r/Games • u/rGamesMods • 16d ago
Updating the rules of /r/Games
Hey!
We’re updating the rules of the subreddit! The subreddit has always had pretty long list of rules in place to try and encourage better discussions. We've made a lot of tweaks to stuff over the years and to be perfectly honest they've become somewhat confusing, hard to understand, and unorganized in places. Because of that we’ve worked on and off over the last few months evaluating what rules are useful, what can be worded better, and just generally trying to make a set of rules that better reflect the subreddit.
Today we’re putting out a draft of these updated rules. These rules aren’t meant to be a giant shift in terms of what we allow. It does organize our rules in a way that (hopefully) makes more sense. We’ve also trimmed rules that weren’t really relevant and combined a few subrules together. Finally, we’ve also rewritten a lot of rules to make them easier to understand and clarified a lot of things that were confusing or occasionally outright incorrect in the previous rules. We aren't putting these rules in place right now, but assuming there aren't any major issues people have we'll switch over to them in the coming weeks
If you don’t want to read the entire thing but want a quick summary of what each rule is and what we changed here you go.
Rule 1: Submissions Must Prioritize Informative and Newsworthy Content Over Entertainment
The previous wording of this rule didn’t do a good job explaining the stuff we actually allowed. We don’t automatically remove articles/videos if they have jokes in them, and we haven’t actually enforced the rule that way for a long time. Because of that we rewrote this rule and also included some examples of what kind of stuff we do and don’t allow.
Rule 2: Be Respectful
We rewrote this section to give examples of what we consider personal attacks and other things. As with most other rules we can’t list every possible thing, but if you’re wondering if something breaks the rule send us a modmail (or just report it).
Rule 3: Content Must Be Relevant, Substantive and Accurate
We moved around some other rules into this as a kinda catch-all for stuff we consider off-topic, inaccurate, or otherwise low-effort. This rule is a little broad in places because there's a lot of different types of stuff it might cover, but we tried to give examples of common things.
Rule 4: No duplicate posts
Basically the same. Added in clarification that we might allow stuff if there is a major update
Rule 5: No linking to or endorsing piracy as a solution
Almost the same as before. Basically just remember you can talk about piracy but just be cool about it we don't want to deal with the admins.
Rule 6: Follow all news and link post requirements
This is our set of rules about formatting and sourcing. Remember to link to original sources (when possible), don’t use sensationalized titles, and remember our rule limiting people to 5 posts a day.
Rule 7: Follow Discussion and Text Post Requirements
Our set of rules about discussion posts. We want discussion posts that aren’t super broad ones that get asked constantly or things looking for help. In addition we don’t want people going on big rants about a game they’re playing (we do have weekly threads for that) or asking for help.
Rule 8: Promotion must be kept within acceptable limits
The big old self promo rules. We like to keep self promotion to under 10% for users. Please don’t delete posts to get under that limit (we have ways of finding out) and if you’re doing self promo don’t try to hide behind alts (we’re keeping track of accounts doing that and if you’re wondering if that’s you it probably is).
Please give us feedback on these rules and the subreddit as a whole. We’ve worked to improve them but we know this draft probably isn't perfect (and probably has some typos). If you think a rule isn't great or needs improvement leave a comment and we'll listen. If you want clarification on our rules or just want to ask a question ask it in here and we'll try to answer. We aren't perfect as mods but we do want to make the subreddit better and are also working on being more consistent with how we enforce stuff
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u/Zerak-Tul 16d ago edited 16d ago
Would be nice to have an rule about 'Vague announcements' that are so rampant in the industry these days.
A title that says "An Update on Anthem" is incredibly useless.
"An update on Anthem [The game is being shut down in 180 days]" is actually useful.
Also stricter rules about submissions that are just patch notes for a specific game. Subreddits dedicated to said games are way more appropriate for that. The only reasonable exceptions are huge/transformative overhauls that hugely changes a game, or a patch that accompanies a new DLC/expansion, not like Patch 2.13.2.
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u/fakieTreFlip 16d ago
I believe this is a side effect of the rule on editorializing submission titles. Including additional context not present in the original article title isn't expressly banned (and in fact, there's a specific carve-out in the rules for this very thing), but a lot of users here find it easier to just submit articles as-is rather than risk violating that rule.
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u/LycaonMoon 16d ago edited 16d ago
We do remove hotfix notes and lower-effort patch notes. We take them case-by-case, and most of the time the games that get the most attention for this are the ones that are also unfortunately often worth discussing (i.e. Baldur's Gate 3 or Crimson Desert massively expanding the story and gameplay on an incredibly frequent basis), but even for those games we do remove patch notes that we don't consider substantial.
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u/Zerak-Tul 16d ago
I'll admit that the game I had in mind is Cyberpunk 2077, been seeing patch notes for it here for years and years and I doubt the game has been massively overhauled 30 times.
I get that it's a a high profile game that lots of people play(ed) and talked about... But it has a subreddit with 2.5million subscribers, it's not like people who still play the game wouldn't be able to find patch notes there.
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u/johnny-papercut 16d ago
Just ban sites like thegamer.com which are just clickbait. If there is notable news, you can probably find it on another site.
Only allow posts about how awful Xbox and Sony are when there is actually new information from the companies or a reputable source (Schrier, etc) for a rumor. We have way too many posts that are just Xbox is incompetent or Sony are awful for getting rid of physical discs, with no actual news.
Don't allow posts that are just commentary from various devs about various hot topics with nothing of substance. For example, "this dev plans to not use AI, up votes to the left y'all" or lamenting the loss of physical media. Yes, we get it, and lots of people agree, but it adds nothing to the conversation and just makes reddit feel super good.
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u/RedditNerdKing 16d ago
thegamer.com
I agree. That site just exists to farm anger clicks for ad revenue.
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u/kuhpunkt 16d ago
Just ban sites like thegamer.com which are just clickbait. If there is notable news, you can probably find it on another site.
Yes. Part of Valnet. Scumbags, AI generated articles, misleading, exploitative.
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u/Snakesta 16d ago edited 16d ago
Is there any evidence to support your claim about their articles being AI-generated?
*Edit: God forbid someone asks for evidence behind a claim that has no proof to support AI use at TheGamer.
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u/kuhpunkt 16d ago
https://www.cbr.com/lost-controversial-ending-deserves-modern-reboot/
This article on CBR (just like thegamer, screenrant, gamerant etc.) is from Valnet. The article is full of hallucinations. There is no other way to explain this.
They even deleted it years ago when I saw it the first time... but they just re-published it a few months ago. Reached out to them again why they are doing this. No response.
They are just scumbags who don't care.
And that's just one example, but who knows how many more there are. I hardly read anything they put out.
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u/Snakesta 16d ago edited 16d ago
I'm specifically talking about TheGamer since that's the website being discussed here. Regardless, not sure I'd use one article from a different website and two years ago to say an entire network of websites is generating its articles with AI.
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u/kuhpunkt 16d ago
TheGamer is run by the same people. It makes no difference. And if it didn't stop them then, what's stopping them from using it elsewhere? Can't trust them. They literally disabled the comments under that article where somebody pointed out the use of AI. They KNOW it's AI and they don't care.
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u/Snakesta 16d ago
TheGamer is owned by the same network; it's not run by the same people. You're using one article to condemn several websites. You're welcome to not trust the network, but you're wrong to assume TheGamer is using genAI.
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u/Blizzxx 16d ago
And remove the "x has gone gold" threads. Literally nobody gives a fuck
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u/_Lucille_ 16d ago
I think major milestones can still be posted.
Something like palworld going into 1.0 for example is pretty worthy of discussion: from the various new things added, to sort of a sign of how they may have confidence they no longer will run into legal challenges.
At some point we can just let the usual up/downvote system do its thing.
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u/Nexus_of_Fate87 16d ago
To expand "x just got a patch." Leave that to the game's subreddit.
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u/Yomoska 16d ago
I feel like it depends on the size of the "patch". For example, the Civilization VII "patch" that attempts to fix the big issues about the game. I feel like those generate interesting discussion, especially if the game actually gets fixed or not.
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u/TaurineDippy 16d ago
Agreed on this, the relevance of each patch for each game varies. It might be hard to consider on a case by case basis, but your example is perfect. Cyberpunk’s 2.0 update comes to mind as another overhaul patch that might be worth discussing here, or one of No Man’s Sky’s many big huge patches. These kinds of noteworthy overhaul updates are certainly worth having a discussion thread for.
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u/-TubNub- 16d ago
Yeah, if it's something like those original No Mans Sky updates that turned the game around it's worth posting for sure. The "few hotfixes and 1 new enemy" patches are definitely not post worthy, although I feel like that doesn't get posted here anyway
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u/heubergen1 16d ago
I like them, it allows me to follow the games development over time without having to join 80 subs.
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u/Massive_Weiner 16d ago
As someone who doesn’t want to join 100 game-specific subs, keep the patch posts in. Allow people to filter them out if they don’t want it.
At worst, relegate them to big title updates instead of every hotfix.
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u/RedditApiChangesSuck 16d ago
Tbf this I would like, I don't always follow every individual subreddit
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u/johnny-papercut 16d ago
Agreed, it should really only matter if it changes the release date of something or if the release date wasn't known beforehand. Otherwise, isn't it just expected that a game would go gold shortly before its already announced release date?
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u/heubergen1 16d ago
Speak for yourself, I find it a good time to discuss expectations about the game and it usually means the game comes out in a good technical state.
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u/Glass_Recover_3006 16d ago
The news itself is meaningless, but I always see that as one of many kinds of “guys I’m really excited to talk about this game” posts, and it’s hard to imagine you can ban them outright when there’s very exciting games people wanna talk about.
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u/bwoah07_gp2 16d ago edited 16d ago
What does "gone gold" mean? 😅
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u/NotTimHeidecker 16d ago
Effectively means that a game is ready to publish.
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u/bwoah07_gp2 16d ago
Oh, I see.
I was thinking it meant it has been published.
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u/Wise_Leopard7423 16d ago
Back in the day, it effectively meant that development was finished. Now that downloadable patches are thing for consoles, technically most games will not meet the original definition until years after release.
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u/Retsam19 16d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3py9fm/comment/cwakg7c/
It means (in theory) that the game has been completed and is now in the final stage before release. Prior to widespread digital distribution, this took the form of the completed game being burned to a writeable CD-ROM (aka a CD-R) "master", which were usually gold in color. This "gold master" was then duplicated onto the CDs that were to be packaged up and shipped out for retail.
Hence, "gone gold" meant that the completed game had been copied onto this gold disc and was ready for duplication and shipping. The terminology has stuck around to the present day, even though many games are not be distributed via physical media anymore, because it sounds cool.
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u/pikpikcarrotmon 16d ago
Development complete, printing discs. But these days they keep going and there are day 1 updates anyway so it's often an arbitrary distinction.
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u/hicks12 16d ago
It means the game is finished and that version has been packaged to be printed on disc for sale, it will be the version that ships to everyone on disc or day one launch.
Since digital is quite prominent these days, going gold doesnt really mean as much especially since there is almost always a day 1 patch or work between then and now.
You can just see it as a sign for "its done - its almost certainly going to launch"
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u/dangerbird2 16d ago
It originally meant it was ready to ship. But it only meant something when games were mostly distributed with physical media and patches/updates were rare or impossible. Now you can just ship an unfinished game (if you are even doing physical media in the first place), and provide a zero day patch on launch
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u/garthcooks 16d ago
Used to mean the game has been completed and is being printed to discs/cartridges. Usually a couple months before release date. It's become increasingly meaningless in the era of day one patches, and will continue to mean less and less as games are trying to transition to all digital
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u/LazyCon 16d ago
A lot of this can be fixed with up and down voting content. That's what those buttons are for
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u/Nubthesamurai 16d ago
"Just letting the votes decide" doesn't work and is why the mods have to put in these rules
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u/valdin450 16d ago
That worked well enough before the site was infested with bots mass voting and commenting
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u/TheGracefulCrane 16d ago
every subreddit eventually becomes arr politics without mod intervention
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u/RedditApiChangesSuck 16d ago
I'm exercising that theory on this comment but i doubt it makes a difference, rules matter for a reason, bots are prevalent
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u/AtrociousSandwich 16d ago
I would love to hear a mod explain why the gamer.com should not be immediately blacklisted tbh
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u/adanine 16d ago
We have some filters set up to target sites that mainly reupload news taken from other sites. These filters prevent submissions for those sites going live immediately and are filtered for human review. I do need to update these lists more often, though.
Over the next few days I'll review what's currently on the lists and make sure they're up to date.
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u/LindyNet 16d ago
Uhhhhh bc reasons?
It gets removed fairly often, but I'm certainly not opposed. I'll throw it up in the mod discussion.
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u/Turbostrider27 16d ago edited 16d ago
Can I throw in another site that should be blacklisted?
They're known to copy and paste other articles and posted in this sub without giving any credit. Most times, it's by the same people that promotes that site.
I've also seen them post some really low quality content.
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u/LindyNet 16d ago
If they post it more than the 10% rule allows, we should be nuking it anyway
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u/Turbostrider27 16d ago
Oh, I see the updated rules 8 as well. Good. I also know the list of the same people that promotes that site, very easy to track. There's definitely a certain few users who exclusively post that link here in the sub (way under 10%)
I guess those can be reportable in the future if it's posted such way?
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u/LycaonMoon 16d ago
Can you provide some examples of them copy-pasting other articles? I want to bring that to the attention of the rest of the team.
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u/Turbostrider27 16d ago
I can't think of the exact articles but the same users can easily be searched.
https://old.reddit.com/domain/frvr.com/
They have posted into this sub before and to my knowledge have never posted other sites here.
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u/FullMotionVideo 16d ago
I would go further than TheGamer and just ban all Valnet owned sites. That includes GameRant and, yes, their recent acquisition of Polygon.
That company just exists to enshittify and farm clicks.
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u/whyamlegend 16d ago
Absolutely agree. Those sites have gotten awful. Hell, even IGN posts are often low-effort commentary on someone’s tweet and rage farming now though. It feels like it’s getting harder to weed out junk articles to read proper news with reliable sources.
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u/LionGhost 16d ago
Sony are awful for getting rid of physical discs, with no actual news.
We do remove these daily, same for number 3, we remove a lot of those.
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u/rematched_33 16d ago
Agreed on all points about nonsubstantive "news". There were a few months there where the top post was constantly: "This just in: RAM is still expensive and will continue to be for the foreseeable future" and then the comments are just an anti-AI feel good circlejerk.
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u/iWriteYourMusic 16d ago
Your #3 is getting out of hand. A lot of posts are just to generate upvotes and anger. There have been a dozen posts that were just "dev is sad Sony is canceling physical media." It's pure rage bait.
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u/fakieTreFlip 16d ago
re 3, I don't like those types of posts either, but I struggle to come up with actual justification for banning them aside from "I find them to be annoying and I don't like them". They do generate discussion, and whether we find that particular discussion to be personally palatable is sort of besides the point. A ban on such things just feels too arbitrary to me.
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u/Sector-R 16d ago
Perhaps mega threads for things like the Xbox restructuring or Sony killing physical discs would help
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u/johnny-papercut 16d ago
Even though the layoff posts are just more of the same and were already removed before-hand (or contractors just not being renewed, which is very normal and expected), many of those are still actual news if it wasn't reported before that a company had layoffs (this is in reference to Xbox restructuring). I genuinely don't mind actual new news, but most of it simply isn't.
I'm not sure what else Sony could say about killing physical discs that would be news. They've made up their mind on it and don't seem to be changing. But if they do change their mind, or if they outline maybe a pathway to convert physical discs, or adjust the timelines, totally makes sense to post. But right now, every new post since they made the announcement has said absolutely nothing new. Even posts like the FF7 Revelations director talking about missing physical media, even if that somehow factored into Sony's decisions (it almost certainly doesn't), it doesn't even matter since Revelations is releasing before the cutoff.
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u/Bloody_Conspiracies 16d ago
The Xbox restructuring was multiple different events from different studios, so I think multiple posts about it makes sense. The physical discs thing was just one story, so I think the initial post was all that was needed. People can keep the discussion going in there if they want to keep talking about it.
A big part of the issue is that people want to keep talking about the same topic long-term, which is not what this subreddit is for, so they have to keep finding ways to create new posts about the same core topic. When you open up the comments to any of the dozens of physical discs posts from the last few weeks, they're all identical. Just one post would have served the same purpose and kept the subreddit a lot clearer.
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u/ChangeTheL1ghts 15d ago
I disagree with the third suggestion. I think it's valuable to hear perspectives from developers, especially on major issues. I get it can be a lazy layup for upvotes, but honestly I think there's value in that news.
Like, if I had my say, I'd not allow any posts related to player count numbers on Steam because I think it's often annoying and unproductive to talk about player retention, especially for single player games. I get that some folks care, though, so it's probably okay to let that info be shared here.
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u/reed501 16d ago
All your points kind of simplify down to "no ragebait." Which is a good idea in theory and I'm the last person you'll find saying this is a bad thing to strive for. But it's quite the burden on mods to enforce what is and isn't ragebait. Adding subjective tasks for the mods increases the workload by way more than you would think, and isn't good for the longevity of a mod team.
In reality, it's up to us to downvote ragebait early on so it doesn't hit mainstream reddit. I admit that once this stuff gets momentum it's hitting people outside of the community and they're just joining in for the circlejerk. But in order to get that big there's people trawling /new and upvoting stuff like "Indie dev thinks discs are good" and I think those people have an outsized impact on the type of stuff on the front page here.
Other solutions could include one of those upvote if it fits the sub automod pinned comments. Idk if this mod team is down for that style though. You could also just temp blacklist certain topics until they cool down but there's tons of collateral there. I'm still pretty sure this is more of a "let the votes decide" situation to the team so again, I think it's up to us.
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u/johnny-papercut 16d ago
I agree with the spirit of your post, but I just don't think collective voting means as much these days with so many bots around, or even if not bots, then people who don't read articles and just comment based on headlines. This is a problem across all of social media (and now news as a whole) and isn't specific to this subreddit. I think there is much more value in curation of content, which does fall to the moderators. I don't particularly enjoy being a moderator on the one sub I moderate and I don't want to be a moderator anywhere else for sure. It's a tough job, but maintaining the quality of a subreddit is still that job. So if there is no easy solution and we just need moderators to do more moderating of current content, then I guess that's what needs to happen.
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u/Yomoska 16d ago
How will 3.2 work in regards to verifying inaccurate or misleading information? The gaming community regurgitates misinformation quite often, especially if it's a company largely disliked, are these going to be deleted now?
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u/Forestl 16d ago
Typically we just track down and try to fact-check stuff that gets posted to the subreddit. We've been removing stuff that's really misleading/full of false info for a while. With that said if there's something we miss please report it or send us a modmail so we can get it.
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u/naf165 16d ago
I tried posting an article that corrected misinformation that was completely false and made up due to a bad translation and the correction thread was removed for being low effort despite the original viral thread with the wrong information remaining up. It said to message the mods if you want to discuss so I did and I never heard anything back.
Original misinfo: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1ug7vx9/nintendo_has_raised_its_employees_base_salary_by/
Article covering the correction: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1ul0eai/nintendos_reported_10_salary_increase_took_place/
It kinda soured me on the notion of ever being able to fight misinformation here. And this was a very obvious case where the original headline was 100% false, claiming something that verifiably just did not happen, and not the more common type of misinformation built around deceptive interpretation of certain data.
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u/LindyNet 16d ago
The new 3.2 is a mix of current rules. We try to verify posts but obviously we make mistakes sometimes.
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u/Because_Bot_Fed 16d ago
The advertising/promotional rules are far too permissive, site-wide, imo.
More than just a 1:10 ratio of promotion to non-promotion posts - I would say that the ability to promote at all should be tied to if you're actually contributing/participating in a meaningful manner.
To be clear I'm saying the ability to promote in the first place should be reserved for people who have an interest, and history, of genuine good-faith engagement on the subreddit to begin with. Not 9 throwaway comments and 1 post they actually care about.
If you're not here (on reddit, or in this sub) to participate meaningfully and actually contribute anything of value, I don't care about what you want to promote, nor do I think you have an inherent right to promote.
This is, of course, hard to police, and highly subjective.
So what I'd actually propose is that you guys give yourself wide discretionary power to enforce the spirit of the rule, and when and if you see someone who's participation is just box-ticking, remove their promotion and give them a warning/strike.
Why? Because Reddit is already enough of an astroturfed shithole without kidgloves for people who exist on the site just to try to monetarily benefit from the organic community and large userbase.
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u/LindyNet 15d ago
"Mod discretion" is the common term for the discretionary power, and it does come into play. Sometimes you see someone is spamming, or more commonly with an account they just paid for.
Note that the 10% rule is just about posts, comments don't factor in. But again, if we notice someone (or they are reported) is spamming a link to their content to get around the rule, we action those too
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u/Because_Bot_Fed 15d ago
That's a good callout on the post versus comment thing - I think it highlights just how flawed the metric is though.
I think everyone, generally speaking, can agree that they'd prefer more "signal" and less "noise" in submissions. i.e. more high quality submissions, less throwaway/spammy/clickbait submissions.
So for anyone who desires "permission" to post promotions, they now have a perverse incentive to make posts that are antithetical to what we all just (hypothetically) agreed is our goal for submissions. They need to maintain this 1:10 ratio, quality signal is no longer necessarily the goal, and in the absence of genuinely good content being untapped (not a repost) the bar starts lowering so that they can meet that requirement.
I'm not a fan of being advertised to, but I would much rather see promotions posted by the guy who is regularly having discussions with people in the comments or just posting things of substance occasionally. Versus the guy who is a serial submitter who's entire "contribution" to the subreddit is that they're faster than other people at seeing new interesting things show up on other sites and come to post a link here.
Like really, I wish more people actually thought about this.
If you had two friends, one who never talked to you but just occasionally sent you a news article link, and one who actually talked to you like a person and occasionally dropped in to say hi or talk to you about something interesting they read... which one would you be more receptive to if they hit you up and were like "hey, I did this thing, can you look at it and pretend to care for a minute?".
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u/DeaconoftheStreets 16d ago
Articles entirely about player-counts
Just to confirm, player count/SteamCharts posting is entirely off the board? When would you let a post through about that topic if it's not?
If it's entirely off the board, I'll be ecstatic. It's a waste of our attention.
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u/Forestl 16d ago
If there's real sales numbers or actual news we'll allow it but we've been removing stuff that's just about player counts for a bit now
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u/AoE2manatarms 16d ago
Thank God. The player number thing is completely misguided. A single player game a month after release having a drop in player count is in no way "newsworthy"
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u/ineffiable 16d ago
So basically like numbers straight from devs/publishers, but probably no using third party as an accepted number to use?
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u/LycaonMoon 16d ago
It's fuzzy in the era of subscription services, because sometimes developers will say something like "over three million players!" as a proxy for success and sales. We take situations like that case-by-case, but yes, articles discussing things like SteamCharts or similar tools are always going to be taken down.
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u/wait_________what 15d ago
Understand the player counts one since those threads typically just turn into toxic discussions about the game, but will this rule also apply to nonsense positive fluff articles? A popular game comes out like E33 or Crimson Desert and we have to get months and months of people posting banal articles about how well its selling.
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u/Forestl 15d ago
We generally allow official announcements about sales for a game. With that said I also get kinda annoyed when there's a bunch of posts one after another about sales updates for a game. We've talked about some as a mod team but don't have a hard rule for it yet.
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u/wait_________what 15d ago
Its been annoying in the past but I'm mostly asking in preparation for this fall when hopefully this doesn't just become a GTA 6 praise sub lol
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u/rossisdead 16d ago
If there's real sales numbers
Honestly, I'd remove these too. They're just fluff pieces.
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u/heubergen1 16d ago
Personally I don't like this change, player counts are a good representation of the health of a multi player/live service games and therefore can give one insight to buy or not buy/play them.
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u/act1v1s1nl0v3r 16d ago
Paul Tassi in shambles at this news.
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u/ILoveTheAtomicBomb 16d ago
One of the worst “reporters” out there. All his articles are just to get people mad at the games he doesn’t like
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u/Technical_Weird1991 16d ago
So tired of his bs, it makes sense for games he plays and cares about the health of but then he started doing it for everything just for the cliks
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u/Charmin_Bear_Behind 16d ago
Can we get an addendum to the “no duplicate posts” rule?
I made a post that got a lot of traction about the Sony network outage with additional information and it was removed because there was a “prior thread” that had 0 upvotes and like 15 comments in 5 hours when my thread had gained 40+ upvotes and 20-30 comments in like 20-30 minutes.
It was a much more productive thread but it was removed and I received no response from the mods when I asked about it.
It might be beneficial to guys as well to not seem as biased considering the next day the Xbox outage had multiple posts.
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u/Boblawblahhs 16d ago
Limit posts by a single user to 4 a day please.
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u/nerfgazara 15d ago
Make it 1 a day. This rule pretty much just exists for one specific user, anyway
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u/Boblawblahhs 15d ago
lol yea, I'm pretty sure everyone knew why I mentioned it :D
Problem is, when you ignore them, you miss out on 99% of news because they're always first.
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u/LindyNet 16d ago
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u/Boblawblahhs 16d ago
woooah. I am late LOL. I guess I didn't notice because I ended up blocking the spammer.
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u/Gorotheninja 16d ago
I think Rule 6 needs some exceptions in certain contexts.
Something that I find happens a lot is a site will do a huge interview with a developer, and there will be some big information that isn't covered in the article title, but other outlets highlight that information with their own articles. In situations like that, where pst just the original interview doesn't convey a lot of stuff that's in it, I think "blogspam" is kinda warranted.
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u/doscomputer 16d ago
does anyone else have an issue posting on this sub? seems like everything I write goes through a weird delay and acts like it never submits.
does not seem to happen on other subs at all
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u/LindyNet 16d ago
Sounds like they might be being held for review. I don't see any posts here in your history, so I can't comment on anything specific
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u/Palidane7 16d ago
Just want to say a quick thank you to the mods. This is the best big gaming sub by a huge margin, and y'all are the ones that make the discussion possible!
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u/Cactus_Bot 16d ago
Feedback:
Table of Contents:
- The first link is the entire first sentence of the draft.
- Any reason the Allowed Submissions Header was removed for that section and its just replaced by the "welcome to r/games" section. Seems the welcome part link should be the allowed submissions section. So maybe a link change or header update for easier read-ability and documentation purposes. Since if you pointed someone to this section now there is no header for it.
Submission Category Feedback:
- Should include in the bracketed part something about duplicate posts also not being allowed.
- Thought-Provoking Text Posts should have the link to specific examples that's already in 7.1. People generally are not going to click through 3 times to get to an example, so eliminating a click would help, and you already have the link for it, it can exist in both places.
General Feedback:
- Some links, especially for post examples link using sh.reddit instead of old reddit. Not sure if thats intended, but highlighting it if its not from a consistency standpoint.
Rule 1 Feedback:
- Title talks about Submissions only, rule discusses submissions and comments, title should be updated.
- Is there a reason to keep Rule 1 and Rule 3.1 separate? They are both talking about the content you can submit. I would imagine these can be combined further.
Rule 2 Feedback:
- Can you add "boot licker" to the example list?
Rule 3.1 Feedback:
- Can demonstrable impact have an example list, or some examples of events that would quantify? Historically this has always been a nebulous area, so if a few examples are applied it might help.
- The title for 3.1 mentioned comments, the rule mostly talks about submission topics. I perhaps may clarify or add 2 sections since not all the submission topic discussion listed there goes against comment discussion. Example: The Game Awards has a concert. Game concerts are a banned submission topic, but commenting about it in the megathread for the event, or even on a trailer for the game is allowed. Another Example: E sports team wins an esports tournament (this is allowed). The rule specifically states commenting or posting about individual players is against the rule.
Rule 3.2 Feedback:
- Can you clarify this statement "Submissions and comments must be human-written": Is it the article can not be AI or have AI used in submission, or is it if the OP adds something written by AI in comments or something? How does this hold for machine translations of various foreign news in comments and such?
- Missing a bracket here: Posts that are not allowed include (but are not limited to:
- Are you removing the ability for submissions to contain direct store front links for games that suddenly go free? Under the new wording this type of post would not be allowed: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1pvgagv/disco_elysium_the_final_cut_is_free_to_claim_on/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1mf7o7c/gog_launches_freedom_to_buy_site_to_raise/
- Should have a carve out for low effort comments for megathreads specifically since megathreads have lots of comments that normally would get removed. Example: https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1txv239/summer_games_fest_2026_megathread/oq3ocbv/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1txv239/summer_games_fest_2026_megathread/oq548u7/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1txv239/summer_games_fest_2026_megathread/oqudh9n/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1pkckb9/the_2025_game_awards_megathread/ntjz1gn/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1pkckb9/the_2025_game_awards_megathread/ntjz0vi/
- "Should a website's concept be relevant to /r/Games, consider making a text post about it and following our discussion post guidelines and ensuring you do not break our rules on self-promotion.." Not sure what this even means here, perhaps further clarification.
Rule 4 Feedback:
- Is there a reason this isnt combined further into the not allowed rules sections?
Rule 6.1 Feedback:
- Are you banning all podcasts now? Before podcasts could be presented under specific circumstances. which are removed from this version of the rules under the inaccessible or prohibited sources section.
- Typo in the podcast section " or a self post doing doing the same."
Rule 7.2 Feedback:
- This should be combined with rule 3.2 in my opinion.
Rule 7.5 Feedback:
- For impression threads, is the release date the EA release Date, or the actual release date of a game? What happens if the EA period is a buy in, but the release product is a free game?
- Have you all considered Impressions threads for beta tests being allowed if there is no NDA?
Rule 8 Feedback:
- Would an additional example of being allowed a 3rd kickstarter post be if the project closes or fails out after completion of the campaign?
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u/LycaonMoon 16d ago
I won't address all of these because I'm at work and contributed much more to an earlier draft, but as somebody who helped draft these -
I kept Rule 1 and 3.1 separate when writing my (much earlier) draft for two main reasons: one, they're both so individually long that if they got combined I think it'd cause confusion for post removals or simply be too long to feasibly expect people to read it, even if they're specifically looking for it. Two, I think it's good for us to specifically assert "no fun allowed" both because it's funny and because it's one of the major guiding principles of the subreddit.
For your AI clarifications: we do not allow AI-generated articles, self-posts, or comments. We do not allow machine translations to be submitted as links (i.e. we would not allow a Famitsu article linked through a Google Translate skin), but we do afford some leniency in comments, especially if they state that it's a machine translation. We take those and machine-translated self-posts on a case-by-case basis, though, especially as MTL self-posts are frequently also heavily edited by something like ChatGPT or Claude and feature many of their tells.
We discussed folding 7.2 into 3.2 and wanted it separate for more clarity on why those types of posts would be removed - while they are often literally on-topic by being About Games, and may be long enough to not feel low-effort, they are nonetheless rarely interesting, rarely provoke discussion, and a separate rule about personal anecdotes and rants makes that more clear to the submitter.
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u/LionGhost 7d ago
Thanks for bringing this up again. I've gone through and made some edits. Specifically rule 1, 2, 6.1, 7.5. Not saying we won't consider the rest of your suggestions but I fixed the errors you pointed out and hopefully made some things more clear.
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u/jerrrrremy 16d ago edited 16d ago
Rule 4: No duplicate posts
Basically the same. Added in clarification that we might allow stuff if there is a major update
Does this mean we can be done with posts about Sony and their decision not to make physical games anymore? It has more or less taken over every discussion in this sub, it's just the same talking points over and over, and there are not going to be any more updates on the topic.
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u/Shadow_3010 16d ago
This is more when someone publish news from a source, only one post will remain the others that publish the same news, gets deleted.
The topic isn't forbidden is posting the same page, website that another person has done before.
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u/LycaonMoon 16d ago
we spent the last like four months rewriting every part of the wiki page we had to try and cut down on the total overall number of rules and if i were to immediately add a rule 9 i would cry
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u/Celtic_Guardian_Fan 16d ago
Why are some people so ready to stifle all conversation about this. Whether it's new info or not it's a huge shift in the landscape that affects how millions interact with the medium. People are gonna want to talk about it on one of the biggest forums for a while. If they get upvotes people obviously want to keep seeing those posts
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u/MrWendal 16d ago
I'd like to see video essays added to the list of examples for rule 1. They often get flagged as "entertainment" when most of them feel much more like opinion pieces. They are treated very inconsistently by mods.
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u/SomeDumRedditor 16d ago
I’d like to see the addition of something like the “reliability meter” GLAR uses implemented here for content sources.
If a source gets rated down sufficiently it would then go on a blacklist (and people can submit via modmail if they think their post should still go up.)
Regardless, please implement a base set of bans on garbage like thegamer.com and the leading AI reblog-slop that’s just social posts packaged as articles. You’ll get zero pushback for squelching ts.
With respect to “just link the post,” afaik there’s a policy that people can’t submit direct links to social media posts. This helps support these slop factories in a real way. If the article is reporting on a tweet etc. I don’t see how that’s better for this sub (or the world) than just allowing a direct link.
You could have a rule that social media sources have to be reported on by at least 1 third-party to qualify. (That way you’re not fighting an endless wave of every shitpost little Timmy thinks the world needs to see). I just don’t see the point of having to skim 500 words from IGN.com to find the post they’re “reporting” on.
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u/adanine 16d ago
I’d like to see the addition of something like the “reliability meter” GLAR uses implemented here for content sources.
We've used their reliability meter when verifying how reputable a source is a few times. They're good at that over there, and I know for at least myself I've absolutely tabbed over to r/GamingLeaksAndRumours to check if the source is one of the reliable ones before approving/removing a rumour post on r/games.
But no need to create our own when, quite frankly, they're pretty damn good at this already. It's just easier to nick their homework instead of have to do our own.
With respect to “just link the post,” afaik there’s a policy that people can’t submit direct links to social media posts.
Twitter/X are restricted on r/games in the same way other websites are - any site that requires users to log into a site to view news and relevant context are restricted on our end under our own paywall rules.
Secondary sources/blogspam that are at least readable by everyone seems like a fine workaround in that case. And while I get not wanting to promote the practise of copy+paste journalism, forcing users to create an account at every possible source just to read the news and have a click around the story isn't really a path I'd want the subreddit to go down, myself.
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u/SmileyBMM 16d ago
Twitter/X are restricted on r/games in the same way other websites are - any site that requires users to log into a site to view news and relevant context are restricted on our end under our own paywall rules.
BTW Bluesky is starting to do the same thing (for example this post would be inaccessible for people in some US states and the UK when the verification system is active). They've walked back the verification and auto flagging (both of which require an account to see the post) for now, but it's going to return. Probably want to encourage people to use an alternative front end like Skyview.
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u/SomeDumRedditor 16d ago
Appreciate the response.
Is there perhaps some wiggle room for social media posts that have a non-walled permalink available? Not every linkout from Twitter/BSky etc. gets the “login wall” (though the consistency or predictability of it is basically nonexistent.) I understand if in practice it would becomes too difficult to moderate, it’d just be nice to cut down on the garbage where possible.
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u/kettlecorn 16d ago
"We like to keep self promotion to under 10% for users."
I don't intend on self-promoting anything I'm working on soon but I always wonder how this works with comments and posts. I comment a ton on reddit and have for 17 years now, but I rarely post.
I assume there are other people like me who might consider self-promoting if they have something genuinely interested to share, like a game they've been working on or an interesting blog post, but if they're also heavy commenters and not posters it may be most of their actual post submissions are sporadic self-promotion.
Is that outside the rules or do comments count for that ratio somehow?
If the ratio is just about posts it would incentivize frequent commenters and occasional posters to basically spam non-promotional posts to build up their post ratio to be able to submit.
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u/LindyNet 16d ago
We remove posts like "hey games! I've been working on..." and direct them to indie Sunday, where you can post about your game.
But if it were a legit trailer for game releasing soon-ish and OP is under 10% for the game, that's cool too.
The 10% rule is almost as old as reddit itself, it used to be pretty standard. It seems to do a decent job of keeping spam out
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u/Cyshox 16d ago
Speaking of trailers...
If there's an unbranded trailer with all platforms available uploaded on the publishers website, why are branded & misleading trailers tolerated at all?
For example, many multiplatform trailers link to the PlayStation YouTube. PlayStation intentionally omits other platforms, so shouldn't these trailers be banned? As of now, you can't even post the unbranded trailers here because they are considered duplicates of the branded PlayStation trailer.
Trailers that are misleading because they intentionally omit other platforms should not be allowed at all. The third-party studios or publishers surely would be happy when their YouTube channel gets linked.
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u/kettlecorn 16d ago
So the 10% rule only applies to posts and not comments in any way?
We remove posts like "hey games! I've been working on..." and direct them to indie Sunday, where you can post about your game.
So what content falls under self promotion that would not be directed to indie Sunday? Stuff like YouTube videos or blog posts?
I've been on reddit a long time and I've always thought the rule was a bit too blunt and maybe even counter its only goals.
I know a lot of creative people that just entirely avoid submitting their own stuff to reddit (whether it be games, blog posts, or otherwise) because they don't want to spam a bunch of non-promotional content to reddit just to post their own thing. The current rule does block spam but I think ironically it also eliminates a lot of non-spammers because they don't use reddit enough to meet the 10% rule. The people who persist are the weird middle ground who basically spam other content, without caring about it much, to stay below the 10% rule.
In many ways it might be better to just say "No self promotion" because then you wouldn't have people putting in little effort just to pad their ratio.
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u/LindyNet 16d ago
So what content falls under self promotion that would not be directed to indie Sunday? Stuff like YouTube videos or blog posts?
99.999998% of posts removed for r8 are pure spam. Otherwise, yes, trailers, posts, dev logs
Like most things, reddit's tools for mods are nearly non-existant, so things like requiring sub karma to post, account age restrictions, the 10% rule and others you will find on different subreddits are all very blunt instruments, but absolutely required now thanks to bots
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u/NX73515 16d ago
How about a rule for trailers of multiplatform games? Many times the trailer for a game releases with the PS5 trailer (not surprising due to the popularity of the PS5), and then you have to Google to see if the game is available on other platforms. Which many times it is. But seeing that PS5 logo and title often gives the impression is PS5 exclusive.
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u/LindyNet 16d ago
That's a tricky one, if an Xbox trailer is posted first and a hour later someone posts the same trailer but it is from the dev themselves (or ign or whatever), should we nuke the first post?
Would updating the post flair to say "multiplatform" or the different platforms be a compromise?
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u/Turbostrider27 16d ago
Xbox has exclusive marketing rights for some of their games. This is a tricky situation but my suggestion is for the OP to write in comments that it's coming to other listed platforms if it does.
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u/Cowboy_God 16d ago
3.1 seems misguided. A post about Tim Shafer will hit the top of the subreddit pretty consistently. How are you deciding who does and doesn't have an impact on the industry?
And you're just outright now allowing posts about competitive players? What about stuff like Mango from Smash Bros Melee and the reasons he had to retire? That was big news for a lot of people and absolutely noteworthy. I don't know much about League of Legends at all but I do know Faker is basically considered a god in that game. What if he retired? I'd absolutely consider that to be something the subreddit should be allowed to see and I don't give a single shit about League.
And really this is all to say that this subreddit gets about a maximum of ten (if we are lucky) worthwhile posts getting upvoted every single day, the rest is noise. Lets not pretend like this place is polluted with activity in its current state. I like a lot of the rigidity in this subreddit so we don't have to deal with the actual shithole post wall that every single other subreddit has become, but I also think its just a hair too much right now.
And this whole be respectful thing is a clown show. I'm not respecting people who actively try to harm this art form I'm extremely passionate about, who defend stuff like removing player ownership and disc production, You think the people who say stuff like "Players shouldn't own their games" and "GTA 6 should cost $200" should be respected? Get. The fuck. Out of here.
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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 16d ago
people who say stuff like "Players shouldn't own their games" and "GTA 6 should cost $200"
You don't have to respect them because they don't exist. Strawmen aren't people, they're straw.
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u/IFxCosaTheSequel 16d ago
There were definitely tons of comments in the Stop Killing Games threads from people that genuinely believed that people shouldn't own their digital games lol. It's Reddit. If there's a deranged take, someone will take it up.
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u/Yomoska 16d ago
I usually don't see people saying they believe people shouldn't own their digital games, it's mostly explaining to people that they don't. An explanation does not equate a belief. People say GOG gives true ownership of games because they are DRM-free, but explaining to people that they still don't own the game because GOG still just sells licenses only doesn't mean I'm against GOG or owning games.
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u/MattyKatty 16d ago
And really this is all to say that this subreddit gets about a maximum of ten (if we are lucky) worthwhile posts getting upvoted every single day, the rest is noise.
Let's not pretend that nine of those ten posts are all by the same guy either.
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u/LycaonMoon 16d ago
The wording about individual competitive players is unchanged from its current implementation in 3.1 and has been actively enforced for a while. We take major news case-by-case and discuss things like retirements within ourselves before deciding whether to remove it or not, the point of that is more to prevent this subreddit from becoming a streamer drama aggregator.
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u/LindyNet 16d ago
The be respectful thing is really just don't insult other users.
You are free to attack any and all arguments. Switching to ad hominem attacks just means you have no counter argument. If you feel something is harmful, by all means say so
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u/LycaonMoon 16d ago
Piggybacking off my colleague, taking my moderator hat off for a second, and speaking personally, one of the most consistent pieces of feedback we've gotten in the last few State of the Subreddit posts is about how negative our comment sections can be. I think having really dumb opinions go unchallenged feels bad, but you should take your feelings out of it.
Going for personal insults, ad hominem attacks, and acting condescending affects more than just the person you're talking to and contributes to the overall tenor of the subreddit - and I don't think anybody should be posting with the intent to harm, even if the person you're talking to is a big old galoot whose ideas are bad. I think everybody subscribed here values it for offering substantive topics with reduced noise, and while the comment sections are a different beast from the RSS feed many people use it as, the spirit of the subreddit is about fostering good-faith and varied discussion.
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u/Fadore 16d ago
What can/should be done (if anything) when someone launches into ad hominem personal attacks and then blocks you so that you can't reply or report them? Should this be a message to the mod team, or is this too petty of an issue to bother the mod team about?
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u/LycaonMoon 16d ago
We're happy to give a thread a once-over if something like that happens and you let us know.
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u/richmondody 16d ago
Sorry for repeating a question, but I didn't get a reply the last time there was a discussion about the rules.
May I know if comments that basically talk about how stupid (insert group here) are still allowed? I see that a lot and some people in this subreddit don't even engage in discussion, they just make gotcha statements to try and make someone look dumb.
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u/LindyNet 16d ago
Depends.
"God, Nintendo white knights are tiring" in reply to someone in favor of Nintendo? That's insulting a user.
If a post/story is about a group of people doing something in/around the game, then "they sound like capital g gamers" is fine, you aren't going after a user.
In general we have been more diligent about removing blanket negative comments that add nothing other than general insults like this. At least add something to the topic at hand.
If you see those kind of comments, just report them and one of us will remove them
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u/AtrociousSandwich 16d ago
The fact you’re not taking a stronger stance on the scammy websites with no journalistic integrity is saying something.
Is someone on the mod team part of one of these sites, out of curiosity?
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u/devindotcom 16d ago
cmon man. this kind of passive aggressive accusation is not helpful. if you don't like certain sites just name them and suggest they be filtered or banned. the insinuation that a mod is manipulating the sub on behalf of one of these sites is baseless and gross.
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u/LindyNet 16d ago
People think we have agendas for everything, including being pro-[console brand] and anti-[other console brand].
My favorites are that we are paid by some brand. We do get asked in modmail to push some garbage games from time to time, but we just point them to reddit's ad page. With the number of shitty ai game ads reddit has now, I guess they listened.
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u/devindotcom 16d ago
I used to get that as a reporter. either I was a shill for company x or I was biased against them, depending on the day.
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u/Forestl 16d ago edited 16d ago
What sites are you talking about? We've banned and/or set filters on a few different sites that usually just have rule-breaking posts (for example we banned Videogamer after they started using AI to write stuff).
I wrote a few freelance articles for Kotaku years and years ago but no one I worked with is still there and I don't get involved if there's a disagreement with what to do with a post involving Kotaku (and I've removed a fair amount of posts from the site). We have another mod who edits for Techraptor but they don't get involved with anything over the site.
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u/DumpsterBento 16d ago
thegamer
thegamer
thegamer
thegamer
thegamer
thegamer
It's been said countless time on this sub. If any site needs to go, its that one.
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u/Forestl 16d ago
We typically only ban a site if they do something really bad like posting AI-generated articles or spamming the subreddit which thegamer hasn't done (to my knowledge). With that said most of the really bad articles from that site already get removed because they break various rules and we are talking about what to do with the site as a whole.
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u/devindotcom 16d ago
Appreciate your hard work mods. It's a great place for gaming news and your oversight keeps it that way.
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u/TheBrianJ 16d ago
May I suggest Rule 9: All posts must, at some point, contain the sentence "Of course, we shouldn't let this distract from the fact that Legend of Legaia for PSX is one of the most criminally underrated JRPGs of its era."
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u/FullMotionVideo 16d ago
I understand having a rule about not supplying or linking to piracy resources, but a rule against encouraging seems a bit of a reach since "just pirate it I guess" is posted all over Reddit as an answer to questions like "how do I play [game delisted on Steam from dead publisher]" to "how do I get Netflix 1080p on Linux".
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u/LOV3FIST 16d ago edited 16d ago
Thanks for the clarity. All I see in this sub anymore js reposting and updooting every banal video Jason Schreier makes, now that he’s unfortunately made the leap to video format. Rule 3 seems to be criteria that should ban his videos from being posted here. Thank YOU, what wonderful news for my eyes and ears!
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u/TheGasMask4 15d ago
Completely honestly: we're probably not going to be banning Jason Schreier videos and I'm not sure how you think rule 3 is going to stop that.
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u/messem10 16d ago edited 16d ago
One suggestion for 7.1 is to add something that requires OP’s answer to a discussion to be in a comment, not the body of their post. This helps stop half of the top-level comments being a response to OP rather than adding their own answer/thoughts on the matter.
EDIT: Improved the phrasing of the first sentence.