Steam Review: Gaming while Improving Your Writing
The Writing Game: Enhancing Your Skills through Steam Review
Steam is one of the largest platforms for buying and playing games, with over 100 million monthly users. This platform offers community features that allow users to add others as friends, create a discussion forum, mod, and even review games.
Before buying a game on Steam, I always read the review section to know whether the game was worth buying. Especially if it is an indie game because it is difficult to find reviews about those games on Google. After I spent a lot of time reading the reviews, I realized something. The Steam review section is one of the best places to strengthen my writing in the gaming field. Here is why.
- Gamifying Review
Steam did an impressive job by using gamification solutions in its community. The reviewer feels rewarded for reviewing a game by applying points and badges. The Steam points can be exchanged with items to decorate the user’s Steam profile. Furthermore, the badges are also displayed in the profile so people who see our profile can see how much contribution we made to the Steam community. - Every Review Has the Chance to Shine
The most popular review is not always on the top; in a certain period (usually 30 days; less popular games can be longer), they will vanish from the game's main page, and newer popular reviews will be on the top. So if you write a review, then you get many upvotes. Eventually, it might be the most popular review. - Genuine Interaction
On Steam, reviews can be voted on by other users, and users can interact with each other if the review poster allows them to comment on their reviews. I know some people out there created a community for Steam reviewers and upvoted each other's reviews. However, most of the interactions there are genuine, and if there are people who do not agree with a review, we can know why they do not agree (if they commented on the review). Most of them actually play the games, and another user would know how many hours the reviewer spent on the game when they posted their review, so it is easier to recognize who plays the game and who does not. - Unexpected Copywriting Prodigies
This is what I like the most in the Steam review. Some of the reviewers are copywriting geniuses. They might not work as a copywriter or even just write their first review, but they can gain many upvotes and badges and even be the most popular review. Moreover, they might contribute to the game sales with their review. By reading that review, I can learn keywords that evoke emotions. In addition, it provides insight into the community. For example, when I created a review for Phasmophobia, some of the most popular reviews highlighted the multiplayer aspect of Phasmophobia, and then I wrote a review about that aspect as well, my review became the most popular review and got several community badges.
However, reviewing in Steam is not perfect either. Some reviews got popular even if the review they posted was not related to the game at all. For example, the most popular review like that is the “upvote to pet the cat” review. They just post a cat created from a keyboard symbol and ask people to vote for that review. Maybe it can make someone’s day, but I want to read a review about the game.
Well, at the end of the day. The Steam community review is a great place to learn about writing a video game review or even writing in general. I had a lot of fun reviewing a game on Steam. To this day, I got hundreds of upvotes and 42 community badges from writing 20 reviews. And it motivates me to write a review every time I complete a game (or write a bad review every time I quit a game).
