Agreed, but it would be useful if Steam did at least allow tags with unarguable objective facts in them – a game could be tagged “bad port” for a number of reasons, which might not all bother me, but something like “non-rebindable keys” (which they also banned) is a very specific deal-breaker for many people. (Including myself; non-standard keyboard because of my disabilities.)

If your new washing machine has a flaw/feature that makes it impossible for you to use it, the retailer is (in the UK and EU, at least) *legally obliged* to take it back and give you a full refund. Even if you could have found out about that feature before purchase. Getting refunds out of Steam is notoriously difficult at the best of times, and I’d rather they provided useful information (such as “this game is unplayable on non-standard keyboards”, which is what “non-rebindable keys” generally amounts to) on the game’s page rather than forcing me to look elsewhere for it.

Well the difference between bad port and a making a racial slur are light years away. One is specific to a product and in itself, however subjective, is only offensive as far as the individual title. Where as racial slurs are broadly cruel terms used to maginalise and degrade individuals based on race alone. They re offensive at inception. I think you are fully intelligent enough to recognise this bit seem to revel in the semantic details, in turn sidetracking the wider point.

Actually I’d disagree with your point; every single one of those are useful in their own way.

“Bad Port” can mean a multitude of different things, from either locked internal resolution ala Dark Souls, GTAIV’s extremely poor hardware optimization, or even certain parts of the game not working correctly at all such as Call of Cthulhu: Dark corners of the Earth. The tag itself is a good warning for users unwilling to put up with these kind of things, and a warning that it may take time to get the game up and running for those who are.

Though I’m tempted to agree on “Mobile”, it’s far from meaningless. Mobile games are inherently designed to be used with simplistic touch controls, and usually feature simplistic or otherwise not very resource-intensive graphics due to the nature of the platform. Again, far from ‘meaningless’.

“Region Locked”, assuming the product cannot even be viewed in some regions, is useful for people who would like to determine whether friends in certain regions would be able to play with them. Those connecting to Steam from outside their home country will find this tag useful as it will allow them to research if the game is unplayable from within their home country.

Of course everyone’s idea of value is different, but like anything else, majority wins. If a large amount of people think a game is overpriced, then there’s nothing wrong with letting people know. I don’t recall the exact name, but a Rovio game ported from mobile to PCs showed up on Steam some time ago, with a HUGE price-hike compared to the original, somewhere in the realm of 700% more expensive I believe.

We NEED positive AND negative tags, in addition to entirely neutral ones for simple categorical purposes. I’m not saying we need potentially offensive, or outright wrong tags, but that’s why it’s a community-based channel that needs only a bare minimum of moderation to function correctly; not a heavy-handed takedown of tags Valve – or indeed, individual developers – disagree with.

Very agree, I don’t think I’ve ever looked at the tags. While I get Lewie’s point, people dealt with bad ports and region locking before tags were introduced, and I suspect that people to whom these words/phrases are triggers will continue to be vigilant.

“Bad Port” is meaningless – I might not be upset with “works badly on nVidia cards” except that I doubt anyone is in a position to make such a sweeping statement.

“Mobile” is pandering to elitist idiots who think “their platform is better” and is also meaningless

“Region Locked” is useless in the Steam Store itself.

“Overpriced” is ridiculous because everyone’s idea of value is different AND prices change over time.

After reviewing those – I think the idea of negative tags is pretty terrible

p.s. I thought of one “Read the Forums before buying” – that would be a useful one – for EVERY game ;0

Sure, I’m not actually suggesting that Valve should be obligated to host negative comments about games, I am just criticising the system and arguing that Valve have misrepresented it.

The comparison I’d use is with white-goods in a retail store. You won’t know until you get them home that the washing machine is louder-than-expected or that the speakers on your new TV sound flat. It’s up to the purchaser to do at least a little research before buying. Obviously the amount of research you want to do is relative to the amount you care/are spending on the product.

I get what you’re saying, but take any of the tags you didn’t agree with and then replace your last paragraph (in the comment I’m replying to) with one of the racist ones.
The only difference is *you* don’t agree with it. Of course, most other sensible people wouldn’t either, but to my mind: when I look at something this way, it highlights how Valve have probably had to deal with it.

There are, after all, some people out there who would think there was nothing at all wrong with alerting other gamers to the fact there were (insert derogatory euphemism here) in this game.

They aren’t just removing subjective negative tags though, they are also removing objective negative tags (such as “region locked”).

I agree that in the case of “bad port” it is subjective, but I think that if that is the most popular tag that the Steam userbase have applied to a game, I personally would want to know about it, and I think it would be in user’s interest to display that on the item listing.