Valve recently brought changes to its review system on Steam, preventing reviews from customers who acquired the game as a free gift from counting towards the total score. This was aimed to curb abuse by developers and publishers who gave out free copies of their games to gamers in exchange for positive reviews. Naturally, this also impacted developers who sold copies of their games through services like Humble Bundle and Kickstarter.
As such, Valve has tweaked the system even further to accommodate all types of reviews by default, taking into account both Steam purchases as well as key activations. Users will however now be able to filter out reviews between the two so games with separate distribution methods aren’t penalized by the new system tweak.
“One frequent piece of feedback we’ve heard regarding the recent changes is that it has become more difficult to find and read the helpful, articulate reviews written by customers that obtained the game outside of Steam,” wrote Valve. “We want to make sure that helpful reviews can be surfaced regardless of purchase source, so we’re making a change to the defaults.
“Starting today, the review section on each product page will show reviews written by all users, regardless of purchase type.”
However, reviews activated by key activations will not factor into the overall score. You’ll have to buy the game via Steam if you want your review to count towards the score.