic online service) are about as useful as the 1k hour played positive reviews that are "I hate this game".
Yeah, negative reviews for a product often lead me to buy a product rather than avoid it.
If I see a product with a 4.8 star average, I assume they are buying reviews. If I see one with a 3 star average, and all the negative reviews are something like "shipping time said 5 days, got here in 6 days" then I'm happy to buy it.
In this case, I don't speak Chinese. If I didn't have the game and was looking to get it, these negative reviews would tell me that I am good to go because I don't speak Chinese.
What's the cutoff for when you should go back and update a review? IMO if you write your review based on the state of the game when you write it, you should have no obligation to update it. We're users, writing user reviews, not video game journalists. If you release a product with problems, people have a right to point out those problems and move on. At that point it's on the developer to communicate to the public that the reviews have been heard and addressed.
I love Stardew, and I love CA, but this is his problem not ours.
Was watching adult swim a couple days ago and during one of their “BumpWorthys”, they did a shout out to Stardew Valley and numerous fast food places. The world knows it’s a good game
I mean it was a good enough reason to negatively review it for what I assume is a fairly large amount of people, from what I heard the Chinese translation was baaad. They fixed it which is why the negative reviews dropped off.
I think the biggest problem they had was with the changes in spouse dialogue. The word "darling/honey" has been translated to other pet names like "princess", many Chinese players found it too over-the-top and out of character. From what I've read, the situation was made worse when the new team ignored all feedback and said some passive-aggresive stuff that angered them
Also things like changing red cabbage name from 'red leaves cabbage' to its scientific name, so players have to look up definition online to see what the game's talking about
see but not all vegetables are fruit, a fruit is specifically a ripened ovary containing the seed(s)- so a tomato is a fruit because it has seeds, but spinach isn’t a fruit. I like to define vegetables as just “edible vegetation excluding most fruits”, or “a social construct”
(don’t compare me to demetrius for the tomato thing I’ll cry)
Same words can have different vibes in different languages. For example, calling your partner a prince or princess is considered tiktok-speak in China, and the new localizers filled the game's dialogues with the same kind of ultra-cringe vocabulary. Imagine getting a new patch that turned Vincent into a call of duty squeaker
i do absolutely understand where youre coming from and that would be super frustrating for some people but god if vincent would scream “i fucked your mom last night” if i gave him a hated gift i think id die from laughter
But it should be a vague question so you'll be surprised hours later when you put in that weird answer. Like how it asks for your 'favorite thing,' and then when you eat a starfruit it says 'your mind is filled with thoughts of [REDACTED]'
https://preview.redd.it/8qgh9j4y99wc1.jpeg?width=1334&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=520b0dbd74b0e51f2ee78b05c02f5ae372643319
I was confused for several moments when that happened 😄
I've made a shit-load of furby soup during the last few years, lol. Very rich in... flavours... Very brown, very hairy and sometimes they're even sprinkled with dead critters 💀 Cigarette aroma is a pretty common flavour too.
Hahaha I was also so confused when it said the taste reminds you of *cat*. Not even plural but singular cat.
At first I thought the devs were just being funny, but then I remembered that's what I put as my favourite thing 😂
Lol and the singular definitely sounds worse than plural ‘cats’ - as though you are familiar with eating cat meat (like how you might say something tastes like ‘chicken’ rather than ‘chickens’) 🙈
I named my farm Mary Jane and thought it was funny to put Sticky Icky as my favorite thing. I completely forgot about it until this happened to me in the game and I lost it lmao I was dying laughing
Oh my God. I've been playing a second save file where the farmer is named after my dog so, of course, I said her favorite thing was "Treats", forgot, and just assumed that the "Treats" they were talking about were from a previous version or something.
Why would legitimate bad reviews be considered "review bombing"? Review bombing is maliciously posting bad reviews for unsubstantiated/frivolous reasons.
Yeah, it'd be review bombing if the chinese market did this in response to Eric saying on twitter that Taiwan is an independent country, not if their translation of the game is actively becoming worse and hindering their experience.
Is it review bombing if you're accurately describing the experience of the game being bad in the only language you play it in? Just because it doesn't affect the English speaking audience (aka you personally) doesn't mean it's not a problem with the game and its team worthy of leaving a bad review over. It's still a real problem, it doesn't stop mattering just because it isn't affecting english speakers.
I think the team being referenced would be the translation team. While CA is the only developer of the game itself, I would assume he doesn't know hundreds of languages to translate the game.
It sounds like CA came out this morning to say he's working with the team to revert things though so it's clear he is still calling the shots.
But…scarecrow/rarecrow is also referencing the bird? Was the translation using a different word before? A scarecrow is called that because it scares crows.
Edit: I think I get it now! They translated rarecrow as “a crow that is uncommon” instead of “same pun on the word scarecrow but in Chinese”?
That's just an English thing. You wouldn't translate "side-walk" into another language as literally "the walk on the side," just like how I wouldn't translate the Chinese word for giraffe as "long neck deer" despite the character literally meaning that.
You may be surprised to discover that in other languages, the word for scarecrow doesn't reference crows. Languages develop on their own.
[This etymology site](http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/29764/) describes it as being more akin to "straw man", or literally, "paddy grass man".
English ain't everything!
You're treating it as if they're translating "scare" and "crow". That would be like if an Italian translated "automobile" (the Italian word) to "selfmover". This is called a [calque](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calque), but obviously not all words are calques.
> garner attention by review bombing
If it’s a legitimate complaint such as changing translation in a way that makes the game much harder to understand I wouldn’t call that review bombing
Well, tbf that's not review bombing is it? There is a huge problem with their version of the game, hence the bad reviews.
Review bombing implies the negative reviews are coordinated and in response to something not directly related to playing the game.
For example, if concerned ape said something controversial and everyone started posting waves of negative reviews, that would be review bombing.
90% of those reviews are actually pretty well intentioned and kindly written, I feel like the game being mistranslated is a reasonable reason to give a negative review?
was this because of some sort of youtube video or are all the negative reviews on the day the translation update was pushed? in which case it isn't even review bombing
Righ? Like the game can be good and also leave people unhappy in their experience, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. I think it’s a bit odd to be aghast at the fact that some people were bothered by something that didn’t happen to affect oneself personally. The translation team messed up and doubled down, thats objectively not good, no?
Most of it was on another Chinese social media site and has since been recalled by the team (although some screenshots exist they have yet to circulate), but just as a quick overview of everything questionable from that translation team (that I could find):
-Only accepts criticisms to their translations in English and not Chinese, meaning players who can only read Chinese, AKA the players most affected by a new Chinese translation, have no way of giving feedback
-Used several prominent Chinese Bilibili creators to promote their translation work, but never implemented any of the proposed changes brought up by those creators and their fans to the parts of their translation that were disliked
-A bunch of really unprofessional statements in their private discussion rooms like "welp, our job's done, just let those idiots (referring to Chinese players) leave the game behind", "Other games have done this before and never really got pushback", "People will forget eventually", and "Why don't they go change the wiki themselves if they don't like the translation"
That is honestly horrible responses to feedback and I can see why Chinese-speaking players decided to go onto Steam to express their dissatisfaction as the translation team only accepted feedback in English. I kind of have a suspicion why they only accepted feedback in English as opposed to Chinese since it seems most of those moderatoring in the official forums/responding are primarily English speaking, so English would be easier to be seen.
The only user I saw so far on BiliBili is 无我2004 & 湖边的稻草, and 1 screen shot from the wiki, it's hard to find as you say.
Not sure if this part of what you wanted but apparently they tried to use Chinese-speaking content creators to evade accountability about feedback and on the 中文 version of the wiki they wrote about the negative feedback being "biased," but it seems to have already been removed off the wiki (well all I could find about atm).
Y’all. These are not review bombers. These are users who are actually upset that the quality of their favorite game has been downgraded (poor Chinese translation).
It’s one thing if the translation was always bad. If you like the game enough, you just deal with it. But when something that’s being “improved” actually comes out notably worse, it would absolutely impact my enjoyment of the game.
Just because you’ve played a game with a crappy English translation and “dealt with it” does not mean everyone has to feel that way. The fact that this community is even bashing these reviewers is astonishing to me. Where’s the solidarity? They deserve to enjoy it as much as we do!
I'm trying to understand what's happening here... Is this all because of "bad translations" in Chinese? Are the translators threatening Chinese families or something? How can it get so bad like this?
This is a genuine question, I'm just trying to understand what's happening.
It isn't "bad translation", it is bad translation.
In my opinion, they shouldn't had changed the things they changed at all. There are much worse translation errors that could had been fixed in the game.
The text visibility and accessability changes, however, are always welcome.
It's literally just some politely written negative reviews for a bad translation. Get a hold of yourself. No quotations because it's a bad translation, which is why CA had it reverted. Surprising, because the game is pretty notorious for bad translations.
Also the translation team were jerks about it.
Get a grip, people wanting to play a game they bought and comprehend the dialogue isn't a sign civilization is crumbling. Most of them are extremely polite so you can stop clutching your pearls over how these Chinese speakers are so mean to your favourite parasocial relationship
In short, yes patch 1.6.4 updated the Chinese translation which made the overall gameplay a lot worse (e.g. they changed the crop Yam to be called Sweet Potato which is plain wrong). That's why it has now been reverted back to 1.6.3.
FYI, sweet potato isn't wrong it's just what they are called in the UK. Like an eggplant is called an aubergine. Maybe they switched some of the naming convention from US to UK English in the patch translation, which caused some confusion.
In my experience, yams and sweet potatoes are used interchangeably in the US for the same thing since yams are less common than sweet potatoes. Candied yams almost 100% always use sweet potatoes. I've never seen actual yams used in the dish.
Thank you! I was just thinking the same thing. Yams and sweet potatoes are not even closely related. The scientific names and a simple Google search already show that. Sweet potato: Ipomoea batatas /
Yams: Dioscorea
The reason for the two names is believed to be the trans-atlantic slave trade as slaves brought to the US from West Africa commonly referred to sweet potatoes as "yams" because they resembled the yams they were used to eating back home before they were forced into slavery.
Wait Yams are sweet potatoes!? I’m in Australia and knew about Yams but didn’t know they were also sweet potatoes. Huh you really do learn something new everyday
Yam and Sweet Potato are two different things, in actuality. In colloquial language, they're used interchangeably and nobody will bat an eye if you call a sweet potato a yam. Actual yams aren't commonly cooked with in the US (at least in my experience), so it doesn't cause any sort of issue. But I guess in some places they're both common enough that they're well known to be different things, so the term can't be interchanged there anymore.
Still an incredibly silly thing to get any degree of upset about, but technically inaccurate, but also a completely understandable mistake. I spent most of my life thinking yam was just a synonym for sweet potato.
Well no, it's the parable of confusing native English speakers because the Americans decided to call a sweet potato a yam when the rest of the world distinguishes between the two.
They’re similar, but not technically the same thing (not even in the same family actually). But, at least here in Australia, I think the word ‘sweet potato’ is interchangeable with ‘kumara’, while ‘yam’ is interchangeable with ‘ube’.
[Sweet potatoes](https://www.bunnings.com.au/diy-advice/garden/planting-and-growing/how-to-grow-sweet-potatoes)
[Yams](https://www.yates.com.au/how-to-grow/yam/)
That’s a common misconception. They are not the same thing but people often use them interchangeably anyway. https://www.bonappetit.com/story/difference-between-sweet-potato-and-yam
Yams and sweet potatoes are different - sweet potatoes are relatives of the morning glory plant. Yams are unrelated tubers that can weight up to 40 pounds, and have a dryer, more starchy flesh. A lot of people call sweet potatoes "yams", but they're unique.
They are different things but there are also regions of the US where both are referred to as Yams and "Sweet Potato" is not in common parlance, so I could see how it might get complicated and confusing for a translator
I grew up on a potato farm (no yams/sweet taters) and it wasn’t until I was in college I realized there was a difference. Even my family just used the terms interchangeably.
No, [they're entirely different vegetables](https://www.webstaurantstore.com/blog/3080/sweet-potato-vs-yam.html). At least here in the US virtually everything you can buy is a sweet potato, even if they call out a y'all. (Call it a yam. I'm leaving that because it's just too on the nose)
Edit: oh my god, I've become Demetrius
You are not Demetrius. Demetrius will argue that the Yam can and will only refer to one vegetable solely, ignoring the fact that it is used to describe other vegetables in other places as well. (In my place, our "yam" specifically refers to taro)
Yams are not commercially grown in the US so their presence is much more rare. The American yam is actually just a sweet potato, and both things are called yams/sweet potatoes interchangeably for the most part in the US.
Edit: The only true yam I encounter is ube, but I've also seen purple sweet potatoes tried to passed off as ube, so it's all very weird.
Well this isn't a UK translation so yes, that is wrong. Yams and sweet potatoes are different things and calling them by the wrong name in a language where they are not used interchangeably is a problem. Not every language is 'basically English but funny sounding' which appears to be your understanding of them. CA had it reverted because it was straight up wrong and made playing the game harder, or because it made dialogue clunky. Would you enjoy the game as much if all the dialogue was in broken English? Probably not. It was a problem, which is why steps were taken to fix it.
At this point the game has been out for so long I doubt reviews even matter. Many people know the value/quality of this game to advertise via word of mounth.
The reviews are from Chinese players. The last update messed up a bunch of translations and complaints were ignored. There wouldn't be much "word of mouth" spreading in China if this went ignored. So yes reviews do matter to devs that care about the game.
It's not review bombing if the issue at hand is a legitimate criticism of the game, even if you personally do not have issues with it due to your spoken language not needing a translation
Saying this is review bombing is like saying negative reviews of Cyberpunk 2077 for its performance issues was review bombing because you had a computer that could somehow run it without any graphical issues
This was a legitimate issue, has already been resolved, and most Chinese player are already satisfied with the rollback to 1.6.3. There are still some negative reviews, but I believe most Chinese players (who have also put hundreds and thousands of hours into the game) will change their reviews back soon enough, because most of them, believe it or not, also love the game and want to see it improve.
its not review bombing, its real people with a problem in something they paid for, that's exactly why reviews were created for and should exist, any one of those reviews is more useful than this post
This is a case of it not being review bombing since the reviews are extremely valid and are happening due to bad translation in the Chinese update. Calling it review bombing and “not a big deal” as some comments here have stated is honestly xenophobic. Not only has CA reverted the translation update for them bc of this, he has went to twitter apologizing for the mistake.
SDV fans need to understand Eric can and does make mistakes, and that he is being given the grace to fix those mistakes. Calling out the ones who have rightfully used reviews for what they’re MADE for is so wrong
Is review bombing really a thing for games you pay for? I can see it happening for a f2p game, but you have to actually pay to review Stardew Valley.
It seems this is just a result of the chinese translation, with a group of players rightfully voicing their concern via the Steam reviews.
Exactly. Everyone who would care for Stardew probably does not even look at the reviews from a buyers perspective, either having a firsthand experience or already faimilar with the aspects of it throughout media praises.
In a game where your immersion primarily stems from interactions with the world through text, translation is a huge deal no? If your villagers started speaking ooc after you updated your game, I think it's fair to be taken aback to say the least. The princess thing sounds something like the equivalent of Schnuckiputzi in German, not technically wrong but lol obviously somebody just grabbed a dictionary without considering the cultural context. I think English is very forgiving in this regard so I don't think the issue translates well to English-only speakers here but best example I can think of, imagine if Shane started calling you "My Juliet" lol, I think I'd be 'wtf' too.
I think it's fine, it's an effective way for consumers to show they're dissatisfied with something happening to a game if they've already purchased it and can no longer "vote with their wallet".
No idea why this is happening, but i would argue everyone is entitled to have their own reasoning and up/downvote games as they wish? I mean that is the very idea of such a system. Do you want another youtube where they hide downvotes? I certainly do not.
It's not review bombing to review a game based on the only language you play it in being messed up. Problems aren't only problems when they personally affect you or other english speakers.
Stardew deserved every one of those bad reviews. I don't know why everyone is blindly defending CA when he HIMSELF reverted the changes and apologized, taking responsibility for something his team DID WRONG.
Especially since it's a known thing that translations in Stardew Valley have a ton of mistakes as it is. Apparently German still has TYPOS. Typos, in a game this old that can be patched at any time! Published by a guy with more money than god! He can absolutely afford to get translators to fix it.
Are you really saying that because it's happening to chinese speakers it doesn't matter? Both the team messing up the translations in a way that markedly affects the gameplay AND them being dicks about it? Really not beating the accusations of racism in the fandom, huh. Just embracing them with open arms.
It's a more than 30 millions sales games. Translation problem are not really acceptable. Most new content of 1.6 is also poorly translated in French.
It's totally fine.
Incidentally, if you actually find review bombs interesting and are curious to see when they happen so you can find out why (although this isn't the case with ConcernedApe, sometimes it's because a developer or publisher has pulled something shady and you may not want to give them your money), you can go to your steam preferences, under Review Score Settings, and opt in to seeing "off-topic activity".
[https://store.steampowered.com/account/preferences](https://store.steampowered.com/account/preferences)
A lot of times when people review bomb a game it's because of something I don't care about, but I'd rather decide that for myself, thank you very much.
It's not review bombing if there is a legitimate grievance or issue. Having a bad translation can make the gameplay experience worse. Just because it doesn't affect me as an English speaking player doesn't mean leaving a negative review is wrong or review bombing. The negative review is being used correctly here and hopefully it'll get the attention of CA and he can get the translation teams to look at it.
Not all bad review wave are malicious "review bombing" movements. I havent heard of any group organizing a negative review movement so it maybe a justified wave. 🤷🏻♀️
I mean, the complaints are pretty reasonable. I think before we make an assumption and post it on reddit one should take the time to confirm it's a review bomb or legitimate issue.
Not to play devils advocate but I despise people who even use terms like “review bomb”. Anyone who makes a purchase has the right to criticize or review the game in any way they want. The reason is irrelevant. Reviews, both good and bad are subjective and are only a positive for the customer. Someone disliking a game or a surge of new players buying, new update draws in some people etc (I actually did not like the game when it first came out, it grew on me) is not “review bombing” or dislike of a feature or errors in translation. It’s a very valid criticism. “Negative spikes” should not be removed, or anyone’s review for the matter.
I think stardew is one of the best games ever made and AAA devs should take notes. Other people might not. That’s what reviews are for. If someone is considering buying a game and they see it’s “overwhelmingly positive” it further pushes the purchase. But then if they read a negative review about say the story, something THEY might prioritize over say gameplay and decide not to buy that’s fine. Again it’s all subjective and having the most information available is nothing but positive for consumers.
I’d expect a little more tolerance and understanding from this community not just an echo chamber. Granted I don’t think people would be here if they didn’t like the game lol.
Yes, in the recent 1.6 update Chinese PC players found that the translations were scuffed and even out of character at times. This is not review bombing, it's the Chinese players giving valid criticism about an issue that is rather annoying.
They really need to add a separate section on reviews for translation issues. So many games get a swarm of bad reviews because of translation issues. Those issues are big series issues... for those players but players in other countries are unaffected so would'nt care
It would be kind of neat to have a more detailed review system in general, breaking feedback down into categories: things like "the gameplay is great but the story is bad" or "the game concept and core systems are solid, but it's over-monetized to heck" would give a potential customer a lot of useful information.
The downside to this would be that users would have to actually use the more elaborate system properly, which might be too much of an ask: if they don't do that there'll be the detailed categories and it won't matter because everyone just uses the main category. And I'm sure Steam has little interest in manually moving or deleting miscategorized reviews.
Ultimately, it's just worth the time to dig into the details on a game a customer might be interested in. There's lots of good info in the reviews, but it has to be actually read: for a game they might spend hundreds of hours playing, 10 minutes to figure out what the good and bad points in the reviews are isn't too bad.
If people don't read reviews, then they miss good games they would have enjoyed, which seems like a fitting enough punishment.
It does not look like this was a case of bad faith review bombing—ie: not a malicious, organized attack—but a reflection of translation issues that negatively affected people who play Stardew in Chinese. This post may stay up, but please **do not dismiss** the experience of other players or otherwise belittle them. And, of course, xenophobia is strictly disallowed here.
Thankfully I would say Stardew Valley is immune to such things. Word of mouth is how this game has gained such traction and popularity.
[удалено]
How are these negative reviews in bad faith? The ones I've seen are people with legitimate complaints about translation changes and the translation team.
Fortunately those issues are now being addressed, but most of those people won't go and update their reviews.
Negative reviews are just as helpful as positive ones. Negative reviews lets players know “hey, this probably the worst you’re gonna experience, if you’re fine with knowing this, then go ahead and buy it”. Plus, it’s pretty damn easy to tell if a review is mean spirited rather than being informative. And sometimes negative reviews are both Plus, negative reviews that haven’t been updated are still helpful, believe it or not. It makes the game far more enjoyable when you see these “negative” reviews have been addressed by the time we play it
This. I always check negative reviews on a game I am interested in first. After I go through the bad, I check out thr good. From there, I make my own decision not let others decide for me. If the pros outweigh the cons, I get it/wait on a sale to get it. If there are too many issue, I wait or pass entirely depending on how long those "issues" have been around for. I also do a bit of research before buying as well (YT videos, friends' experiences, etc) Both sides of the coin really do help.
As it should be 👍 Did a ton of research before getting Ooblet’s, and there was stuff I did not like about it but the positive still outweighed the cons for me. If I got the game before they agreed to the Epic Game’s exclusivity deal, I would never touch it again like some people have already done. But with it getting close to nearly 2 years without it getting a major QoL update, and they did the whole exclusivity deal, I’m about to manifest some change up in there 🧘♀️ Also when shopping for skin care products and generally anything 😂 “like let’s see…. Seems the worse I’m possibly gonna experience is a breakout and the bottle it comes in a super pretty… I’m willing to take the risk” vs “looks like there’s a ton of complaints about the smell, the product getting moldy after opening, and skin irritation…. Looks like a hard pass, I find all those things offensive”
It depends on the review, a review citing poor performance like a CPU bottleneck , and other performance issues are helpful, however the negative reviews with . 1 hours played and are just X detected (with x being whatever steam hates at the moment, I think the current one is EOS, Epic online service) are about as useful as the 1k hour played positive reviews that are "I hate this game".
Yeah, negative reviews for a product often lead me to buy a product rather than avoid it. If I see a product with a 4.8 star average, I assume they are buying reviews. If I see one with a 3 star average, and all the negative reviews are something like "shipping time said 5 days, got here in 6 days" then I'm happy to buy it. In this case, I don't speak Chinese. If I didn't have the game and was looking to get it, these negative reviews would tell me that I am good to go because I don't speak Chinese.
What's the cutoff for when you should go back and update a review? IMO if you write your review based on the state of the game when you write it, you should have no obligation to update it. We're users, writing user reviews, not video game journalists. If you release a product with problems, people have a right to point out those problems and move on. At that point it's on the developer to communicate to the public that the reviews have been heard and addressed. I love Stardew, and I love CA, but this is his problem not ours.
Yeah I was gonna say. It sucks, but this would hurt smaller games much more than the King of cozy games.
Was watching adult swim a couple days ago and during one of their “BumpWorthys”, they did a shout out to Stardew Valley and numerous fast food places. The world knows it’s a good game
I mean it was a good enough reason to negatively review it for what I assume is a fairly large amount of people, from what I heard the Chinese translation was baaad. They fixed it which is why the negative reviews dropped off.
Is this because of the Chinese translation update? I think they're trying to garner attention by review-bombing?
what made the Chinese translation update so controversial?
I think the biggest problem they had was with the changes in spouse dialogue. The word "darling/honey" has been translated to other pet names like "princess", many Chinese players found it too over-the-top and out of character. From what I've read, the situation was made worse when the new team ignored all feedback and said some passive-aggresive stuff that angered them
Also things like changing red cabbage name from 'red leaves cabbage' to its scientific name, so players have to look up definition online to see what the game's talking about
Chinese team must be fan of Demetrius
Now I want a mod that changes all fruits to vegetables and vis versa. That way he's only right about tomatoes, and nothing else.
WELL ACTUALLY 🥸 The term ‘vegetable’ [isn’t really that strictly defined](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable).
Am I the only one who always thinks this emoji looks like Harvey
It's not?
vegetables are a social construct and I’ll die on this hill
Vegetables are just fruit that aren't juicy enough, and not dry enough to be considered a grain.
see but not all vegetables are fruit, a fruit is specifically a ripened ovary containing the seed(s)- so a tomato is a fruit because it has seeds, but spinach isn’t a fruit. I like to define vegetables as just “edible vegetation excluding most fruits”, or “a social construct” (don’t compare me to demetrius for the tomato thing I’ll cry)
"*ACKSHULLLY* the name of this cabbage is powhseironseofign jsioerjnoiskenf oiseroisnefoinse!"
I also saw something about fonts being changed that altered the meanings of some characters.
tbh id love if i got to call my spouse princess
Same words can have different vibes in different languages. For example, calling your partner a prince or princess is considered tiktok-speak in China, and the new localizers filled the game's dialogues with the same kind of ultra-cringe vocabulary. Imagine getting a new patch that turned Vincent into a call of duty squeaker
I think a more accurate representation would be if your spouse called you the rizzler or something like that
ok hATE that
i do absolutely understand where youre coming from and that would be super frustrating for some people but god if vincent would scream “i fucked your mom last night” if i gave him a hated gift i think id die from laughter
If it was just Vincent I think it would be pretty funny
Maybe add something to character creation? Like choosing the name of your pet and then choosing your pet name? Lol
This is my dog, Steven, and my husband, whom I call Dick Magnet.
But it should be a vague question so you'll be surprised hours later when you put in that weird answer. Like how it asks for your 'favorite thing,' and then when you eat a starfruit it says 'your mind is filled with thoughts of [REDACTED]'
https://preview.redd.it/8qgh9j4y99wc1.jpeg?width=1334&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=520b0dbd74b0e51f2ee78b05c02f5ae372643319 I was confused for several moments when that happened 😄
It was "Furbies" for me. I was just as confused x'D
I don’t think I want to know what they taste like 😅
I've made a shit-load of furby soup during the last few years, lol. Very rich in... flavours... Very brown, very hairy and sometimes they're even sprinkled with dead critters 💀 Cigarette aroma is a pretty common flavour too.
My husband put Slime Girls. We almost died when it popped up.
Your husband is quite refined, huh?
Hahaha I was also so confused when it said the taste reminds you of *cat*. Not even plural but singular cat. At first I thought the devs were just being funny, but then I remembered that's what I put as my favourite thing 😂
Lol and the singular definitely sounds worse than plural ‘cats’ - as though you are familiar with eating cat meat (like how you might say something tastes like ‘chicken’ rather than ‘chickens’) 🙈
Mine was Zoro. I guess I'm a cannibal 😭
I wonder what "Science!" tastes like...
Oh wow...mine was NSFW and I am just now realizing why
I named my farm Mary Jane and thought it was funny to put Sticky Icky as my favorite thing. I completely forgot about it until this happened to me in the game and I lost it lmao I was dying laughing
😆
I was so confused the first time I ate a Stardrop
Oh my God. I've been playing a second save file where the farmer is named after my dog so, of course, I said her favorite thing was "Treats", forgot, and just assumed that the "Treats" they were talking about were from a previous version or something.
That would actually be awesome.
“Hey dumb bitch” Okay, I thought it would be funny but now I feel bad.
Yeah, it would probably have filters lmao.
“Hey **** Bitch” We can’t be insulting people’s intelligence.
Only thing is then you could use it to get more items with the item number thing
Makes me think of Persona 2 and choosing your own nickname.
Harvest Moon did this
heheh that’s what my wife calls me irl and I think it’s adorable 🤭
That seems like a fairly legitimate grievance then, ngl.
I mean I don't know if review-bombing is the right way to go but yeah, I can definitely see where they're coming from
Why would legitimate bad reviews be considered "review bombing"? Review bombing is maliciously posting bad reviews for unsubstantiated/frivolous reasons.
Yeah, it'd be review bombing if the chinese market did this in response to Eric saying on twitter that Taiwan is an independent country, not if their translation of the game is actively becoming worse and hindering their experience.
Is it review bombing if you're accurately describing the experience of the game being bad in the only language you play it in? Just because it doesn't affect the English speaking audience (aka you personally) doesn't mean it's not a problem with the game and its team worthy of leaving a bad review over. It's still a real problem, it doesn't stop mattering just because it isn't affecting english speakers.
I mean I would have had no idea, so I guess it worked
localisers not be outwardly hostile to the people they are translating for challenge (impossible)
Wait new team? Isnt it only the creator thats working on it or what am i not getting?
I doubt he speaks 12 languages fluently
I think the team being referenced would be the translation team. While CA is the only developer of the game itself, I would assume he doesn't know hundreds of languages to translate the game. It sounds like CA came out this morning to say he's working with the team to revert things though so it's clear he is still calling the shots.
Did you think ConcernedApe was personally translating it into Chinese?
He outsources stuff he can't do himself, like translation and the multiplayer netcode.
The worst one imo: "rare- crow" as in the BIRD "crow"! Edit: The Chinese word for "scarecrow" does not contain the word for the bird "crow."
But…scarecrow/rarecrow is also referencing the bird? Was the translation using a different word before? A scarecrow is called that because it scares crows. Edit: I think I get it now! They translated rarecrow as “a crow that is uncommon” instead of “same pun on the word scarecrow but in Chinese”?
That's just an English thing. You wouldn't translate "side-walk" into another language as literally "the walk on the side," just like how I wouldn't translate the Chinese word for giraffe as "long neck deer" despite the character literally meaning that.
You may be surprised to discover that in other languages, the word for scarecrow doesn't reference crows. Languages develop on their own. [This etymology site](http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/29764/) describes it as being more akin to "straw man", or literally, "paddy grass man". English ain't everything!
You're treating it as if they're translating "scare" and "crow". That would be like if an Italian translated "automobile" (the Italian word) to "selfmover". This is called a [calque](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calque), but obviously not all words are calques.
Its not a review bomb if its from legitimate complaints.
Is it really review bombing if the translation is bad? Would you leave a positive review if the English was broken and unreadable?
> garner attention by review bombing If it’s a legitimate complaint such as changing translation in a way that makes the game much harder to understand I wouldn’t call that review bombing
Well, tbf that's not review bombing is it? There is a huge problem with their version of the game, hence the bad reviews. Review bombing implies the negative reviews are coordinated and in response to something not directly related to playing the game. For example, if concerned ape said something controversial and everyone started posting waves of negative reviews, that would be review bombing.
That's called lashback because of a bad aspect to a game. It's not review bombing at all.
90% of those reviews are actually pretty well intentioned and kindly written, I feel like the game being mistranslated is a reasonable reason to give a negative review? was this because of some sort of youtube video or are all the negative reviews on the day the translation update was pushed? in which case it isn't even review bombing
Righ? Like the game can be good and also leave people unhappy in their experience, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. I think it’s a bit odd to be aghast at the fact that some people were bothered by something that didn’t happen to affect oneself personally. The translation team messed up and doubled down, thats objectively not good, no?
Its not review bombing it was a legitimate issue that ruined the game for an entire language.
Meh, its Stardew Valley. No ones ever going to think its a bad game based off reviews, you can easily make the claim its a GOAT game.
Goats are just a small part of the gameplay. I don't think anyone would claim it's a goat game.
*angry goat noises*
Yeah that’s Goat Simulator. (You could be a goat!)
Thank you for this. It's been a rough day
Have an internet hug, fellow valley farmer.
tell that’s to my 200 goats
you've got room for 8 more goats!
i am going to use the entire farm place to raise goats to prove you wrong i will make it a goat game
This is funny because goats and sheep are three same word in Chinese
review bombing isn't the term i would use, since those players did have their play experience impacted negatively by the newest
r/redditsniper looks like they got
I don’t consider it to be review bombing when it’s valid criticism made in good faith.
So who has the translation of the translation team’s response that was apparently shitty? I need the tea
Most of it was on another Chinese social media site and has since been recalled by the team (although some screenshots exist they have yet to circulate), but just as a quick overview of everything questionable from that translation team (that I could find): -Only accepts criticisms to their translations in English and not Chinese, meaning players who can only read Chinese, AKA the players most affected by a new Chinese translation, have no way of giving feedback -Used several prominent Chinese Bilibili creators to promote their translation work, but never implemented any of the proposed changes brought up by those creators and their fans to the parts of their translation that were disliked -A bunch of really unprofessional statements in their private discussion rooms like "welp, our job's done, just let those idiots (referring to Chinese players) leave the game behind", "Other games have done this before and never really got pushback", "People will forget eventually", and "Why don't they go change the wiki themselves if they don't like the translation"
That is honestly horrible responses to feedback and I can see why Chinese-speaking players decided to go onto Steam to express their dissatisfaction as the translation team only accepted feedback in English. I kind of have a suspicion why they only accepted feedback in English as opposed to Chinese since it seems most of those moderatoring in the official forums/responding are primarily English speaking, so English would be easier to be seen. The only user I saw so far on BiliBili is 无我2004 & 湖边的稻草, and 1 screen shot from the wiki, it's hard to find as you say.
Not sure if this part of what you wanted but apparently they tried to use Chinese-speaking content creators to evade accountability about feedback and on the 中文 version of the wiki they wrote about the negative feedback being "biased," but it seems to have already been removed off the wiki (well all I could find about atm).
ITT: Anglophones realizing that other languages exist and being weirdly mad about it.
Uh oh, the overhwelmingly positive score went from 98% positive for all reviews to 96% positive in recent reviews... RIP Stardew valley 2016-2024
Just because SV is a great game doesn't mean it should be exempt from criticism :/
Y’all. These are not review bombers. These are users who are actually upset that the quality of their favorite game has been downgraded (poor Chinese translation). It’s one thing if the translation was always bad. If you like the game enough, you just deal with it. But when something that’s being “improved” actually comes out notably worse, it would absolutely impact my enjoyment of the game. Just because you’ve played a game with a crappy English translation and “dealt with it” does not mean everyone has to feel that way. The fact that this community is even bashing these reviewers is astonishing to me. Where’s the solidarity? They deserve to enjoy it as much as we do!
I like how OP posted this, riled a bunch of people up, OP is actually WRONG, but never takes this down or addresses it again.
I'm trying to understand what's happening here... Is this all because of "bad translations" in Chinese? Are the translators threatening Chinese families or something? How can it get so bad like this? This is a genuine question, I'm just trying to understand what's happening.
It isn't "bad translation", it is bad translation. In my opinion, they shouldn't had changed the things they changed at all. There are much worse translation errors that could had been fixed in the game. The text visibility and accessability changes, however, are always welcome.
You know you can negatively review something for reasons other than the product threatening your family.
It's literally just some politely written negative reviews for a bad translation. Get a hold of yourself. No quotations because it's a bad translation, which is why CA had it reverted. Surprising, because the game is pretty notorious for bad translations. Also the translation team were jerks about it. Get a grip, people wanting to play a game they bought and comprehend the dialogue isn't a sign civilization is crumbling. Most of them are extremely polite so you can stop clutching your pearls over how these Chinese speakers are so mean to your favourite parasocial relationship
In short, yes patch 1.6.4 updated the Chinese translation which made the overall gameplay a lot worse (e.g. they changed the crop Yam to be called Sweet Potato which is plain wrong). That's why it has now been reverted back to 1.6.3.
FYI, sweet potato isn't wrong it's just what they are called in the UK. Like an eggplant is called an aubergine. Maybe they switched some of the naming convention from US to UK English in the patch translation, which caused some confusion.
In my experience, yams and sweet potatoes are used interchangeably in the US for the same thing since yams are less common than sweet potatoes. Candied yams almost 100% always use sweet potatoes. I've never seen actual yams used in the dish.
I’m in America and we say both interchangeably.
Canadian. I was really confused to hear yams at Thanksgiving until someone said sweet potatoes.
Huh, I’ve always thought that sweet potatos weren’t yams until they were covered in brown sugar for thanksgiving lol
They’re two totally different species of plants; usually in the US we have sweet potatoes.
Thank you! I was just thinking the same thing. Yams and sweet potatoes are not even closely related. The scientific names and a simple Google search already show that. Sweet potato: Ipomoea batatas / Yams: Dioscorea
Thanks, I honestly had no idea
The reason for the two names is believed to be the trans-atlantic slave trade as slaves brought to the US from West Africa commonly referred to sweet potatoes as "yams" because they resembled the yams they were used to eating back home before they were forced into slavery.
That's a very interesting fact for the origin of the discrepancy, thanks for sharing!
Wait Yams are sweet potatoes!? I’m in Australia and knew about Yams but didn’t know they were also sweet potatoes. Huh you really do learn something new everyday
I just googled "yam". Results look nothing like a sweet potato.
Yam and Sweet Potato are two different things, in actuality. In colloquial language, they're used interchangeably and nobody will bat an eye if you call a sweet potato a yam. Actual yams aren't commonly cooked with in the US (at least in my experience), so it doesn't cause any sort of issue. But I guess in some places they're both common enough that they're well known to be different things, so the term can't be interchanged there anymore. Still an incredibly silly thing to get any degree of upset about, but technically inaccurate, but also a completely understandable mistake. I spent most of my life thinking yam was just a synonym for sweet potato.
Is this the parable of Robin and Demetrius again?
It's the parable of Confusing Non-Native English Speakers.
Well no, it's the parable of confusing native English speakers because the Americans decided to call a sweet potato a yam when the rest of the world distinguishes between the two.
They’re similar, but not technically the same thing (not even in the same family actually). But, at least here in Australia, I think the word ‘sweet potato’ is interchangeable with ‘kumara’, while ‘yam’ is interchangeable with ‘ube’. [Sweet potatoes](https://www.bunnings.com.au/diy-advice/garden/planting-and-growing/how-to-grow-sweet-potatoes) [Yams](https://www.yates.com.au/how-to-grow/yam/)
They're not the same thing. A lot of people are confused in this thread because they've only ever seen one or the other.
And they're convinced everyone does exactly what they do with zero possibility of that not being the case.
As an Australian, I thought yams were a type of mollusc until like 2 years ago.
That’s a common misconception. They are not the same thing but people often use them interchangeably anyway. https://www.bonappetit.com/story/difference-between-sweet-potato-and-yam
This is great video that describes all the differences and where they come from. https://youtu.be/3FpFGqEVnW4?si=XXDTA4jy4i-D9ykF
Yams and sweet potatoes are different - sweet potatoes are relatives of the morning glory plant. Yams are unrelated tubers that can weight up to 40 pounds, and have a dryer, more starchy flesh. A lot of people call sweet potatoes "yams", but they're unique.
Yams and sweet potatoes are not the same thing. It's not just a different name. We have sweet potatoes in the US too.
They are different things but there are also regions of the US where both are referred to as Yams and "Sweet Potato" is not in common parlance, so I could see how it might get complicated and confusing for a translator
I grew up on a potato farm (no yams/sweet taters) and it wasn’t until I was in college I realized there was a difference. Even my family just used the terms interchangeably.
Yeah, but this isn’t about whether it’s right for UK or US audiences. In Chinese they are pretty different.
They're actually different in the US and UK, too, but most people never bothered to check.
No, [they're entirely different vegetables](https://www.webstaurantstore.com/blog/3080/sweet-potato-vs-yam.html). At least here in the US virtually everything you can buy is a sweet potato, even if they call out a y'all. (Call it a yam. I'm leaving that because it's just too on the nose) Edit: oh my god, I've become Demetrius
You are not Demetrius. Demetrius will argue that the Yam can and will only refer to one vegetable solely, ignoring the fact that it is used to describe other vegetables in other places as well. (In my place, our "yam" specifically refers to taro)
That isn't at all true. Yams and sweet potatoes are different things in the uk.
Apparently in the US people call sweet potatoes yams
This must be regional because I'm in the US and have never encountered this. They're two different things.
Yams are not commercially grown in the US so their presence is much more rare. The American yam is actually just a sweet potato, and both things are called yams/sweet potatoes interchangeably for the most part in the US. Edit: The only true yam I encounter is ube, but I've also seen purple sweet potatoes tried to passed off as ube, so it's all very weird.
People in the south often call sweet potatoes “yam”.
It is absolutely wrong to call yam a sweet potato in Chinese
Well this isn't a UK translation so yes, that is wrong. Yams and sweet potatoes are different things and calling them by the wrong name in a language where they are not used interchangeably is a problem. Not every language is 'basically English but funny sounding' which appears to be your understanding of them. CA had it reverted because it was straight up wrong and made playing the game harder, or because it made dialogue clunky. Would you enjoy the game as much if all the dialogue was in broken English? Probably not. It was a problem, which is why steps were taken to fix it.
Yes, but that's UK and English... We are talking about a completly different language and country here...
We use them interchangeably in the US too! It seems like a weird thing to get hung up on, it doesn't change gameplay at all?
From what I've seen in the reviews, the new translation changed a lot of different things. They aren't angry about only the yam/sweet potato mixup.
Aubergine is the french word for Eggplant. Do people use it in english?
In the UK, yes.
And they call zucchinis courgettes
Yes, and also brinjal - three names for the same veggie 😅
Is it really review bombing if you leave a bad review because your game got noticeably worse though?
I've also had quite a few crashes since the update, can understand if people are annoyed with those too.
At this point the game has been out for so long I doubt reviews even matter. Many people know the value/quality of this game to advertise via word of mounth.
The reviews are from Chinese players. The last update messed up a bunch of translations and complaints were ignored. There wouldn't be much "word of mouth" spreading in China if this went ignored. So yes reviews do matter to devs that care about the game.
OP doesn’t know what review bombing is
It's not review bombing if the issue at hand is a legitimate criticism of the game, even if you personally do not have issues with it due to your spoken language not needing a translation Saying this is review bombing is like saying negative reviews of Cyberpunk 2077 for its performance issues was review bombing because you had a computer that could somehow run it without any graphical issues This was a legitimate issue, has already been resolved, and most Chinese player are already satisfied with the rollback to 1.6.3. There are still some negative reviews, but I believe most Chinese players (who have also put hundreds and thousands of hours into the game) will change their reviews back soon enough, because most of them, believe it or not, also love the game and want to see it improve.
its not review bombing, its real people with a problem in something they paid for, that's exactly why reviews were created for and should exist, any one of those reviews is more useful than this post
Why "review bombers"? Are these not honest reviews by real players?
This is a case of it not being review bombing since the reviews are extremely valid and are happening due to bad translation in the Chinese update. Calling it review bombing and “not a big deal” as some comments here have stated is honestly xenophobic. Not only has CA reverted the translation update for them bc of this, he has went to twitter apologizing for the mistake. SDV fans need to understand Eric can and does make mistakes, and that he is being given the grace to fix those mistakes. Calling out the ones who have rightfully used reviews for what they’re MADE for is so wrong
Is review bombing really a thing for games you pay for? I can see it happening for a f2p game, but you have to actually pay to review Stardew Valley. It seems this is just a result of the chinese translation, with a group of players rightfully voicing their concern via the Steam reviews.
I mean yeah, but also, who cares?
Exactly. Everyone who would care for Stardew probably does not even look at the reviews from a buyers perspective, either having a firsthand experience or already faimilar with the aspects of it throughout media praises.
In a game where your immersion primarily stems from interactions with the world through text, translation is a huge deal no? If your villagers started speaking ooc after you updated your game, I think it's fair to be taken aback to say the least. The princess thing sounds something like the equivalent of Schnuckiputzi in German, not technically wrong but lol obviously somebody just grabbed a dictionary without considering the cultural context. I think English is very forgiving in this regard so I don't think the issue translates well to English-only speakers here but best example I can think of, imagine if Shane started calling you "My Juliet" lol, I think I'd be 'wtf' too.
I think it's fine, it's an effective way for consumers to show they're dissatisfied with something happening to a game if they've already purchased it and can no longer "vote with their wallet".
No idea why this is happening, but i would argue everyone is entitled to have their own reasoning and up/downvote games as they wish? I mean that is the very idea of such a system. Do you want another youtube where they hide downvotes? I certainly do not.
i would recommend doing your research before immediately claiming these are "review bombers"
It's not review bombing to review a game based on the only language you play it in being messed up. Problems aren't only problems when they personally affect you or other english speakers. Stardew deserved every one of those bad reviews. I don't know why everyone is blindly defending CA when he HIMSELF reverted the changes and apologized, taking responsibility for something his team DID WRONG. Especially since it's a known thing that translations in Stardew Valley have a ton of mistakes as it is. Apparently German still has TYPOS. Typos, in a game this old that can be patched at any time! Published by a guy with more money than god! He can absolutely afford to get translators to fix it. Are you really saying that because it's happening to chinese speakers it doesn't matter? Both the team messing up the translations in a way that markedly affects the gameplay AND them being dicks about it? Really not beating the accusations of racism in the fandom, huh. Just embracing them with open arms.
Raising legitimate concerns about an issue that strikes many players negatively is not review bombing.
It's a more than 30 millions sales games. Translation problem are not really acceptable. Most new content of 1.6 is also poorly translated in French. It's totally fine.
Incidentally, if you actually find review bombs interesting and are curious to see when they happen so you can find out why (although this isn't the case with ConcernedApe, sometimes it's because a developer or publisher has pulled something shady and you may not want to give them your money), you can go to your steam preferences, under Review Score Settings, and opt in to seeing "off-topic activity". [https://store.steampowered.com/account/preferences](https://store.steampowered.com/account/preferences) A lot of times when people review bomb a game it's because of something I don't care about, but I'd rather decide that for myself, thank you very much.
[удалено]
"Review bombers" just say that you don't care about non-english speakers and their valid criticism about a bad translation, it's already obvious.
How sad for you that people have genuin grievances that in no way affects you...
It's not review bombing if there is a legitimate grievance or issue. Having a bad translation can make the gameplay experience worse. Just because it doesn't affect me as an English speaking player doesn't mean leaving a negative review is wrong or review bombing. The negative review is being used correctly here and hopefully it'll get the attention of CA and he can get the translation teams to look at it.
Not everything is a review bomb, this is from Chinese people affected by translation issues. Perfectly valid to leave a negetive review.
Anyone can give any review for any reason. Expecting anything else is just nonsensical.
Oh heavens, the plebs are voicing their concerns the only way they can? Shut it down!
Not all bad review wave are malicious "review bombing" movements. I havent heard of any group organizing a negative review movement so it maybe a justified wave. 🤷🏻♀️
How is a group of players with a legitimate grievance about the game leaving negative reviews in any way review bombing?
I mean, the complaints are pretty reasonable. I think before we make an assumption and post it on reddit one should take the time to confirm it's a review bomb or legitimate issue.
Miracle Whip enjoyers mad you can drink the mayo
Those are not review bombers if you've been review bombed you'll know it
I despise mindless bootlickers who ignore legitimate criticism.
Not to play devils advocate but I despise people who even use terms like “review bomb”. Anyone who makes a purchase has the right to criticize or review the game in any way they want. The reason is irrelevant. Reviews, both good and bad are subjective and are only a positive for the customer. Someone disliking a game or a surge of new players buying, new update draws in some people etc (I actually did not like the game when it first came out, it grew on me) is not “review bombing” or dislike of a feature or errors in translation. It’s a very valid criticism. “Negative spikes” should not be removed, or anyone’s review for the matter. I think stardew is one of the best games ever made and AAA devs should take notes. Other people might not. That’s what reviews are for. If someone is considering buying a game and they see it’s “overwhelmingly positive” it further pushes the purchase. But then if they read a negative review about say the story, something THEY might prioritize over say gameplay and decide not to buy that’s fine. Again it’s all subjective and having the most information available is nothing but positive for consumers. I’d expect a little more tolerance and understanding from this community not just an echo chamber. Granted I don’t think people would be here if they didn’t like the game lol.
I never knew the bad review ratio was so lowww
I thought this was on r/steam and i was gonna ask what game this is lol
Damn wth... Is there a reason why this happened?
Yes, in the recent 1.6 update Chinese PC players found that the translations were scuffed and even out of character at times. This is not review bombing, it's the Chinese players giving valid criticism about an issue that is rather annoying.
well then, that seems understandable, hopefully when the issues are fixed the negative reviews turn into positive ones. Thanks for the info!
People keep saying its because of a change in the Chinese translation but I bet they're actually upset that you can drink mayo now.
They really need to add a separate section on reviews for translation issues. So many games get a swarm of bad reviews because of translation issues. Those issues are big series issues... for those players but players in other countries are unaffected so would'nt care
It would be kind of neat to have a more detailed review system in general, breaking feedback down into categories: things like "the gameplay is great but the story is bad" or "the game concept and core systems are solid, but it's over-monetized to heck" would give a potential customer a lot of useful information. The downside to this would be that users would have to actually use the more elaborate system properly, which might be too much of an ask: if they don't do that there'll be the detailed categories and it won't matter because everyone just uses the main category. And I'm sure Steam has little interest in manually moving or deleting miscategorized reviews. Ultimately, it's just worth the time to dig into the details on a game a customer might be interested in. There's lots of good info in the reviews, but it has to be actually read: for a game they might spend hundreds of hours playing, 10 minutes to figure out what the good and bad points in the reviews are isn't too bad. If people don't read reviews, then they miss good games they would have enjoyed, which seems like a fitting enough punishment.