Valve has released a new update for Steam that opens public testing of a new system for sorting user reviews on game pages. The purpose of the update is to prioritize reviews that will better help players make decisions about purchasing a particular game.

As the company explains in its statement, the main purpose of Steam reviews is to help potential players make an informed decision about purchasing a game based on what other players like or dislike.

However, over the past few years, reviews on the platform have turned into a collection of jokes from players who, among other things, receive a lot of positive reactions from other users who have already played a particular game. Such reviews may be useful for entertaining existing players, but they do not provide anything useful to those who are still considering a purchase.

From now on, this will change. User reviews that are determined to be unhelpful to new players will be sorted after other reviews on the game page. Humorous reviews will remain, but they will be ranked lower than genuinely helpful reviews that can help new players make a purchase decision.

The company also clarifies that this change does not affect the generation of ratings for each game on Steam, but only changes the order of reviews on the store pages.

As a reminder, starting in September 2024, Steam will also prohibit leaving links and unrelated materials in the description so as not to distract players from the really important project description.