Thursday, December 04, 2014

The vanishing of a one-star review

My response to a one-star customer review for the game The Vanishing of Ethan Carter:

Since your review is about Steam and not about the game itself, you should remove it. I played the demo a while ago and was impressed with the quality of the game, and when I saw that the game had received only one star from one reviewer I wondered why and read your review. (I'm not associated with Nordic Games at all; I don't even know where they're located.) Your review isn't about the game, since it's a game you own that never gets played. Your comment belongs in a forum or a customer discussion about Steam. It's interesting that one of the commenters called the game incredible and said it's probably one of the top five games he's ever played. His comment belongs in a review, with five stars, and your review belongs in a comment. His comment is buried on a second page as only a response to a review, and your admittedly uninformed review is on the product page and affects the game's position in search results. Is that appropriate in view of all the effort and creativity that went into the game's creation? Nordic's artists and developers obviously put a lot of effort into the game, and they deserve a little more respect than you've given them. (Remember, I've never met them.) For their sakes, delete your review and direct your comments about Steam to a different forum.


The one-star review, from Henry:
Not what I wanted or expected

I have not bought a PC game in quite a while, What I was looking for was a product to run on a new system and put it through it's paces. And I wanted a game that would play as a standalone product (no account, stream or server necessary).

Well, This isn't it. You have to set up an account with Steam and provide personal info (Credit Cards, etc.) for it to even install.

Nowhere in the Amazon product description does it say that, at least I didn't see it... However, It does state it on the back of the case. But of course I did not look there, before I opened the case and loaded the DVD. Then the first thing that happens is you get a dialogue box to open an account, with Term & Conditions.. that you can even print...
Of course since opened it, I assume it's not returnable. So I have a new game that will never get played.

Also I would have done well to read the reviews online. I would suggest anyone looking at this game do so.