Great article Emmy! As a part-time indie dev with a game on Steam, we have had some negative reviews, of course, and as a game developer, we really appreciated the ones with constructive criticism. For example, one guy gave a thumbs down and just wrote "poop", where the other gave a thumbs down, but actually took the time to write something constructive, it actually really helped us! Sadly, the internet is filled with trolls as well :( I do, however, sincerely hope lots of people reads your article, and it makes them think next time they write a review on Steam

Thank you so much for posting this! It really is so detrimental when people simply write negative reviews w/o providing any basis as to why, or any specifics that might help to improve the experience. However, I have a quick question: Do you think that Valve should implement some sort of moderator system like what reddit has? By that I mean, they will review reviews, and if they are purely negative review as you call them they should tag them w/ a certain label. If this happens, do you think this type of control might scare off the players, or negatively effect the steam store's ethos?

Hey, thanks for your article. I agree about the demand of more qualitative reviews. Unfortunately this is not only a steam related problem but can be seen on all platforms where players can rate and comment on a game. This is a general issue. If someone is interested to read some related information. I've wrote an essay about this issue in general. Happy reading :) http://satyre.weebly.com/blog/essay-2015-do-we-need-a-gaming-revolution

If my game, when it will be on Steam, will get a purely negative review, I'll reply and put link to this article.

Hi, this is really good article and it shows the core of the problem. Thing is that people who tend to post negative comments have their own motivation to do so, and that will always be that way. Educating players on Steam how to provide constructive feedback, I think, should be somehow role for the Steam to chip in. Right now, you have mechanism where players can "trash" your game by leaving bad comments, they can then refund, but the comment will still stand there. Even when you fix the issue and go back to the person saying "we have released the update with the issue fixed, and that person still doesn't remove or change the comment. I got one review, negative one, which sais "I don't like.". When I reached to the player directly over the chat, and I asked what particular thing he/she didn't like, so that I know what we need to fix, I got response back "I don't know why I posted it, you know I'm just a kid". And I have number of those. That particular game of mine, has overall very good comments and those which are negative I can say we go 20% of those which are constructive and we fixed 90% what was reported via such comments and then still, players didn't change them anyway. That part is really frustrating. I understand that guys at Steam can not go and review every single "flagged by developer" review as they would have to employ hundreds of people and that is not realistic to expect. However, there needs to be a better way to handle these "non-constructive" feedbacks. They are even not feedbacks, because they don't provide any info back to the developer.

I agree but this extends to positive and supposedly funny reviews too. I don't find the funny reviews to be helpful at all. The "I barfed on myself, would buy again 10/10" kind of "reviews" are a waste of space. Valve makes an ungodly amount of money doing next to nothing to facilitate game downloads and I don't think it would be asking too much for reviews to be moderated, users to get banned from making reviews to encourage quality (3 day bans are not a big deal but send a message), and so on. You don't want to stifle player reviews but at the same time, people who post garbage or childish attempts at weak humor are not helping other players figure out if a game is worth buying.

Hi, just saw your talk on marketing with zero budget - thanks it was insightful. Also looking forward to the april talk with others including the excellent Jonah Lobe. I'm wondering if I disagree with this blog post of yours though regarding the lat part and the review.... The review is short granted, but looking at the playtime of 14hrs and the fact the reviewer said it wasnt worth the$18 - as a developer I could take that as constructive criticism and feel it would be very wrong to label the review as purely negative. Also as a gamer first and foremost i respect the fact someone left a review after 14hrs playtime - regardless how short the review is. FYI The constructive part of the review would be: that individuals perception on if the game represented value for money based on their expectations. It was just short and lacked more explanation. As a developer I would be more interested in replying personally and engaging that customer via their review to further clarify their thoughts. Ignoring the review and just wishing people wouldnt leave reviews like that is the same as wishing people wouldnt troll, aint never gonna happen!

i hate the ones who write "10/10 would ....blah blah blah" i always downvote those.

This is a fantastic article and it's sad that the rest of our industry is too afraid to "poke the bear" to address the issue. As a developer with equal interests in design, psychology and business I find it fascinating and highly troubling. The trend is increasing and I think it has little to do with our industry or the games themselves. The vast majority of games from indies and AAA are now averaging between 50-60% positive scores. The great games often rise above because early response is one sided. Hype and media coverage goes a long way towards setting the tone and very few gamers have the confidence to stand in opposition to the majority view. This means that when the media and some well placed early reviews state the game is good, very few will feel ABLE to leave a negative review even if their own comments might indicate a contrary view on many elements. I believe we are in a very angry time as human beings. Economic disparity has never been higher in recent human history. Political systems have evolved to support corporations at the expense of all but the most elite. The internet age has connected us all but taken our voice and left us isolated. This is felt no more acutely than by our youth. They have little economic power, almost no control over the decisions in their own lives and their whole world is digital. The internet is an echo chamber with minimal genuine response but it's also their only outlet in most cases. With so much pent up aggression and frustration, combined with a captive audience representing everything that seems so powerful...the idea that "little ol' me" can impact a business with a few nasty words becomes very attractive. There of course is also the appeal of being part of a crowd and finding acceptance. This results in the "add on gang" mentality. If there are some negative and funny reviews at the top of a review page, you will get dozens of copy cats looking to get acknowledgement and acceptance from the same group. I took negative reviews to heart too much initially. I spent my life savings and then another $40k in debt to make a game for a niche that was abandoned by the industry. Initially I found 90% positive reviews and made back 75% of my investment in the first 3 weeks despite the niche genre, a vertical learning curve and plenty of rookie mistakes. Then the game was discovered by the mainstream and despite a store page that clearly described the game and warned of the specific groups who would find it enjoyable...the dark cloud descended. With each sale our scores drop 5-10% while our income rises 1-2%. It's not worth it. So do I punish those who might enjoy it by never lowering the price and actually placing subsequent game at a artificially high price? Or do I give in and make mainstream pop candy to appeal to the lowest common denominator? Neither. I have doubled down in my ambition to bring back deep strategy and sim games with true discovery principles instead of hand holding. Games for explorers of systems, fans of complexity, etc. I also am committed to keeping the price as low as possible by spending months on economic modeling through market research and testing. I have padded my budget by 10% now to include a community manager. While I LOVE spending time speaking directly with fans and critics, it is far too negative of an experience to sustain the creative process. Every month I hear from several peers who are packing it in and leaving due to the hostility and venomous social side of the industry. I now insulate myself and have someone compile a report of genuine issues and comments and filter out the blind rage and hate. That also means I don't see the same raw support as before and some part of me misses the emotional exchange. Instead though my art is growing and I am a better manager to my employees. If I have to sacrifice my own little ego fix to keep the business going and keep true to my goal of making a particular niche happy, I guess it's a fair trade. Thank you for having the courage to speak out on our behalf. I wish it weren't so pointless of an exercise but I appreciate it all the same. You have earned a lifelong fan and I will do my best to pay it forward by promoting your work. Cheers.

i agree, but i also think we should apply the same due diligence to positive reviews, since "OMG GEAT GAME 10/10" serves no real purpose to a customer

Great article and thank you for writing it and creating awareness, that is great! This is a fascinating subject., it really is. This is interesting, if a movie star is mentioned to be playing your game then it could be very good news for you. Check out my review on Playful company, an amazing story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8fnYsRpzAM&t=299s Also on the news was a movie star that was playing the Goose game and sales went off the charts. I guess this is like getting in the Oprah book club. Take a game like Limbo, it is a fun little game and their are hundreds if not thousands of other fun little games. So how did Limbo become the second coming. There is a herd mentality and if you can get the herd going your games way then you are doing good. But to your point, if a good polished game gets released and a troll or spoiled brat leaves a horrible review because the game was not what they thought it would be then the herd mentality can quickly start working against your game. Anyone can put up a YouTube video and call it a review when it is actually a rant of what they hate about themselves, I mean the game. I am not for sure what the answer is. I know it is important because companies hire experts and lawyers to protect their brands Online Reputation. You would think if a game was good or people liked it then the good reviews would eventually out weight the bad reviews. Everything is relative and until people that play the games sit down and pour their blood, sweat and tears into making a game they will not truly understand the sacrifice, because if they did there would never again be a review: "Game Sux". In other news, we are all on death row :0 Thank you again for the article and may you all find peace and love, Sincerely, John

And another thing, we as devs have to start fighting back again inaccurate reviews. Like has been posted here before if the game gets a bad review at launch the other site will parrot the review. I just had this horrible review from a Christian site and in it it said: "The sounds and music are generic" That was it, and and gives the sound and music a 3 out of 10. Normally I would just feel bad and not say anything but this time it hit me wrong, I am done being Mr. Nice DEV, I am putting on the gloves! I commented the following on the review: "Terrible and inaccurate review! He says: "The sounds and music are generic" and then gives it a 3. Never even mentions what exactly is bad about the sounds. The sounds are amazing and use sound attenuation so if something happens behind you the sound will come from behind and is also accurately distance based with reverb built into most sounds. Also some sounds come through the speaker on the PS4, so when you change weapons you can hear how they change or when you are walking through the woods you will hear the frogs. Just like how he got the sounds wrong he got the rest of the game wrong, don't listen to this guy, read some other reviews and make your decision."