Sony seem to be testing written user reviews on the PS Store – WGB
Have you ever wondered what Dave from halfway across the world thinks about Helldivers 2? Well, now you can know exactly how he feels about the latest weapon nerf! It looks like Sony is dabbling in the world of written user reviews and is planning on bringing them to the PlayStation Store.
This was initially brought to my attention by cusman78 on Reddit who got an Email invite from Sony asking them if they’d like to write a user review for Helldivers 2. The image below was taken from the page they were sent to, where there is also an option to flag the review as containing spoilers.
Other users chimed in to support cusman78’s claims. One user by the name of chalky_83 stated they got an Email asking them to review Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, but couldn’t because they own it on disc rather than digitally. Darkblade887 replied that they were in the same boat with Resident Evil 4.
It seems only people who own the games digitally will be able to leave reviews. This is presumably so that only people who actually own the game can review it, unlike Metacritic where people can review games and movies they’ve never played or seen.
People also seem to be indicating that they can see reviews written by other people when visiting the page via the Email invite. However, going to the store page normally doesn’t display the reviews.
At the moment it’s unclear what methodology Sony is using to select participants. It could be random, or it could be based on something like time played or Trophies collected. What does seem clear is that this is some form of limited test, but Sony clearly isn’t worried about the news spreading as there doesn’t appear to be any form of Non-Disclosure Agreement.
Personally, I think this could be a good addition to the store. Sony has allowed star ratings for a while now, and this is a logical next step. On the Steam store, user reviews can be very useful, although they do have some major downsides as well, like people leaving negative or positive reviews for things that have nothing to do with the game.
What do you think? Are user reviews useful, or do you find that you wind up having to dredge through a lot of crap to find something helpful?
