Steam has updated its review system to show if a user 'played mostly on Steam Deck.'

Steam's review system is now updated to indicate when a reviewer has spent the majority of their time playing a game using a Steam Deck rather than a desktop or laptop. Steam Deck players who post a review on Steam will now see a Steam Deck icon in the top-right corner of the review.

Valve announced the new feature via the Steam Deck official Twitter account. Valve stated "We've just shipped a new Steam feature that shows when a review was written by a person who played primarily Steam Deck. Watch for the Deck icon on the Steam page to see what the players thought of the game.

It's a small, but sensible change which reflects the diversification of PC gaming. The change is probably intended to show Deck users whether or not the reviewer enjoyed the game on Valve’s handheld. However, it also provides useful context for desktop and laptop PC players. Deck players know that if they complain about poor performance in a review for a graphically intensive game, it's not likely to reflect their own experience. If they complain about controls or are reviewing a non-Deck Verified game, it's likely not a reflection of their own experience.

This is the second significant change Valve made to Steam reviews in this month. Steam introduced a new system of 'helpfulness,' last week, to give priority to reviews that are helpful, while reducing the importance of reviews it deemed unhelpful. The latter category includes "one word reviews, ASCII art reviews, or reviews that are primarily humorous memes or inside jokes." The helpfulness system does not remove these reviews. It drops their ranking below reviews that are deemed to be informative and insightful about a game. Valve has also added a way to return reviews to their original ranking system in case you are reading reviews more for fun than information.

Valve appears to be reviewing its own review system at the moment, as both changes are so close together. Each change is a logical move towards making the review system more suitable for the intended purpose. The changes don't fix all the problems with the system, like players who review-bomb games, for reasons that may not reflect the quality of the game, or the binary nature in which recommendations are made, where many players request a "mixed rating" alongside a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. They do seem to be improvements in general.