tl;dr: List game after 6 months without updates, make clear if staff or private branches are active, list as effectively abandoned after 12 months without updates regardless of staff or private branch activity. Yay/Nay?
http://www.strawpoll.me/11250510

The poll[www.strawpoll.me] in the last announcement was surprisingly even. As in, 64 to 63 for the first question, and 48 to 47 for the second. After thinking it it all over as to what the goal was with listing games like that, what were reasonable time frames, how we could factor in things like the devs posting info but not pushing updates, or only pushing updates on private branches, and everyones opinion as to how to handle it, I'm hoping I've come to a pretty reasonable solution on the matter.

First off, what I'm trying to achieve by listing a game for not updating. I'm not trying to be the judge as to if an update is "good enough" or not, that's entirely outside of the scope of this curator group. All I check for is that there have been any changes at all to the public branch of the game. When you're buying an Early Access game, I assume that you're interested in seeing it finished at some point, and finishing a game requires that game to actually get updates. To that end, all I'm trying to do is to help give people a heads up so that they can make an informed decision on what they're supporting.

Now, as for how I was wording the reviews before, which was "Seemingly abandoned EAG...", looking back, that's a bit more harsh of a wording than I should probably be using. I don't think it's entirely wrong to say, but the situation could be more accurately conveyed. As the poll and the comments have made clear, plenty of folks are willing to forgive slow updates if the devs are being up front about the situation. I don't believe that expecting a paltry 2 updates a year from an incomplete game being offered for sale to tens of millions of people(Steam peaked at over 12 million people online in the past 48 hours) is unreasonable, even for just a hobbyist dev, but flat out saying that the project seems abandoned may not be accurate in all cases.

To that end, how do you guys feel about listing games that haven't had any public game updates for 6 months, but either making it clear that private branches are still receiving changes, and/or that staff are still active in the community, and then if a game hasn't received any public updates for a year, stating that it's effectively abandoned, despite active staff and/or active private branch development? Here are some examples:

• Public development appears stalled, with no updates between July 1st, 2016 and December 31st, 2016. Staff remain active in the community.
  
• Public development appears stalled, with no updates from 2016-06-01 to 2016-12-31. Private branches still being updated, and staff are still active.
  
• Public development appears stalled, with no updates between 2016-06-01 and 2016-12-31, although private branches are still receiving development.
  
• Game is seemingly abandoned, having had no information from devs or game updates between July 1st, 2016 and December 31st, 2016.
  
• Game is effectively abandoned, having not received any public updates between 2016-06-01 and 2016-12-31, despite active staff and private branch.

Please note that when I say active in the community, I'm only referring to Steam. If a staff member for a developer/publisher is posting news on the games page, or on the games forums, that would count, but if they're only posting on their Twitter and Facebook pages, and those pages aren't listed in recent news posts or stickied on the forum, I'm not going to factor that in. If the game is being sold on Steam, it's the companies responsibility to make information available to the Steam users, not the users responsibility to try to hunt down the devs to find available info.

So, what do you guys think? Is this a good way to handle the situation, or is there a better way to do it? As usual, please vote on the poll!
http://www.strawpoll.me/11250510/




P.S. As I mentioned last post, we're coming up on a season that tends to have multiple Steam sales, which is a time that the information this group provides could really help people out! If you know of anyone who you think might appreciate a heads up, please link them to the curator page! If everyone who followed the curator page told one friend about us, we would move from page #12 of the top curators to within the first 10 pages! The less pages people have to dig through when looking for new curators to follow, the more likely they are to find us organically rather than just by word of mouth!

tl;dr What info should I consider when marking a game as abandoned?
http://www.strawpoll.me/11207699

I recently put up a review for The Joylancer: Legendary Motor Knight for being an abandoned Early Access title, as it hasn't received any updates on Steam for the past 8 months. A couple of people brought up the fact that the dev is still posting update news on the forum, so we shouldn't consider the game abandoned.

Now, I'm of the mind that if we're not actually receiving any updates, then the game is in effect abandoned. Talk is cheap, and I've seen far too many projects where the devs will continue promising updates which never end up seeing the light of day. Up until now, my criteria for considering an Early Access title as abandoned has been that it hasn't received an update(that is, any changes to the files that you download the play the game, not just a news or forum post) on Steam for the past 6 months. I don't dig into the contents of the update to determine if it's a quality update, or if it has enough content, just that there is at least something being updated on the game.

So far, my criteria has worked pretty well, but I wanted to run it past everyone and make sure we're all on the same page on it. Do you guys think the devs forum activity should count, or only actual game updates? Also, it hasn't come up yet, but if there's a non-public branch of the game(a dev-only beta branch, for example) that's still receiving updates, should that prevent the game from being marked as abandoned? I could see that one going either way. On one hand, the game could clearly still be seeing development, but on the other, the people who have purchased the game aren't receving any changes.

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on the matter! As usual, here's a Straw Poll, please cast your vote!
http://www.strawpoll.me/11207699

P.S. Just a little aside, but we're coming up on the Halloween/Holiday season, and there are frequently Steam sales, so the curator reviews could really help some folks out! We're currently the 111th most popular curator on Steam, on page #12 of the top curators. If everyone who followed got one friend to also follow, we'd be up to 86th, on page #9 of the top curators, making us that much easier for other users to find. I hate to pull the Youtube-esque "LIKECOMMENTSUBSCRIBEFOLLOWUSONTWITTERINSTAGRAMANDFACEBOOK" thing, but if you guys know anyone who would appreciate the info, please let them know about this curator/group!

My latest review, Operation Caucasus, seems to have really bothered a few people. This has actually been the first time I've seen the group and curator follower counts go down. I'm not sure if it's just a vocal few who fear that I've gone full SJW, or if people legitimately think that the LGBT part of the review isn't worth mentioning. I'm not unreasonable on stuff, and this group doesn't work as well if people lose trust in its reviews, so I wanted to get everyones input to make sure I handle this one right.

I've got a couple of polls for you guys. First, should we even factor verbal abuse by a developer/publisher into if a game should be reviewed or not? On one hand, treating your customers poorly is definitely not a very pro-consumer way of doing things, and it can scare users off from posting reviews, or trying to seek support. On the other hand, they aren't actually doing anything, or preventing users from doing anything, they're just being rude, so it's not something that necessarily has to affect a person. My personal opinion is that ACPReport should review a game when the devs/publisher are being abusive, for the reasons stated above, but if an overwhelming majority disagree, then I'll need to reconsider.

Poll for if we should review games for devs/publishers being abusive:
http://www.strawpoll.me/10392787

Next up, a poll for Operation Caucasus specifically, for if I should or shouldn't be including the LGBT bit in the review, or if I should have left it as solely the EAG-being-released-as-non-EAG bit.
http://www.strawpoll.me/10392682

If I'm ever running this group in a way that you guys disagree with, definitely let me know(preferably instead of rage-quitting!). I'm always open to feedback, and I've fixed or removed reviews in the past based on the feedback you guys provide. I get that there are plenty of unreasonable people on the internet(As evidenced by some of ACPReport's reviews!), but I try not to be one of them!

tl;dr: How should I abbreviate Early Access? Is ErA okay? Let me know in the comments.

A few people have expressed concern about me abbreviating Early Access as EA, since, ya'know, Electronic Arts. I thought it was a safe enough abbrevation, as so much of the content of this group is focused on Early Access, and given that Electronic Arts no longer publishes new games on Steam. In the full review links, I try to remember to use Early Access instead of the abbreviation, but curator reviews are limited to only 152 characters, so I need to try to save characters wherever possible. After the latest review, I had a bit of a Principle Skinner moment, but after asking around, I was convinced that I should change how I abbreviate it.

So, the question is, what's the best way I can shorten Early Access down to as few characters as possible, so that it'll still make sense to everyone, not just people who are reading and replying to this post? Does ErA work? Leave a comment, let me know.

There are 2,553 members in the group, and 1,988 people following ACPReport curator reviews. Don't get me wrong, joining the group(and inviting your friends to it!) is great, and it'll definitely get more folks to notice it, but you won't see curator reviews in the store! If you want to see the reviews on the store pages, you need to go to the curator tab and subscribe to that.

Also: Woo! We're the 112th(Out of 26,471) most followed curator on Steam! That puts us on page 12 of Steam's Top Curators. As it currently stands, we would need 234 followers to reach page 11, and if all group members also followed the curations, we would be the 107th most followed curator.