Frequently Asked Questions

PopReviews (Proof of Play Reviews) is a game review platform that connects to your Steam account. Our core feature is "Proof of Play," which verifies that a reviewer owns the game and shows how many hours they've played, helping to combat review bombing and build a library of authentic, trustworthy reviews.

"Proof of Play" is our verification system. When you write a review, we check your connected Steam library to confirm you own the game. We then display the total playtime from your Steam account on your review. This ensures that reviews are from real players with actual experience in the game.

Steam reviews are great, but they can be hard to navigate. PopReviews is built to solve a few key problems:

• No Bots or Trolls: Our "Proof of Play" system verifies every reviewer owns the game and shows their playtime, which filters out "0.1 hours played" review-bombs and spam.
• Curated Feed: Instead of sorting through thousands of random reviews, you can follow players whose opinions you trust and see *only* their reviews in your personalized "Following" feed.

Following users builds your personalized "Following" feed, which you can find on the Browse page. This feed cuts through the noise and *only* shows you the latest reviews from the players you've chosen to follow. It's the best way to get recommendations from people whose opinions you actually trust.

Steam's rating (e.g., "Overwhelmingly Positive") is a simple percentage of all positive vs. negative user reviews. It's a good big-picture summary, but it can be skewed by review bombs or low-effort posts.

Our Calculated Score (BETA) is different: it's a 0-100 score generated from a single, detailed review. Instead of just a thumbs up/down, it algorithmically combines multiple factors from that one review to create a more nuanced score. This includes:

• The 1-10 star rating (40% weight).
• The 1-5 sub-ratings for Gameplay, Story, etc. (30% weight).
• The "Recommended" / "Not Recommended" choice (+/- 10 points).
• Pros/Cons length and positive/negative tags (20% weight combined).

This system lets you get a much more detailed "score" from a single reviewer you trust, rather than an average of thousands of strangers. This system is in Beta and will be adjusted based on community feedback!

Yes, your account is completely safe. We never see or store your Steam password. We use Steam's official OpenID system for login, which is the same secure method used by many other third-party sites. You only enter your password on the official Steam community website.

Connecting your Steam account is essential for our "Proof of Play" system. It's the only way we can verify game ownership and playtime, which is the core principle of the site.

To post a review, we must be able to see the game in your library. You can sync your library by visiting the My Games page (on your profile). If your profile is private, this sync may fail. For the sync to work, your "Game details" setting on Steam must be set to "Public."

You have full control. In your Settings page, you can:

• Make your whole profile private: This anonymizes all your reviews and hides your profile page.
• Hide your Game Library: Hides the "Games" tab on your profile from other users.
• Hide your Achievements: Hides the "Achievements" tab on your profile from other users.
• Hide your Followers/Following lists: Hides the social tabs on your profile from other users.

We believe in data minimization. We only collect what's necessary:

• Your public Steam ID, profile name, and avatar (from Steam).
• Your public game library and playtime (from Steam, if you sync it).
• Your achievement progress (from Steam, if you use the feature).
• The content you create on the site (reviews, votes, reports, feedback).

We also use Vercel Analytics, a privacy-first tool that collects anonymous usage data (like page views) and is not tied to your personal identity.

Absolutely not. We will never sell your personal data. The site does not run ads and does not use any third-party ad-tracking cookies.

You can permanently delete your account and all associated content (reviews, votes, reports, feedback) from the Settings page. This action is irreversible.

You can edit or delete any of your reviews. On any game page where you have a review, you will see an "Edit" and "Delete" button on your review card. You can also find all your reviews on your profile page.

The Achievements tab shows your achievement progress for the games you've recently reviewed. It fetches your personal progress and compares it with global completion rates (rarity) from Steam. You can hide this tab from your profile in Settings.

This usually happens for one of two reasons:

1. Steam Privacy: Your Steam profile's "Game details" must be set to "Public" for us to fetch your achievements and stats.
2. No Stats: The game itself might not have Steam achievements or user stats enabled.

When you report a review, it is sent to our admin moderation queue. A moderator will review the report and the review content. If the review violates our Terms of Service (e.g., hate speech, spam), it will be removed.

It's our transparent way of saying this is a passion project built rapidly by a solo developer (with lots of help from AI!). It's in "Beta," so you might find bugs or unfinished features. We're counting on community feedback to help us improve and grow!

We'd love to hear from you! You can use the floating "Feedback" button on the side of the screen or go directly to the Feedback page.

You can upvote or downvote any review to mark it as helpful or unhelpful. This helps surface the most valuable community reviews. The total score (e.g., +5) on a review is the sum of all upvotes and downvotes.

"The Pop Promise" is our commitment to you. It outlines our core principles:

• Privacy-First: We will never sell your data or use ad-tracking cookies.
• Security & Control: We use secure Steam login, and you have full control to anonymize or delete your data.
• Community-Focused: We are a non-biased platform built for real players, not corporate interests.

You can read the full promise here.

No. PopReviews is an independent project and is not affiliated with Valve Corporation or Steam in any way. All game data, images, and trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Please report it! As a beta project, bug reports are incredibly valuable. Go to the Feedback page, select "Bug Report," and describe what happened in as much detail as possible (what page you were on, what you clicked, what you expected vs. what happened).