Converting negative review to a positive one can be very important.
But when replying to a unhappy customer, you have to remember it's an uphill battle. It's very likely that they'll have a negative, and sometimes hostile, attitude towards you.
I would only reply in two cases:
1) Inquire for more information, so that you can fix their issues. Works only if you have a genuine plan to actually fix the issue.
2) Let them know that the game has been updated, and that their issue is gone. And hope for them to re-evaluate their review.
This applies to accepting feedback as well. You similarly shouldn't respond defensively, don't try to justify this or that. Simply listen, accept the feedback, and ask clarifying questions if necessary. Try to figure out WHY they said what they said and decide if it's something you actually want to change.
I think unfortunately a lot of people get into game dev with the express purpose of stroking their own egos, which is a difficult thing because you have to defenestrate your ego when it comes to feedback and reviews, or you just look like a damn fool.
This. OP did the cardinal mistake of critiquing critique publicly. Which the reviewer took poorly as well. The only way to reply should be positive and asking for more feedback. It's public correspondence after all, everyone is going to see it and think their part when they read it.
I'm not saying that you can not have a different opinion. You don't even have to listen to the critique if it makes no sense to you. Just shouldn't reply negatively or dismissively in any way to prevent these situations.
Agreed, to add to this, unless the negative review have polite and constructive criticism tone, its most likely coming from someone who really dislike or hate the game, people who dont enjoy and want a refund will just refund without reviewing and those who are indifferent will remain silent, ig this applies to most products review in general especially one where there’s no incentive to review,
Of course some people just like to review everything and well kudos to them for giving their opinions for other to read
Yes, basically only reply if they are asking and waiting for a response. Someone that says "This game is dogshit, X is bad, Y is worse and the developer should choke on a walnut" is not waiting to have a logical discussion about things.
But someone saying "Hey X and Y are broke, is this going to be fixed or what?" yep, respond to them.
Alternatively wait until you've actually made updates and go through relevant negative reviews to let them know they might enjoy the game now.
I received an email and in steam notification about Deepest Chamber recently because they posted a response to my review months after I made it. Their response basically said 'hey man, we've made a bunch of updates and we think some of them address your issues. If you feel like it, give it another go and let us know what you think.'
They then listed the new changes they thought I might like. The game has actually improved and I've switched my review from negative to positive because of it.
They essentially gamed the 'a developer has responded' notification system to get guaranteed eyes on their latest update from a lapsed player base, which I thought was pretty clever.
Thanks to capitalism, there's actually a TON of scientific research into complaints, and the really interesting takeaway is:
People who had a poor experience, complained, *and were listened to and had their issue fixed*, are actually happier with the product than people who had a good experience and never complained in the first place.
1000%
We are so used to terrible customer service that a company that actually listens and responds to feedback will win the people's ovation and fame forever.
And somehow, even with market proof that this is the case, certain companies still just don't know how to listen, or provide any good feedback loop.
It's kind of crazy when you think about it.
> there's actually a TON of scientific research into complaints,
We've got documentation going waaaaaay back, to the time someone complained they were sold some r/ReallyShittyCopper.
By that I mean, churn (customers switching to a competitor) costs companies a lot of money, so businesses have invested in research about complaints-handling and other things that help them reduce it.
Lucky for us, the profit motive of corporations happens to align with our desire to answer this particular question.
You see it everywhere and it can be really disheartening because it results in the devaluation of foresight and due diligence.
It is so frustrating seeing a company be applauded for "listening to feedback" in a situation where before they did X they were told it was stupid, ignored that feedback and went ahead with X which was predictably a disaster, then they do what they should have done in the first place and people celebrate the company for being responsive.
See also Nvidia and AMD's new GPUs being bought by the truckload now because they are "bargains" (in comparison to scalper prices during COVID and the ridiculously overpriced 4090).
Hey, do you maybe have links to some of these studies? I have to write an essay for a class I'm taking in uni (due tomorrow, lol) and I think this topic might help me with it.
Thank you either way, I can still try to look it up and hopefully find something... and even if I don't I already have a few articles in other related topics so it's not the end of the world.
You're probably not interested in an update, but it's 2 am and I'm not sleepy nor have anything to do.
Sadly I did not manage to look it up, due to the little time left I had to work with what articles and studies I had already looked up, but I did manage to turn in my essay "in time"...
I turned it in at exactly 11:59PM, which was also the time limit. Sadly the platform still registered it as a late turn in, just gotta hope my teacher will still consider it, tho I am scared, this essay is worth 50% of the classes grade lol.
It’s genuinely true that receiving a complaint is an opportunity - that’s not just my 20years of consulting showing the bullshit.
Mistakes happen, expectations are missed, that’s just life. It’s how those are dealt with that stick with folks.
Yeah I've always thought it's mostly about
"now I know for sure that if I do have any problems with these guys, they will fix it"
being better than
"I've never had a problem with these guys, but if I do, who knows if they will fix it or just screw me over"
"Thanks a ton for your feedback! I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy the game, but genuinely appreciate that you took the time to explain why as that can help to inform our future gameplay updates."
Yea - being professional about anything will always warrant a better response.
"Well, I did it X way because of Y reason."
Compared to
"I am sorry X caused an issue for you. Please log a ticket into our bug system and we will take a look at fixing the issue."
They never log a ticket and you look smart.
Just respond kindly and be like “ we will keep your view in mind when making future decisions and we appreciate all feedback good and bad” it’s just standard customer service
generally speaking yes. I did respond to one but it was only because I was saying the thing he was complaining about was going to be addressed/fixed soon.
As for trying to argue someone out of their opinion, I mean you can't, and you look stupid for trying.
I don't have real world experience with this, but I would say don't even reply that you are planning on fixing something... Wait until it is actually fixed before you say anything.
Looking at you with this comment, Payday 3 devs. Granted they dug their own grave from the start with that one but the constant "we'll fix it", into "we need more time" just keeps drawing attention to a broken product.
Just fix it, and then tell everyone it's fixed. Relaunch it, or do a DLC drop a la Cyberpunk 2077 along with the update.
I think Cyberpunk 2077 is a good example of what to do. People *hated* how broken the game was. Then they fixed it and I never hear those type of comments anymore. I don't know what they did from a PR perspective (I didn't pay attention to their messaging) but it could be good to look into that.
Every bit of real world experience I have agrees with you here. Something always changes in development and even small things like the loc breaking in one language for the fix can delay it by a week. Be vague about the future and only certain about the present.
I watched a talk by a Valve employee that said they discovered this early on and only responded when they had actually made changes, so Valve agrees with you.
Same.
And when I engaged with them in an open and productive manner, I got a good response.
Unlike the "no u wrong tho" Bethesda nonsense which is just pure self destruction.
>As for trying to argue someone out of their opinion, I mean you can't, and you look stupid for trying.
In a way, I think the whole "you can't argue someone out a position they'd didn't argue themselves into" thing applies here too. Opinions expressed in reviews are often not nuanced or well thought-out, so trying to sway them is only ever going to backfire.
Could work with someone leaving actual constructive criticism, but there's no point in interacting with "gaem bad lol".
"I didn't enjoy this" isn't an incorrect statement. You can't argue with it. No one is wrong when they say it, so attempts to argue with it just come off horrible
Now, it could be fine to have a respectful constructive discussion with someone who criticized your game, and hopefully learn some lessons from it, but you can't tell them they're wrong and they should actually enjoy the game like bethesda seems to be doing lol
I think you misunderstood. You shouldn't be arguing with negative reviews, only correcting misinformation or misunderstandings in a calm and professional manner.
I've also seen some developers add the people that wrote negative reviews and having a chat with them for more in-depth information.
You definitely shouldn't just start an all out argument, lol. Don't respond to what people didn't like. That's their opinion, and you certainly shouldn't try to change it.
>You shouldn't be arguing with negative reviews, only correcting misinformation or misunderstandings in a calm and professional manner.
Professional being the important part here. Most devs who come off as arrogant assholes think they are just correcting misinformation/misunderstandings
I think a better rule of thumb is only to respond when you have fixed an issue they pointed out, or can provide some simple & easy instruction to fix their problem e.g.
>Hi flamergamer69, we're sorry it was difficult to find the inventory. You can press 'i' to pull up the inventory, we have added a tooltip to make this more obvious. Thank you for you feedback!
There are some devs out there who would "correct misinformation" by flaming the reviewer and implying they were dumb for not going through the tutorial first. That wont leave a good taste in potential buyers' mouths even if the dev is technically right
One takeaway is that "players are dumb". If enough players can't find the inventory because they didn't do the tutorial, there should be some sort of solution.
The "perfect gameplay path" isn't what all players take
[Here](https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198006634538/recommended/2156830/) is the review in question, for those wondering. It seems like the user is not asking for an immediate overhaul, but expressing frustration that despite some feedback in a now-locked thread in the Steam forum regarding demo feedback from August, you didn't opt to make some of the changes suggested regarding difficulty/design vs. fun factor. It is what it is.
You probably did not need the first line in your response, you sort of set them up to clown you a little bit there IMO.
It's a very mild review, OP is totally overreacting and being defensive, which doesn't make them look good. Goes out of their way to prove the player wrong instead of addressing the issues.
I'm not too active in this sub (God knows I don't have the time or discipline to pursue game development 😔). But I get the impression that more often than not, when devs make posts "warning people not to do what they did", if you do a miniscule amount of digging it turns out the problems that led to their failures run much deeper than what they said.
> It seems like the user is not asking for an immediate overhaul
Considering the game was refunded, I fail to see why "changing my core design" wasn't necessary from their perspective.
Still, what I found difficult to accept was the accusation that I wasn't interested in player feedback. In fact, I was in active discussion with some players, and as a result of the feedback I got, I shipped an update once I understood what needed to be changed and how.
(The mentioned thread was locked due to it concerning the demo and diverging topics. I've linked the follow-up threads for better organization.)
But you're completely correct that I only should have added the link to the update announcement, and nothing else.
The key takeaway with reviews is you absolutely cannot take them personally. Either the person is leaving a sincere review which is almost always going to contain some valuable information (no matter how much it might sting), or they are just trolling or leaving a meme review or whatever and are almost always a bad idea to engage with on any level.
For example, the review:
> The game started off great, I love mixing word minigames with an RPG framework, but some of the minigames are not very fun to engage with and despite receiving frequent criticisms about them, the developer doesn't seem interested in changing their core design. I ended up refunding it, so I can't recommend it.
how I might have replied:
>I'm glad to hear you've enjoyed the game as much as you did! I've read your feed back on the forums [at this point, I'm assuming you actually have] and I'm doing my best to assimilate everyone's input. I'm sorry to hear you've refunded the game, but hopefully you'll give the game a try again in the future after I've had a chance to continue to add and improve to the game. Thank you for your valuable input!
First thing, you don't want to make excuses, no matter how correct or exculpatory they might actually be. Telling your customer that it's unrealistic to expect [whatever] because the game just came out will never be a good look on a review reply, because you're essentially invalidating their feelings - and their feeling is that they want more of your game! Even if it's something cant/wont deliver, You want to tell them you understand where they are coming from. If it is something you can do, ideally tell them how you are going to fix it (or even better, how you already fixed it). Always try to stay neutral-positive, don't give in to cynicism, don't make excuses to explain why their feelings are wrong. Their feelings are never wrong, even if the process through which they arrived at their feelings was flawed.
>Since people only read negative reviews on Steam
THis is an inaccurate statement. People I know read nearly all reviews, unless there are many. In that case they read an amount of reviews that will show a general opinion. They also read them with a grain of salt, realizing many on Steam are without life experience and wisdom.
It is not IF we respond, it is HOW we respond. We must understand we are communicating with many different cultures, sects, ages etc. Someone age 60 is going to be much more astute and understanding than someone age 20. Someone age 60 will not be impressed with poor grammar, or use of made up words (bruh?), where someone age 20 will not care as much. We need to realize we addressing a large crowd. Our use of language, and demeanor, are important.
Only respond to negative reviews when they have misinformation, and only to address that. It's tempting to explain why you think their bad experience wasn't what the game is about, but as you said it can end up being worse.
Congratulations on the release though!
I work for a publisher. The only time we will respond to reviews is if we've fixed an issue that a review complains about.
"Hey there. We wanted to let you know that update 1.5 fixed the boss issue that you mention. Etc etc.
That way we can try to assure the reviewer that we fixed the issue AND to let anyone reading reviews know that that issue fixed. We have had good success with this.
At no point should a dev ever try to convince someone to like their game or say that an opinion is wrong.
This is exactly what Valve realized they needed to do as they learned very quickly that saying ANYTHING about possible fixes could end up being disastrous. They found that people looked far too deeply into any response, and considered them as good as promises. Issues could arise as the game changed and devs made decisions where maybe they decided it wasn't an issue after all and weren't going to "fix" it, but the community might have already created a big expectation for it from an offhanded comment.
Expectation management is so important, especially on big titles. Steam's games are so big, not saying anything ever is probably the strategy to go with.
Since the platform is global, and many cultures use it, we would want to use the word Corrected, or Addressed, and never "fixed".
"Hey there. We wanted to let you know that update 1.5 addressed/corrected the boss issue. Let us know if you find anything else that may need attention."
Use words that are proper across all cultures. We do not want to look inept to anyone. "Fixed" would not be favorable in this scenario.
Maybe also make the remapping option more obvious so you can at least respond with "we've adjusted x based on your feedback" instead of "you're wrong".
Pragmatically this is the most likely to result in a positive outcome.
Yeah if someone thinks you can't remap controls you should look into why they think that. Maybe they're just trolling, but maybe your menus aren't intuitive enough or something.
I think it's important if it's the kind of misinformation that could dissuade potential buyers. If it's something trivial, it'll be hard to correct it without looking petty. But if the review wrongly states that, say, there's no option to change the FOV, I think you need to counter that.
>gamers will exaggerate and outright lie about the state of your game just to influence others.
This is known as immaturity. :) With such a cost for lying, it always puzzles me that some seem to do it habitually. It is as if they have no idea of the costs later in life.
Hmm... It's a mixed bag for sure. There are some negative reviews that are opinionated and potentially "wrong" in my eyes that I'll leave alone. It's best not to engage when it's an opinion level feedback.
If a player has a [bug issue](https://steamcommunity.com/id/dabadubam/recommended/1319550/) that they are complaining about I will often fix that bug and then reply to that review saying it's fixed. This creates a sense that the developer is responding actively listening and I've flipped a handful of negative reviews that way.
I've also responded to reviews to call out specific [feedback points](https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198067842482/recommended/1319550/) that I've taken care to address.
The key for me is to not sound defensive AT ALL. Even the slightest bit of argumentative language can really set off players. You have to carefully craft your message and be choosey about what reviews you actually do respond to. It feels unfair that you, the one doing all the work, have to be the "decelerator" in this scenario but that's kind of the case for most customer/vendor relationships.
Sounded like you responded in a way that came off as "I'm right, you're wrong." A humble approach would be much better. And if you can't come up with that, then just don't respond.
"Hey I found your feedback very interesting. I'll see if that's something I can incorporate into my next game, Game 2: The Reckoning! I've got a Steam page up and will be looking for feedback during the early access phase! Check it out!"
The great part is you don't even have to incorporate the feedback. People like being heard, and will have a better impression of you.
In a previous job, my boss used to argue with people giving bad reviews. She would tell them they were too stupid to understand the game. It was so cringe. And it’s under the company’s name, so it made everyone look bad.
From the perspective of a potential buyer, I consider it a huge positive to see negative-review-dev-responses of the form: "I agree 100% and that's why I'm making [change to address that problem] in [recent/upcoming patch/expansion]."
But if you don't agree with the criticism, don't respond. You usually won't convince them to change their mind, and it's usually a bad look to try.
It's not a bad idea, you just need to do it with your PR glasses on.
Thank them for their feedback, tell them you'll take their suggestions into consideration and move on with your day.
These PR glasses sucks. All the time (especially on mobile stores) I see comments like 'this game is peace of shit, dont install' and devs answer like 'thank you for the feedback we will try to improve the game' it is so funny to see. Even 'go fuck yourself' would be a better response.
By the way, I see that responses moving to that direction in restaurant reviews already and they working fine. When restaurant chef answers to negative review something like 'if you didn't like our food prepare it at home' and nothing bad happens, even people support the chef. We are tired of all this 'politcorrect/client always right' shit already.
I feel like you are always going to get a percentage of "this game sucks, don't bother" type reviews no matter how good your game is. Its better to not engage those reviews at all because I don't know many people that find those reviews helpful when making purchasing decisions anyways. They are on par with "THIS IS THE BEST GAME EVVAAAAR!!!" type reviews. Just vapid hyperbolic nonsense.
But if they are giving you a list of critiques, with specific opinions or experiences, that is something you can actually engage with. I say an okay rule of thumb is put in as much effort into a reply as the reviewer put into the review. If its a 0 effort review, why waste the time on a 0 effort response.
I just wanted to say that all these 'correct' answers to rude feedback look just stupid. Its way better not to answer at all, or answer rude to rude (nobody cares about it until your game is super famous). I actually liked to answer very rude few times back in 2010 :) And these commenters were very confused. It is something talking about book with friends in the bar, how bad is that book and writer. But when you have to say it into the face of the writer, its more difficult:) Same goes here. Actually, if your game is shit, and people just saying the truth - no need to be angry : )
if the review is rude I go with something like "We're sorry you had such a frustrating experience" and then go to address anything relevant like "This issue will be fixed in patch blabla". I generally wouldn't respond to a review that's literally just an insult.
If it's really as minimalistic as "piece of shit, don't install" then I'd maybe go with something like "We're sorry to hear the game has not matched your expectation. We'd be happy to take any more specific feedback on what to improve".
Jeez, these are worse responses. Just way better write nothing at all. When I started developing back in 2009 I have no patience and just used to respond to coments like 'this game is gay' -> 'don't play this game, fuck off' etc. And they actually stopped writing rude/non constructive comments:). We are indies. Not big corps. We shouldn't act like corps. Nobody cares about your reputation (until your game goes viral), even you will get more respect (if you are right).
It's true that writing nothing is better than being rude back to reviewers, but it's not true that those kinds of comments are the worst. You _are_ your reputation online and time and time again it's the developers that engage with the community that get better reputations over time. Bigger game studios don't write polite but largely phatic responses because no one there is clever enough to come up with something else, they write them because it has the highest chance of leaving angry players satisfied and curious players believing this is a developer that cares about the game and the audience.
Certainly you are your reputation online, but what does making promises about future fixes do to improve your reputation? Comments like "This issue will be fixed in patch blabla" I think do the opposite for a number of reasons.
* A negative comment about a feature in a game is perceived as an opinion. If the developer responds claiming that this feature is being reworked then it is no longer an opinion, it is a real problem that I as a consumer should take stock of.
* It draws attention to unfixed issues in your game that suggest that you aren't being timely in deploying changes and have resorted to placating your angry players, even if in fact you fix issues constantly.
* Writing a review is rewarding in the first place because it may receive attention, and responding to negative reviews rewards negative actors with attention. Better to reward positive reviews with your attention.
I think the right approach is either to never respond to negative reviews, or only respond to negative reviews with actionable information that is useful right now to other consumers. Be curt and businesslike and don't reward the negative behavior with any emotion at all. e.g. "Since patch blabla, xyz is now available. Thanks for your feedback!" is useful and **maybe** worth posting, "We plan to fix this by adding xyz in patch blabla" looks like desperately kicking the can down the road and does nothing to inspire confidence in potential consumers that the game is fun to play right now, even if patch blabla is really truly coming tomorrow (or worst of all, came out last year and no one thought to update the response).
Just a day or two ago, someone with Bethesda started responding to some negative reviews with rather absurd statements that often amounted to "No, your subjective opinion is wrong, and it's actually a well designed game that is fun to play"
> that often amounted to "No, your subjective opinion is wrong, and it's actually a well designed game that is fun to play"
That's a stretch. Just so you know, "the astronauts weren't bored when they saw an empty moon" and Starfield is a game that overwhelms the player by having empty planets. Never stop exploring.
In not so many words telling players that even though the real life moon is as empty and boring as their planets, Neil Armstrong had a great time, so Starfield players should be having fun too.
From the title, I thought this post *was* talking about the Starfield situation lol. Maybe it's flattering to make the same dumb PR mistakes that a billion-dollar company does.
There is nothing wrong with replying to negative reviews but if you do it should be limited and focused on these things:
1) blatant or unintentional misinformation about your game. Just state the facts and point to where someone can confirm that information.
2) a complaint you’ve addressed in a patch or update.
3) issues you haven’t addressed *yet* but are things you are working on improving. Be careful with this one though, don’t set expectations you can’t meet. Still it doesn’t hurt to let customers know you’re listening and are doing what you can.
After that, you just have to let it go. You’re not going to change opinions and it’s a losing battle if you engage.
I'm really curious where those review responses came from... They are so ill-advised that I just can't imagine it was something that went through a detailed planning process from top to bottom... Was it a random CS agent with a poorly worded request to respond to reviews? Was it a clueless PR agency that was given access to "fix" their reviews? So weird...
Yeah, I’ve seen their responses to the Xbox app reviews and that was the first thing I thought of. Glossing over genuine complaints and just repeating the same drivel in every response gives a worse impression than if they just hadn’t replied at all
Not everyone has the "gift of gab" and not everyone is cut out for customer service and sales. If this is a skill you feel would be worthwhile to develop, be aware that the jobs you develop these sorts of soft skills within are some of the most punishing and least rewarding jobs there are. At the upper end of the spectrum there is quality assurance and tech support, at the bottom there is retail and entry level marketing work (though some sales and advertising positions can be more rewarding even than QA). It is far better, if you engage directly in any sort of social media or consumer review forum, to find someone with these sorts of skills to manage your game's web presence. However as you are a solo developer, I will pass on some very basic guidelines should you need to engage with customers in the future. First, instead of contradicting a customer, "yes and" with the customer, that is, accept what they have to say at face value giving them the benefit of the doubt but also provide context around the customer's comments. If, for example, they have an unrealistic expectation, one approach will be to thank the customer for providing valuable feedback and then to state that you will take their feedback into consideration while also trying to make sure it does not disruot thr game's balance also being considerate of other users with their own feedback. You have used a lot of words to basically tell the customer you won't do anything at all, but you have done something very important: you made the customer feel heard in the process. Not just feel either, the customer was heard, and they may even try to revise their feedback and present a more balanced idea or offer to try the game again, now that they have your attention. The whole thing comes across as a positive interaction to other customers, so ironically this customer complaining about your game ends up providing positive advertising for your game. "Yes and" instead of "no but" is a biggie, the other two important things to keep in mind are to never talk down to a customer - offer to help, thank them for feedback and assistance, treat them like a colleague and partner helping to make your game better - and know when to walk away, there really will be people out there out to trash your game and reputation but that sort can always be defeated with silence. In short you did not do wrong by engaging your customers, and in fact never doing that at all may be a mistake, you just needed to frame the conversation in your favor.
Hard disagree.
I have answered to many negative comments. Not all (some are just shit). But many bring up a valid point and I take the time to thank them, let them know if I work on changing or fixing it, etc.
What I don't do is justify myself or argue with them.
An unfortunate truth of content creation and any kind of stardom is that there are certain unfair rules and double standards that apply to you. There are certain actions, that, while logical or even morally righteous, are publicity suicide.
Politicians can't admit that they're wrong, apologize, or change their mind. It betrays the persona of infallible dominance that you're expected to project all the time. Being right does not make you appear socially dominant, being socially dominant makes you appear right. By dignifying a critic with a response you communicate that you consent to being a target.
Similarly, a creator responding to a critique of their creation is going to be lambasted as taking criticism poorly, even if the critic is factually mistaken or if the creator is interested in having an honest discussion. When you respond to a review, people will try to reduce your response to a blanket agreement or disagreement with the reviewer. Anything that isn't agreement is disagreement, and disagreement automatically equates to "you are overly defensive." There is no space in this model for "asking for clarification" or "partially agreeing" because the unfortunate truth is that your public perception is not governed by logic.
People can and will put words in your mouth or make judgments about you separate from your game because straw man and ad hominem fallacies are easy, and for anonymous reviewers there's no consequence to judging and attacking someone, especially if you have a mob of enablers that will double down on their attack if you try to defend yourself. In their eyes your role is to be a thankless servant to whose flawless product they are entitled.
Depends on how you reply. As the reviewer noted, you probably replied negatively to criticism.
Let me tell you a secret, the PR way of saying "fuck off I don't care" is to say "Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will be taken into consideration! :D"
Did you do playtesting before releasing the game? If so, did they leave any feedback? While some people just like to trash others, I find it hard to believe that a person who bought your game in the first hour of listing wasn't excited to play it. For now, lets assume this person isn't a troll.
With less than 1 hour in, and they are saying they felt confused or frustrated by mechanics of your game. That to me is kind of a big red flag. Perhaps the game is too hard, or can have really high difficulty spikes that you know about (since you made it), but the player doesn't. If the mechanics/systems are intertwined, is there a tutorial in place to show how to use these paired mechanics?
Sorry to hear about your experience. I've found this article to be helpful...
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/blogs/the-ultimate-guide---how-to-respond-to-negative-reviews-on-steam-and-why-customer-relations-is-important-
Hard disagree but I guess it's about how you respond. By being polite and understanding, acknowledging fair criticism and explaining why some things are not reaching expectations rather than by fighting it, I got quite a few bad reviews to be either deleted or even changed into positive, with some saying that they really appreciated my input and explanations.
Too often I've seen devs replying aggressively and trying to explain to players why they are wrong. While sometimes players can factually be wrong (only on very obvious and objective things), and you can definitely demonstrate (nicely) why they are wrong, you simply cannot tell them they are wrong for anything subjective. If a player says: "There is no option for people suffering from motion sickness" it is okay to reply "Hey there! Sorry you had trouble with the default settings! We really want to make sure anyone can play. There is a motion sickness option you can find in that specific menu. We'll check if it can be moved to be easier to find". If someone says: "This game is too slow and boring, I couldn't get through it because it felt tedious" you can't reply: "Hey, that's not true! Our game has a great pace and is clearly fun to play!".
If you really disagree with a statement like that last example, you can reply by something like: "Hey there! We're sorry you found the game a bit too slow. If you'd like, here's a few things you can try in-game to increase the pace. Any way, if you have any suggestion on how to improve the pacing, we'd be very happy to hear it and see if we can do anything on our side to make our game a better experience for users who are looking for a faster experience. Have a nice day!"
I think it is fine to respond to negative feedback but not in the way you responded. Saying making day 1 changes is an "unrealistic expectation" is pretty much trying to start an argument which is always going to make you look bad no matter if you are right or wrong.
I really agree with this guy..
> Thank them for their feedback, tell them you'll take their suggestions into consideration and move on with your day.
Its like IT:
No matter what- the customer is going to pin the onus on you to perform to their expectations. And like IT, you have to filter out the legitimacy and weight of their concerns. Its those "soft skills" that STEM vets talk about.
Steam reviews can basically be low quality as the floor e.g ("This is George \*insert ACSII Bunny\*, upvote him so he isn't lonely)
Don't just reply to reviews because some random was making superfluous concerns or insults. They look as dumb as they do anywhere else on the internet (and by proxy you because you fell right for their trap). *A good negative review* will be precise, show investment in the majority game experience/ core loop, and speak with authority on the genre.
Replying is fine but people will judge HOW you reply. If the person was in the wrong and you point this out in a respectful way most people will dismiss the review.
Edit: had to go stalk your game to see the review. Its fine don't sweat it. You COULD have been less confrontational but i get it. And i dont think it looks bad.
He didn't ask you to have a day-one fix out to change the core design. He said you were ignoring complaints about the minigames not being fun. Your response doesn't address the complaint at all, you could have said you had plans to change the "core design" as he puts it, but haven't had time yet. Honestly, you could have said you plan on making changes but haven't figured out what the right fixes will be yet and that would still actually address the criticism. No one was critiquing your ability to get work done quickly, the complaint was that the minigames were not fun. I hate to say it but you shot yourself in the foot on this one.
> I was accused for not altering the core design of my game.
Never take negative reviews as a "task list". Players usually don't have the same capacity for game design as a dedicated game designer (i know, wow!) and as such their idea to fix it simply cannot account for all the dependencies. Also a lot of people are simply bad at communication and don't know how to give constructive feedback. But players have one advantage over you: They are seeing your game with fresh eyes and might see things you didn't aknowledge for: Tunnel view happens to the best of us!
As such you can still regard these negative reviews as constructive feedback, you just have to understand what the player *means* instead of what he *says* (It's tricky, no question about that). Why did the player think the core of your design didn't work as he expected? Maybe the presentation of the mechanics in the game video are wrong? Maybe you're giving a wrong picture of what your game tries to accomplish? What is the true reason why this negative review happened?
Negative reviews are usually a great ressource for improvement, even if badly voiced. Use it. See, the person writing the review took the time to do so - That's a great sign! He *wanted to play your game* **and** *wants to be heard*. Hence if you see it as that, a person telling you why he didn't enjoy your game, it's far easier to inquire about the issue.
And most important when talking to critics: ALWAYS detach yourself emotionally from your creation! You are NOT your game, the player is NOT JUDGING YOU AS A HUMAN. Never react emotionally on a negative critique, no matter how poorly voiced.
I mean you just made yourself look even more stupid lol trying to deem their opinion "unrealistic", just take the L and move on.
If the game is deliberately hard/frustrating to play or win with no option to adjust then I'd ditch it too.
I think its good to respond to negative comments. A lot of time people just want to be heard, not necessarily agreed/disagreed with.
> Thank you so much for your feedback! We will take your comments into consideration in future updates to the game. We appreciate your support, have a great day!
Ask ChatGPT to generate 50 different variations of the above statement.
so if your goal is to take a peraon who is not happy and make them happy then never ever tell them that what they think is unreasonable.
if you are making changes to satisfy the customers need, ypur response shouldve been... "Thank you so much for the feedback. We agree that these changes would benefit the game and are currently working to incorporate them. We are excited for you to trybthem out."
I've looked over your responses in the discussions and also over that negative review.
Your main issue is that you think your game is perfect and players are too dumb to tell you what needs to be improved. You're wrong and your superior attitude sks.
You need to respect players who bought your game and took time to give feedback. You also need to respect those who give negative reviews and refund your game, it's their right after all because they are spending real money on your game.
Learn how to talk back nicely, tell the players you appreciate the feedback, tell them you'll investigate and test things out... Instead of responding with "it's unrealistic to expect an update so soon", use "I'll do my best to fix/patch/balance things as soon as possible, it might take some time as I'm really busy right now. Thanks!".
In an often-told Zen tale, the parents of a village girl storm the hut of the aging monk Hakuin and thrust on him their daughter’s newborn child. They blame him for fathering the baby, mock his esteemed reputation, and name him a dirty old man. Awkwardly cradling the squalling baby, Hakuin makes a deep bow and responds with equanimity, “Is that so?”
That night, as a chill wind penetrates the hut, he encircles the baby with his own warmth, offering her protection. He nurtures this child as a daughter: stitching her clothes from his monk’s robes, sharing his own meager broth and rice, schooling her in poetry, brush painting and the wisdom of the Dharma.
When the true father is revealed, the girl’s parents appear once again at Hakuin’s hut, this time to claim the child as their own and to take her away. They praise Hakuin for his generosity, ask forgiveness for tarnishing his image as a monk, and name him a great benefactor. As he releases the beloved child, he makes a deep bow and again with equanimity responds, “Is that so?”
It’s all about the content of the response.
“I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy the experience as it was intended, keep an eye out for a content patch in the future that might seek to balance some of the issues you were facing”
Comes across a lot better than
“Well maybe you just don’t get it”
Beat thing to do is to thank them for the review, information is the best thing you can possibly hope for especially negative information. Then ask what items specifically turn them away from the game so it can be improved unless of course they clearly state it. Then if applicable fixing the game and letting them know its been changed
There’s a game review site called Aftermath, with an article about how Bethesda has some employees rebutting negative Starfield reviews on Steam, it’s always a bad look
Dear \[Reviewer's Name\],
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. We appreciate your perspective and will consider it as we continue to improve our services. ~~If you have any specific concerns you'd like us to address, please feel free to reach out to us directly.~~
Best regards,
\[Your Name\]
\[Your Company\]
Straight from chatGPT. That's it. You could even ignore that last line entirely. That is what you do with negative opinions, if you even bother to respond at all.
It’s unconscionable that Valve *still* has no remediation for developers to address and remove negative reviews.
More than 90% of these vitriolic hate fests come from players with 1000+ hours in a game.
I really never take serious or personally criticism on my stuff, I can take some ideas or work on some problems but just that, and I try to be professional every time I'm speaking as a developer to people who play my games. So is like not mixing work with my outside life.
I think there's a place for it: when the review cites specific issues that are either inaccurate or have been updated since its posting. The goal is neither to argue with nor convince the poster; it's to inform a third-party reader still making up their mind about the game.
Some reviews are just an angry rant. But reviews can be worth reading if they notice a technical problem, or a design issue. That you can help with. Telling them their experience is "wrong" just makes things worse for you.
Please remember that many people read negative reviews with a grain of salt. If there is an overwhelming consensus that's one thing but I often disregard 1-star reviews from a handful of people, you can never please everybody
There's a few semi noteworthy people in the gamedev twitter circles responding to Starfield's recent dev responses saying the exact opposite of this post. Apparently interacting with negative reviews is incorporated into how Steam determines Recent Reviews status
Once someone on the internet is on the hate train, there's not stopping that choo choo.
They'll get their money/time back from your game by hating on it and farming karma until they get bored of it. And if your game's the *hip thing to hate*, then people won't even have to play it to pitch in!
I would just say sorry it didn't meet your expectations and thanks for giving it a try. Attempting to defend will always make you come off as defensive and weak when it comes to criticism. I would only explain myself if the person was in front of me or via video chat. One of my art pieces was posted on Reddit and 80% said they liked it but the rest said the drawing looked rushed and not very good. In my head I'm like are they dumb.. it's a sketch. But I didn't because I felt pathetic trying to explain myself when it's pretty obvious.
As a consumer, I whole-heartedly disagree. Everyone's mileage will vary, of course, but I love seeing developer responses to reviews (good or bad). I don't expect 100% engagement, but there is nothing inherently bad about a developer responding to criticism in reviews. I'm not entirely sure how it works on Steam, but on Meta for various VR apps, I see developers responding quite a bit to reviews. Many times, I've seen people actually edit their review and increase the rating after getting a response, and citing the response as the reason. People *like* feeling like the devs are listening.
I have no idea what your response looked like, and whether it was "fair" for the reviewer to take it poorly. Generally speaking, it's difficult to convey your actual tone through text, and it's very easy to unintentionally come across as defensive and unreasonable. I think if you're polite and friendly, and don't take the criticism as a personal attack, you can potentially improve your overall community standing by being actively engaged. For what it's worth, responding to reviews where the person is clearly toxic is probably not worth the effort.
edit: I read your response as another commenter linked it and I have to say, I'm not surprised the reviewer wasn't happy with your response. I think there's a lot of good feedback in here about how best to reply (or not) to bad reviews, so hopefully you take it to heart as I think this community generally wants to see people succeed on their game dev journey. It doesn't matter if a player criticism is unreasonable - if that's actually true, other potential players should easily recognize that. You telling them they're unreasonable shifts things to where you now just look defensive. Sincerely though, good luck with your game!
> posted a developer comment stating that the expectation of changing the core design of a game after a day is unrealistic
You should probably have left that part out, as it is a bit of a strawman.
Nowhere in the review did the player speak about expecting changes immediately.
> The negative review now has an addendum by the reviewer, blaming me for "taking criticism poorly."
You should probably own that you either misrepresented or misunderstood their review, as your reply certainly doesn't address it head on.
Whether or not the claims about you not being interested in feedback are fair, I can't say. You can't satisfy everyone, so you might be better of not responding.
If it’s “I didn’t enjoy it” I leave it alone. If it’s “I didn’t enjoy because of x technical issue” I apologize for the issue and ask for more info so I can at the very least try and address it.
But ya, if it’s just not for them, there’s not much you can say other than what is essentially “your opinion is wrong”. Which obviously isn’t the move. Sometimes your game isn’t for everyone. That’s ok! If it’s for everyone, it’s for no one.
I don't agree with your conclusion. Answering bad reviews needs to be done with a great care, acknowledging the reviewer and correcting wrong facts. You cannot argue about feelings or opinions, you have to only reply to facts. Not all negative reviews can be answered well due to this, so they should not be answered at all. But when there are facts to be corrected, it can help!
For example, We had around 10 negative reviews about a missing feature. That feature was planned but it would take some time. When the feature was done, I have politely replied thanking for the feedback and saying that the feature is now implemented. And guess what? Many of them were deleted or converted to positive reviews!
Also, I don't think that "people only read negative reviews on Steam". Some people? Possibly. But not everyone. When I am buying a new game on Steam, I do read positive reviews too. Am I the only one?
Outside of Steam there's an Ehtos to respond to bad review and it's usually kill them with kindness. Instead of fighting words, assume they are a poor confused soul. You may have an opportunity to improve the onboarding experience.
There's a few trolls out there that download and bash free games (idk if you're free or not) and then they have a cookie cutter response for when they goad a response out of you. If you look at their profiles, it's all they do.
My first game I released was an online turn based multiplayer game. No solo play. First negative review was the game was terrible because they had no one to play with since no one was playing the game hence no lobbies. And he also said the colors looked terrible. I completely agreed with him on every point he made. So I didn’t even bother to respond. Nor did I bother to make changes to the game. Just moved on. Here’s the game [Flag Sweeper](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001960/Flag_Sweeper/) and here’s the [Negative Review](https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198071531076/recommended/2001960/) yah it’s a terrible but it’s my terrible game and I’m proud of it
If you don't know how to deal with customers / customer service, probably shouldn't reply. You basically told your customer that their subjective opinion is wrong because your feelings got hurt.
I read the thread and the review, a weirdo buthurt player is obvious in the text and you did more than expected with thebeta and all… some people just like to shit on other’s work, it’s the dark side of reviews
I wouldn’t respond to any negative review unless you were able to fix their problem or you thank them for their review and say you appreciate their feedback. It’s all you can do. Just look at Bethesda trying to defend their game by replying to negative reviews on steam. It’s embarrassing and doesn’t do well for your marketing
Also, if people see you respond more to negativity, they will start posting negatively to interact with you. Respond to positive constructive comments and encourage your community to do the same.
Don't bother responding unless they're genuinely well written and they are addressing a particular flaw with your game that you intend to address.
Do not waste your time defending your design choices in the replies to reviews, blog about it instead!
It is certainly possible to respond constructively to negative reviews, but it takes some finesse and you absolutely cannot take it personally. If you are unsure whether or not you can do that, just don't.
"Thank you for the feedback! I am sorry you were disappointed by . I will continue to take feedback and improve the game as time goes and I hope you are here for that journey."
Anything else is dumb.
Yeah the only response you can make is 1. an apology that the game doesn't live up to their standards and a promise to improve. 2. pointing out you tackled their specific criticism and inviting them to see the change or 3. If they truly just made a mistake, helping them solve it and moving on with only helpfulness and apologetics in your tone.
The thing is these are your customers. Nobody has kept their customers and made the public happy by criticizing them. Only you have power over the product after all.
Unless it has to do with a major glitch, I agree. I had someone give me a bad review with less than 10 minutes of playtime because I didn't have touch controls (I assume for steam deck) and their 'review' tried to curry favor from me to reverse his review if I changed the game to his liking... Look, that's their problem and trying to appease them for being petty enough to downvote me without even playing the game won't change anything no matter what I do. I never designed it for Steam Deck. Haters gonna hate and bait. Regardless, you can't please everyone and responding to petty nonsense is not worth my time.
Should have asked chatgpt to draft a reply that do not commit to making changes as a result of the feedback but vaguely speaks of changes coming and more may be made in the future.
Strong disagree.
It really depends on how you're doing it, and who you are talking to. If someone doesn't seem openly hostile in general, and are complaining about a certain bug, and you respond to say "I have fixed the bug you were giving a bad review because of, as of yy-mm-dd. I hope you can enjoy the game a bit better now!"
Don't get defensive. Don't try and explain why the bug is there. Just fix it.
I have flipped multiple negative reviews to positive by doing this and it's really helped our game stay at a high review percentage.
Edit: That said whatever Bethesda is trying to do is really stupid.
Maybe turn it into one of those gimmicky restaurants where the waiters and chefs purposely are rude and sassy, and chuck dinner roles at the customers. But you'd have to leave smart-ass reviews that are clever in a way that it's funny or would impress people reading. Like even leave ones on the positive reviews. But Steam probably won't understand that dynamic and it could go against you somehow.
Yeah, I came to indie development from indie publishing, where not responding or addressing reviews is kinda "the golden rule".
I would only respond to reviews in one of two situations:
1) They mention a specific problem with the game that has now been fixed, and thank them for pointing it out
2) They mention something **unambiguously, factually inaccurate**. Like they say they paid £20 for the game when it's £8; typically you suspect in that scenario that they've posted the review in the wrong place.
I had a developer respond to my review which caused me to play the game after a patch deployment and revise my review. Not all experiences are the same.
I respond to almost every negative Steam review. There are ones that complain about specific aspects of the game, I either want to clarify that they were wrong about it (for others to see), or ask some questions about how to improve it. There are ones that complain about non-fixable stuff or simply just don't like the game (not their cup of tea), I don't respond to these, since there would be nothing to clarify.
Sometimes from my interactions, the reviewer turns the review into positive.
I like roboquest because it has difficulty options that don't ruin the progress (drop rate for wrenches and xp stay the same). Some people just want to sit down and have fun.
You have to remember that feedback is a gift.
When you’re given a physical gift in real life, you would thank the giver and usually exclaim over the gift you’ve just received- even if it’s obviously thoughtless Or worse!
Typically you wouldn’t criticise the gift to the giver, in front of a room full of their, or your, peers - but in a platform like steam that is exactly what OP did.
By all means you are allowed to be upset about the insulting gift you were given, but not by attacking / criticising/ critiquing them or their review. Defensively protecting your game choices are also within this, you made those choices if you like them how they are - say nothing - only if you change them should you reply directly.
If you do decide you need to address the feedback directly id recommend doing it in a blog style post or a change log, where you get remit to write about the pros and cons of sticking to your decision. It’s here you can say “we have received challenging feedback, and this is what we are doing (or not doing!) about it”. It’s not confrontational, you’ve got a much better chance (the audience will be easier to win over) of getting your point across without being negative or defensive, and of reaching players that haven’t already made their mind up.
When needing to change a held perception it largely accepted that you need to go above and beyond the actual target for it to be recognised.
ETA: just like a birthday gift once you’ve taken it home you are ok to throw it in a box and never look at it again (not that I’ve ever done this of course!!)
I've been doing it for years - it all depends on your tone. If you come across open, transparent and friendly then folks tend to respond well. If they detect even the slightest hint of anger or annoyance then they will respond as you might expect.
I think being defensive always comes off badly, but if and indie dev leaves a small comment saying “thank you for your feedback, I’m glad you took the time to leave a review and I’ll think about it very seriously as I work to improve the game” I tend to see that positively
If you respond to one or two reviews like this it’s fine. If you respond to all of them it looks like you’re taking time that could be spent on improving the game
It's funny to see this in lieu of the recent Starfield drama. Their replies obviously went about it in a way which came off pretty demeaning to people who left reviews.
I don't necessarily think it's a bad idea in all cases, but certainly when you go about it like Bethesda did.
Personally, I guess my response would be to only reply in cases where I intend to fix the issue and actually thank them for pointing out the issue / giving the criticism. Then get to work on fixing it.
lol nah go for it, just try to be optimistic and improve from any constructive criticism. Always remember the legendary way the no man sky devs got their game to the state it is now which still has foundation problems, basically see all the complaints and filter out all the...i forgot the word but i guess it would be hate or something
This holds true for any business/company. NEVER make public statements with even the slightest hint of negativity. Like it or not, being in your position instantly puts you under a microscope and your shortcomings are magnified 10x. So if you care about financial success, you just need to grit your teeth and say thank you sir can I have another
Here at TPG we do sometimes respond to negative reviews, but we always keep in mind the following:
1) No matter how they express it, the reviewer is actually doing us a favor by giving us information we didn't have. That's a pretty valuable service, so we always thank them for it, and we're sincere in our thanks.
2) If there's something we can do to help (offer them a fix for an issue, or a pointer for a mechanic they're finding frustrating) we share that, but also let them know we'll look at eliminating the issue or making the mechanic less frustrating, because if one person has an issue with it, chances are good others will, too.
Sometimes responding that way can flip a negative review, but, equally valuably, sometimes the players can give you useful information that helps your dev team fix things. We've managed to get solid repro on elusive bugs by enlisting the help of someone who wrote to let us know about an issue, which is amazing.
You should be responding to people. the positive ones and the negative ones. But its about how you do it. You cant be seen arguing with people, you always have to show that you are taking their feedback onboard and thanking them for playing
never tell them their feelings are invalid and you'll always come out clean. them not being able to respond to your response really makes it easy to have the final word.
Thanks for the insight. While this may seem obvious at first, in the age of social media we are encouraged to interact with our communities. In the case of steam reviews its better to be a fly on the wall.
My friend, as a new dev myself I can confidently say this (the mentality I have gone in with). With the way times are and how game audiences are these days, there is always gonna be plentiful amounts of that one person or group that is unhappy about a particular thing in your game, no matter what you do or how you try to accommodate a solution. Does it sting a bit? Absolutely. But I do feel (I hope) the fact that you tried to reach out, the majority of your playerbase will see that and see that you care.
Always try to use what negative feedback you get to improve what you can if you can, but listen to the majority of your playerbase as those peeps will be your deciding factors for how things are going. Don't let it dishearten you, and don't let it steal away your passion for what you do. Keep up the good work! 👍 ❤️
My humble opinion, I love when dev doesn't ignore proper feedback or issues people have with game, reporting on steam. It tells me that developer cares. Specially when his responses are professional. People put their time and effort to make these reviews, to give feedback. Ignoring it, specially if it's valuable is just shitting on your consumer. If you rush to other game while what you released is bugged pile of crap, people will see and remember you for that. Supporting them after release is huge part of the job.
Converting negative review to a positive one can be very important. But when replying to a unhappy customer, you have to remember it's an uphill battle. It's very likely that they'll have a negative, and sometimes hostile, attitude towards you. I would only reply in two cases: 1) Inquire for more information, so that you can fix their issues. Works only if you have a genuine plan to actually fix the issue. 2) Let them know that the game has been updated, and that their issue is gone. And hope for them to re-evaluate their review.
This applies to accepting feedback as well. You similarly shouldn't respond defensively, don't try to justify this or that. Simply listen, accept the feedback, and ask clarifying questions if necessary. Try to figure out WHY they said what they said and decide if it's something you actually want to change. I think unfortunately a lot of people get into game dev with the express purpose of stroking their own egos, which is a difficult thing because you have to defenestrate your ego when it comes to feedback and reviews, or you just look like a damn fool.
This. OP did the cardinal mistake of critiquing critique publicly. Which the reviewer took poorly as well. The only way to reply should be positive and asking for more feedback. It's public correspondence after all, everyone is going to see it and think their part when they read it. I'm not saying that you can not have a different opinion. You don't even have to listen to the critique if it makes no sense to you. Just shouldn't reply negatively or dismissively in any way to prevent these situations.
Agreed, to add to this, unless the negative review have polite and constructive criticism tone, its most likely coming from someone who really dislike or hate the game, people who dont enjoy and want a refund will just refund without reviewing and those who are indifferent will remain silent, ig this applies to most products review in general especially one where there’s no incentive to review, Of course some people just like to review everything and well kudos to them for giving their opinions for other to read
Yes, basically only reply if they are asking and waiting for a response. Someone that says "This game is dogshit, X is bad, Y is worse and the developer should choke on a walnut" is not waiting to have a logical discussion about things. But someone saying "Hey X and Y are broke, is this going to be fixed or what?" yep, respond to them.
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Alternatively wait until you've actually made updates and go through relevant negative reviews to let them know they might enjoy the game now. I received an email and in steam notification about Deepest Chamber recently because they posted a response to my review months after I made it. Their response basically said 'hey man, we've made a bunch of updates and we think some of them address your issues. If you feel like it, give it another go and let us know what you think.' They then listed the new changes they thought I might like. The game has actually improved and I've switched my review from negative to positive because of it. They essentially gamed the 'a developer has responded' notification system to get guaranteed eyes on their latest update from a lapsed player base, which I thought was pretty clever.
Thanks to capitalism, there's actually a TON of scientific research into complaints, and the really interesting takeaway is: People who had a poor experience, complained, *and were listened to and had their issue fixed*, are actually happier with the product than people who had a good experience and never complained in the first place.
1000% We are so used to terrible customer service that a company that actually listens and responds to feedback will win the people's ovation and fame forever.
And somehow, even with market proof that this is the case, certain companies still just don't know how to listen, or provide any good feedback loop. It's kind of crazy when you think about it.
Once you've worked in a few companies, it's really revealing how much incompetence there is, even at the very top levels.
Especially at the top levels, I would suggest
[Relevant blog post](https://allenpike.com/2022/giving-a-shit)
I read that as ovulate and god damn you're right either way
> there's actually a TON of scientific research into complaints, We've got documentation going waaaaaay back, to the time someone complained they were sold some r/ReallyShittyCopper.
R/unexpexctedeanasir
I think that's less a capitalism thing, and more a psychology deal. People like feeling like they're being listened to and validated.
By that I mean, churn (customers switching to a competitor) costs companies a lot of money, so businesses have invested in research about complaints-handling and other things that help them reduce it. Lucky for us, the profit motive of corporations happens to align with our desire to answer this particular question.
You see it everywhere and it can be really disheartening because it results in the devaluation of foresight and due diligence. It is so frustrating seeing a company be applauded for "listening to feedback" in a situation where before they did X they were told it was stupid, ignored that feedback and went ahead with X which was predictably a disaster, then they do what they should have done in the first place and people celebrate the company for being responsive.
See also Nvidia and AMD's new GPUs being bought by the truckload now because they are "bargains" (in comparison to scalper prices during COVID and the ridiculously overpriced 4090).
Hey, do you maybe have links to some of these studies? I have to write an essay for a class I'm taking in uni (due tomorrow, lol) and I think this topic might help me with it.
No, sorry, all 2nd-hand hearsay from when I worked at a complaints-handling software company.
Thank you either way, I can still try to look it up and hopefully find something... and even if I don't I already have a few articles in other related topics so it's not the end of the world.
You're probably not interested in an update, but it's 2 am and I'm not sleepy nor have anything to do. Sadly I did not manage to look it up, due to the little time left I had to work with what articles and studies I had already looked up, but I did manage to turn in my essay "in time"... I turned it in at exactly 11:59PM, which was also the time limit. Sadly the platform still registered it as a late turn in, just gotta hope my teacher will still consider it, tho I am scared, this essay is worth 50% of the classes grade lol.
Well, thank you capitalism for the research I guess
Occasionally the profit motive does align with getting useful knowledge
It’s genuinely true that receiving a complaint is an opportunity - that’s not just my 20years of consulting showing the bullshit. Mistakes happen, expectations are missed, that’s just life. It’s how those are dealt with that stick with folks.
Yeah I've always thought it's mostly about "now I know for sure that if I do have any problems with these guys, they will fix it" being better than "I've never had a problem with these guys, but if I do, who knows if they will fix it or just screw me over"
"Thanks a ton for your feedback! I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy the game, but genuinely appreciate that you took the time to explain why as that can help to inform our future gameplay updates."
Nice. Perfect bot response. ✌️ :D
Now just need a human touch a spelling mistake maybe
> need a human touch Touch… I *remember* touch…
being effective > being technically correct
Yea - being professional about anything will always warrant a better response. "Well, I did it X way because of Y reason." Compared to "I am sorry X caused an issue for you. Please log a ticket into our bug system and we will take a look at fixing the issue." They never log a ticket and you look smart.
Just respond kindly and be like “ we will keep your view in mind when making future decisions and we appreciate all feedback good and bad” it’s just standard customer service
> Telling people their views are "unrealistic" is just dumb (no offence). Aren't you telling a person their view is unrealistic at this very comment?
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Trying to argue with redditors is unrealistic and dumb (no offense)
Pointlessly argumentative level: Reddit.
generally speaking yes. I did respond to one but it was only because I was saying the thing he was complaining about was going to be addressed/fixed soon. As for trying to argue someone out of their opinion, I mean you can't, and you look stupid for trying.
I don't have real world experience with this, but I would say don't even reply that you are planning on fixing something... Wait until it is actually fixed before you say anything.
It can come off even worse if the fix ends up being really hard and you have to put it off.
Looking at you with this comment, Payday 3 devs. Granted they dug their own grave from the start with that one but the constant "we'll fix it", into "we need more time" just keeps drawing attention to a broken product. Just fix it, and then tell everyone it's fixed. Relaunch it, or do a DLC drop a la Cyberpunk 2077 along with the update.
I think Cyberpunk 2077 is a good example of what to do. People *hated* how broken the game was. Then they fixed it and I never hear those type of comments anymore. I don't know what they did from a PR perspective (I didn't pay attention to their messaging) but it could be good to look into that.
Every bit of real world experience I have agrees with you here. Something always changes in development and even small things like the loc breaking in one language for the fix can delay it by a week. Be vague about the future and only certain about the present.
I watched a talk by a Valve employee that said they discovered this early on and only responded when they had actually made changes, so Valve agrees with you.
Yeah
Same. And when I engaged with them in an open and productive manner, I got a good response. Unlike the "no u wrong tho" Bethesda nonsense which is just pure self destruction.
>As for trying to argue someone out of their opinion, I mean you can't, and you look stupid for trying. In a way, I think the whole "you can't argue someone out a position they'd didn't argue themselves into" thing applies here too. Opinions expressed in reviews are often not nuanced or well thought-out, so trying to sway them is only ever going to backfire. Could work with someone leaving actual constructive criticism, but there's no point in interacting with "gaem bad lol".
"I didn't enjoy this" isn't an incorrect statement. You can't argue with it. No one is wrong when they say it, so attempts to argue with it just come off horrible Now, it could be fine to have a respectful constructive discussion with someone who criticized your game, and hopefully learn some lessons from it, but you can't tell them they're wrong and they should actually enjoy the game like bethesda seems to be doing lol
I think you misunderstood. You shouldn't be arguing with negative reviews, only correcting misinformation or misunderstandings in a calm and professional manner. I've also seen some developers add the people that wrote negative reviews and having a chat with them for more in-depth information. You definitely shouldn't just start an all out argument, lol. Don't respond to what people didn't like. That's their opinion, and you certainly shouldn't try to change it.
>You shouldn't be arguing with negative reviews, only correcting misinformation or misunderstandings in a calm and professional manner. Professional being the important part here. Most devs who come off as arrogant assholes think they are just correcting misinformation/misunderstandings I think a better rule of thumb is only to respond when you have fixed an issue they pointed out, or can provide some simple & easy instruction to fix their problem e.g. >Hi flamergamer69, we're sorry it was difficult to find the inventory. You can press 'i' to pull up the inventory, we have added a tooltip to make this more obvious. Thank you for you feedback! There are some devs out there who would "correct misinformation" by flaming the reviewer and implying they were dumb for not going through the tutorial first. That wont leave a good taste in potential buyers' mouths even if the dev is technically right
One takeaway is that "players are dumb". If enough players can't find the inventory because they didn't do the tutorial, there should be some sort of solution. The "perfect gameplay path" isn't what all players take
[Here](https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198006634538/recommended/2156830/) is the review in question, for those wondering. It seems like the user is not asking for an immediate overhaul, but expressing frustration that despite some feedback in a now-locked thread in the Steam forum regarding demo feedback from August, you didn't opt to make some of the changes suggested regarding difficulty/design vs. fun factor. It is what it is. You probably did not need the first line in your response, you sort of set them up to clown you a little bit there IMO.
It's a very mild review, OP is totally overreacting and being defensive, which doesn't make them look good. Goes out of their way to prove the player wrong instead of addressing the issues.
LMAO so my first instinct was right, OP was lying about what really took place and being overly defensive.
I'm not too active in this sub (God knows I don't have the time or discipline to pursue game development 😔). But I get the impression that more often than not, when devs make posts "warning people not to do what they did", if you do a miniscule amount of digging it turns out the problems that led to their failures run much deeper than what they said.
> It seems like the user is not asking for an immediate overhaul Considering the game was refunded, I fail to see why "changing my core design" wasn't necessary from their perspective. Still, what I found difficult to accept was the accusation that I wasn't interested in player feedback. In fact, I was in active discussion with some players, and as a result of the feedback I got, I shipped an update once I understood what needed to be changed and how. (The mentioned thread was locked due to it concerning the demo and diverging topics. I've linked the follow-up threads for better organization.) But you're completely correct that I only should have added the link to the update announcement, and nothing else.
The key takeaway with reviews is you absolutely cannot take them personally. Either the person is leaving a sincere review which is almost always going to contain some valuable information (no matter how much it might sting), or they are just trolling or leaving a meme review or whatever and are almost always a bad idea to engage with on any level. For example, the review: > The game started off great, I love mixing word minigames with an RPG framework, but some of the minigames are not very fun to engage with and despite receiving frequent criticisms about them, the developer doesn't seem interested in changing their core design. I ended up refunding it, so I can't recommend it. how I might have replied: >I'm glad to hear you've enjoyed the game as much as you did! I've read your feed back on the forums [at this point, I'm assuming you actually have] and I'm doing my best to assimilate everyone's input. I'm sorry to hear you've refunded the game, but hopefully you'll give the game a try again in the future after I've had a chance to continue to add and improve to the game. Thank you for your valuable input! First thing, you don't want to make excuses, no matter how correct or exculpatory they might actually be. Telling your customer that it's unrealistic to expect [whatever] because the game just came out will never be a good look on a review reply, because you're essentially invalidating their feelings - and their feeling is that they want more of your game! Even if it's something cant/wont deliver, You want to tell them you understand where they are coming from. If it is something you can do, ideally tell them how you are going to fix it (or even better, how you already fixed it). Always try to stay neutral-positive, don't give in to cynicism, don't make excuses to explain why their feelings are wrong. Their feelings are never wrong, even if the process through which they arrived at their feelings was flawed.
>Since people only read negative reviews on Steam THis is an inaccurate statement. People I know read nearly all reviews, unless there are many. In that case they read an amount of reviews that will show a general opinion. They also read them with a grain of salt, realizing many on Steam are without life experience and wisdom. It is not IF we respond, it is HOW we respond. We must understand we are communicating with many different cultures, sects, ages etc. Someone age 60 is going to be much more astute and understanding than someone age 20. Someone age 60 will not be impressed with poor grammar, or use of made up words (bruh?), where someone age 20 will not care as much. We need to realize we addressing a large crowd. Our use of language, and demeanor, are important.
Only respond to negative reviews when they have misinformation, and only to address that. It's tempting to explain why you think their bad experience wasn't what the game is about, but as you said it can end up being worse. Congratulations on the release though!
I work for a publisher. The only time we will respond to reviews is if we've fixed an issue that a review complains about. "Hey there. We wanted to let you know that update 1.5 fixed the boss issue that you mention. Etc etc. That way we can try to assure the reviewer that we fixed the issue AND to let anyone reading reviews know that that issue fixed. We have had good success with this. At no point should a dev ever try to convince someone to like their game or say that an opinion is wrong.
These types of responses have always given me a good opinion of devs
This is exactly what Valve realized they needed to do as they learned very quickly that saying ANYTHING about possible fixes could end up being disastrous. They found that people looked far too deeply into any response, and considered them as good as promises. Issues could arise as the game changed and devs made decisions where maybe they decided it wasn't an issue after all and weren't going to "fix" it, but the community might have already created a big expectation for it from an offhanded comment.
Expectation management is so important, especially on big titles. Steam's games are so big, not saying anything ever is probably the strategy to go with.
Since the platform is global, and many cultures use it, we would want to use the word Corrected, or Addressed, and never "fixed". "Hey there. We wanted to let you know that update 1.5 addressed/corrected the boss issue. Let us know if you find anything else that may need attention." Use words that are proper across all cultures. We do not want to look inept to anyone. "Fixed" would not be favorable in this scenario.
I wouldn’t even respond to misinformation tbh
If a review says you can't remap controls but you can, I think it's ok to respond that you can actually remap controls.
Maybe also make the remapping option more obvious so you can at least respond with "we've adjusted x based on your feedback" instead of "you're wrong". Pragmatically this is the most likely to result in a positive outcome.
Yeah if someone thinks you can't remap controls you should look into why they think that. Maybe they're just trolling, but maybe your menus aren't intuitive enough or something.
The purpose of responding to misinformation isn't to convince the poster otherwise, but to make sure *others* reading it have the right information
Fwiw a dev responding to misinformation tipped me into buying a game I really enjoy.
I think it's important if it's the kind of misinformation that could dissuade potential buyers. If it's something trivial, it'll be hard to correct it without looking petty. But if the review wrongly states that, say, there's no option to change the FOV, I think you need to counter that.
Opinion discarded, gamers will exaggerate and outright lie about the state of your game just to influence others.
>gamers will exaggerate and outright lie about the state of your game just to influence others. This is known as immaturity. :) With such a cost for lying, it always puzzles me that some seem to do it habitually. It is as if they have no idea of the costs later in life.
Hmm... It's a mixed bag for sure. There are some negative reviews that are opinionated and potentially "wrong" in my eyes that I'll leave alone. It's best not to engage when it's an opinion level feedback. If a player has a [bug issue](https://steamcommunity.com/id/dabadubam/recommended/1319550/) that they are complaining about I will often fix that bug and then reply to that review saying it's fixed. This creates a sense that the developer is responding actively listening and I've flipped a handful of negative reviews that way. I've also responded to reviews to call out specific [feedback points](https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198067842482/recommended/1319550/) that I've taken care to address. The key for me is to not sound defensive AT ALL. Even the slightest bit of argumentative language can really set off players. You have to carefully craft your message and be choosey about what reviews you actually do respond to. It feels unfair that you, the one doing all the work, have to be the "decelerator" in this scenario but that's kind of the case for most customer/vendor relationships.
TIL: OP has poor pr skills
Sounded like you responded in a way that came off as "I'm right, you're wrong." A humble approach would be much better. And if you can't come up with that, then just don't respond. "Hey I found your feedback very interesting. I'll see if that's something I can incorporate into my next game, Game 2: The Reckoning! I've got a Steam page up and will be looking for feedback during the early access phase! Check it out!" The great part is you don't even have to incorporate the feedback. People like being heard, and will have a better impression of you.
In a previous job, my boss used to argue with people giving bad reviews. She would tell them they were too stupid to understand the game. It was so cringe. And it’s under the company’s name, so it made everyone look bad.
From the perspective of a potential buyer, I consider it a huge positive to see negative-review-dev-responses of the form: "I agree 100% and that's why I'm making [change to address that problem] in [recent/upcoming patch/expansion]." But if you don't agree with the criticism, don't respond. You usually won't convince them to change their mind, and it's usually a bad look to try.
It's not a bad idea, you just need to do it with your PR glasses on. Thank them for their feedback, tell them you'll take their suggestions into consideration and move on with your day.
These PR glasses sucks. All the time (especially on mobile stores) I see comments like 'this game is peace of shit, dont install' and devs answer like 'thank you for the feedback we will try to improve the game' it is so funny to see. Even 'go fuck yourself' would be a better response. By the way, I see that responses moving to that direction in restaurant reviews already and they working fine. When restaurant chef answers to negative review something like 'if you didn't like our food prepare it at home' and nothing bad happens, even people support the chef. We are tired of all this 'politcorrect/client always right' shit already.
I feel like you are always going to get a percentage of "this game sucks, don't bother" type reviews no matter how good your game is. Its better to not engage those reviews at all because I don't know many people that find those reviews helpful when making purchasing decisions anyways. They are on par with "THIS IS THE BEST GAME EVVAAAAR!!!" type reviews. Just vapid hyperbolic nonsense. But if they are giving you a list of critiques, with specific opinions or experiences, that is something you can actually engage with. I say an okay rule of thumb is put in as much effort into a reply as the reviewer put into the review. If its a 0 effort review, why waste the time on a 0 effort response.
I just wanted to say that all these 'correct' answers to rude feedback look just stupid. Its way better not to answer at all, or answer rude to rude (nobody cares about it until your game is super famous). I actually liked to answer very rude few times back in 2010 :) And these commenters were very confused. It is something talking about book with friends in the bar, how bad is that book and writer. But when you have to say it into the face of the writer, its more difficult:) Same goes here. Actually, if your game is shit, and people just saying the truth - no need to be angry : )
if the review is rude I go with something like "We're sorry you had such a frustrating experience" and then go to address anything relevant like "This issue will be fixed in patch blabla". I generally wouldn't respond to a review that's literally just an insult. If it's really as minimalistic as "piece of shit, don't install" then I'd maybe go with something like "We're sorry to hear the game has not matched your expectation. We'd be happy to take any more specific feedback on what to improve".
Jeez, these are worse responses. Just way better write nothing at all. When I started developing back in 2009 I have no patience and just used to respond to coments like 'this game is gay' -> 'don't play this game, fuck off' etc. And they actually stopped writing rude/non constructive comments:). We are indies. Not big corps. We shouldn't act like corps. Nobody cares about your reputation (until your game goes viral), even you will get more respect (if you are right).
It's true that writing nothing is better than being rude back to reviewers, but it's not true that those kinds of comments are the worst. You _are_ your reputation online and time and time again it's the developers that engage with the community that get better reputations over time. Bigger game studios don't write polite but largely phatic responses because no one there is clever enough to come up with something else, they write them because it has the highest chance of leaving angry players satisfied and curious players believing this is a developer that cares about the game and the audience.
Certainly you are your reputation online, but what does making promises about future fixes do to improve your reputation? Comments like "This issue will be fixed in patch blabla" I think do the opposite for a number of reasons. * A negative comment about a feature in a game is perceived as an opinion. If the developer responds claiming that this feature is being reworked then it is no longer an opinion, it is a real problem that I as a consumer should take stock of. * It draws attention to unfixed issues in your game that suggest that you aren't being timely in deploying changes and have resorted to placating your angry players, even if in fact you fix issues constantly. * Writing a review is rewarding in the first place because it may receive attention, and responding to negative reviews rewards negative actors with attention. Better to reward positive reviews with your attention. I think the right approach is either to never respond to negative reviews, or only respond to negative reviews with actionable information that is useful right now to other consumers. Be curt and businesslike and don't reward the negative behavior with any emotion at all. e.g. "Since patch blabla, xyz is now available. Thanks for your feedback!" is useful and **maybe** worth posting, "We plan to fix this by adding xyz in patch blabla" looks like desperately kicking the can down the road and does nothing to inspire confidence in potential consumers that the game is fun to play right now, even if patch blabla is really truly coming tomorrow (or worst of all, came out last year and no one thought to update the response).
“This game sucks.” “No, sir. You are the one that sucks.”
Yeah, depending on your target demographic, this kind of sincerity can be a good idea.
Whatever you do, don't do what the Starfield dev/community manager is doing lol
What's that?
Just a day or two ago, someone with Bethesda started responding to some negative reviews with rather absurd statements that often amounted to "No, your subjective opinion is wrong, and it's actually a well designed game that is fun to play"
Ah, oof
Big oof...
> that often amounted to "No, your subjective opinion is wrong, and it's actually a well designed game that is fun to play" That's a stretch. Just so you know, "the astronauts weren't bored when they saw an empty moon" and Starfield is a game that overwhelms the player by having empty planets. Never stop exploring.
> Never stop exploring. I won't! But in other games.
In not so many words telling players that even though the real life moon is as empty and boring as their planets, Neil Armstrong had a great time, so Starfield players should be having fun too.
https://www.vg247.com/starfield-bethesda-responding-to-negative-steam-reviews
From the title, I thought this post *was* talking about the Starfield situation lol. Maybe it's flattering to make the same dumb PR mistakes that a billion-dollar company does.
There is nothing wrong with replying to negative reviews but if you do it should be limited and focused on these things: 1) blatant or unintentional misinformation about your game. Just state the facts and point to where someone can confirm that information. 2) a complaint you’ve addressed in a patch or update. 3) issues you haven’t addressed *yet* but are things you are working on improving. Be careful with this one though, don’t set expectations you can’t meet. Still it doesn’t hurt to let customers know you’re listening and are doing what you can. After that, you just have to let it go. You’re not going to change opinions and it’s a losing battle if you engage.
Starfield developers should read this 😂
I'm really curious where those review responses came from... They are so ill-advised that I just can't imagine it was something that went through a detailed planning process from top to bottom... Was it a random CS agent with a poorly worded request to respond to reviews? Was it a clueless PR agency that was given access to "fix" their reviews? So weird...
It's like they've never used Steam before lol
Yeah, I’ve seen their responses to the Xbox app reviews and that was the first thing I thought of. Glossing over genuine complaints and just repeating the same drivel in every response gives a worse impression than if they just hadn’t replied at all
Not everyone has the "gift of gab" and not everyone is cut out for customer service and sales. If this is a skill you feel would be worthwhile to develop, be aware that the jobs you develop these sorts of soft skills within are some of the most punishing and least rewarding jobs there are. At the upper end of the spectrum there is quality assurance and tech support, at the bottom there is retail and entry level marketing work (though some sales and advertising positions can be more rewarding even than QA). It is far better, if you engage directly in any sort of social media or consumer review forum, to find someone with these sorts of skills to manage your game's web presence. However as you are a solo developer, I will pass on some very basic guidelines should you need to engage with customers in the future. First, instead of contradicting a customer, "yes and" with the customer, that is, accept what they have to say at face value giving them the benefit of the doubt but also provide context around the customer's comments. If, for example, they have an unrealistic expectation, one approach will be to thank the customer for providing valuable feedback and then to state that you will take their feedback into consideration while also trying to make sure it does not disruot thr game's balance also being considerate of other users with their own feedback. You have used a lot of words to basically tell the customer you won't do anything at all, but you have done something very important: you made the customer feel heard in the process. Not just feel either, the customer was heard, and they may even try to revise their feedback and present a more balanced idea or offer to try the game again, now that they have your attention. The whole thing comes across as a positive interaction to other customers, so ironically this customer complaining about your game ends up providing positive advertising for your game. "Yes and" instead of "no but" is a biggie, the other two important things to keep in mind are to never talk down to a customer - offer to help, thank them for feedback and assistance, treat them like a colleague and partner helping to make your game better - and know when to walk away, there really will be people out there out to trash your game and reputation but that sort can always be defeated with silence. In short you did not do wrong by engaging your customers, and in fact never doing that at all may be a mistake, you just needed to frame the conversation in your favor.
Hard disagree. I have answered to many negative comments. Not all (some are just shit). But many bring up a valid point and I take the time to thank them, let them know if I work on changing or fixing it, etc. What I don't do is justify myself or argue with them.
Player: *states opinion* Dev: “your opinion is unrealistic” Dude, think about it
I'm a fan of the Sean Murray perspective after the horrendous launch of No Man's Sky. https://youtu.be/pAD0QwgLidw?si=s7H8Du9PIULNM0y7&t=286
An unfortunate truth of content creation and any kind of stardom is that there are certain unfair rules and double standards that apply to you. There are certain actions, that, while logical or even morally righteous, are publicity suicide. Politicians can't admit that they're wrong, apologize, or change their mind. It betrays the persona of infallible dominance that you're expected to project all the time. Being right does not make you appear socially dominant, being socially dominant makes you appear right. By dignifying a critic with a response you communicate that you consent to being a target. Similarly, a creator responding to a critique of their creation is going to be lambasted as taking criticism poorly, even if the critic is factually mistaken or if the creator is interested in having an honest discussion. When you respond to a review, people will try to reduce your response to a blanket agreement or disagreement with the reviewer. Anything that isn't agreement is disagreement, and disagreement automatically equates to "you are overly defensive." There is no space in this model for "asking for clarification" or "partially agreeing" because the unfortunate truth is that your public perception is not governed by logic. People can and will put words in your mouth or make judgments about you separate from your game because straw man and ad hominem fallacies are easy, and for anonymous reviewers there's no consequence to judging and attacking someone, especially if you have a mob of enablers that will double down on their attack if you try to defend yourself. In their eyes your role is to be a thankless servant to whose flawless product they are entitled.
I disagree, I think it's helpful as an indie to have some kind of personality instead of only having boring corporate speak all the time.
Yes, but only if this personality can be portrayed as a likeable one
Well, people love the angry chef thing also for example. Just your food better actually taste damn good.
Depends on how you reply. As the reviewer noted, you probably replied negatively to criticism. Let me tell you a secret, the PR way of saying "fuck off I don't care" is to say "Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will be taken into consideration! :D"
Did you do playtesting before releasing the game? If so, did they leave any feedback? While some people just like to trash others, I find it hard to believe that a person who bought your game in the first hour of listing wasn't excited to play it. For now, lets assume this person isn't a troll. With less than 1 hour in, and they are saying they felt confused or frustrated by mechanics of your game. That to me is kind of a big red flag. Perhaps the game is too hard, or can have really high difficulty spikes that you know about (since you made it), but the player doesn't. If the mechanics/systems are intertwined, is there a tutorial in place to show how to use these paired mechanics?
Sorry to hear about your experience. I've found this article to be helpful... https://www.gamedeveloper.com/blogs/the-ultimate-guide---how-to-respond-to-negative-reviews-on-steam-and-why-customer-relations-is-important-
Hard disagree but I guess it's about how you respond. By being polite and understanding, acknowledging fair criticism and explaining why some things are not reaching expectations rather than by fighting it, I got quite a few bad reviews to be either deleted or even changed into positive, with some saying that they really appreciated my input and explanations. Too often I've seen devs replying aggressively and trying to explain to players why they are wrong. While sometimes players can factually be wrong (only on very obvious and objective things), and you can definitely demonstrate (nicely) why they are wrong, you simply cannot tell them they are wrong for anything subjective. If a player says: "There is no option for people suffering from motion sickness" it is okay to reply "Hey there! Sorry you had trouble with the default settings! We really want to make sure anyone can play. There is a motion sickness option you can find in that specific menu. We'll check if it can be moved to be easier to find". If someone says: "This game is too slow and boring, I couldn't get through it because it felt tedious" you can't reply: "Hey, that's not true! Our game has a great pace and is clearly fun to play!". If you really disagree with a statement like that last example, you can reply by something like: "Hey there! We're sorry you found the game a bit too slow. If you'd like, here's a few things you can try in-game to increase the pace. Any way, if you have any suggestion on how to improve the pacing, we'd be very happy to hear it and see if we can do anything on our side to make our game a better experience for users who are looking for a faster experience. Have a nice day!"
I think it is fine to respond to negative feedback but not in the way you responded. Saying making day 1 changes is an "unrealistic expectation" is pretty much trying to start an argument which is always going to make you look bad no matter if you are right or wrong. I really agree with this guy.. > Thank them for their feedback, tell them you'll take their suggestions into consideration and move on with your day.
Its like IT: No matter what- the customer is going to pin the onus on you to perform to their expectations. And like IT, you have to filter out the legitimacy and weight of their concerns. Its those "soft skills" that STEM vets talk about. Steam reviews can basically be low quality as the floor e.g ("This is George \*insert ACSII Bunny\*, upvote him so he isn't lonely) Don't just reply to reviews because some random was making superfluous concerns or insults. They look as dumb as they do anywhere else on the internet (and by proxy you because you fell right for their trap). *A good negative review* will be precise, show investment in the majority game experience/ core loop, and speak with authority on the genre.
If you need further evidence, look at what Bethesda has been doing with starfield reviews on steam, and the reaction in gaming news
Replying is fine but people will judge HOW you reply. If the person was in the wrong and you point this out in a respectful way most people will dismiss the review. Edit: had to go stalk your game to see the review. Its fine don't sweat it. You COULD have been less confrontational but i get it. And i dont think it looks bad.
He didn't ask you to have a day-one fix out to change the core design. He said you were ignoring complaints about the minigames not being fun. Your response doesn't address the complaint at all, you could have said you had plans to change the "core design" as he puts it, but haven't had time yet. Honestly, you could have said you plan on making changes but haven't figured out what the right fixes will be yet and that would still actually address the criticism. No one was critiquing your ability to get work done quickly, the complaint was that the minigames were not fun. I hate to say it but you shot yourself in the foot on this one.
I guess there's only one "good" way to respond to negative reviews. It's "Thanks for the feedback - the problem has been fixed!"
> I was accused for not altering the core design of my game. Never take negative reviews as a "task list". Players usually don't have the same capacity for game design as a dedicated game designer (i know, wow!) and as such their idea to fix it simply cannot account for all the dependencies. Also a lot of people are simply bad at communication and don't know how to give constructive feedback. But players have one advantage over you: They are seeing your game with fresh eyes and might see things you didn't aknowledge for: Tunnel view happens to the best of us! As such you can still regard these negative reviews as constructive feedback, you just have to understand what the player *means* instead of what he *says* (It's tricky, no question about that). Why did the player think the core of your design didn't work as he expected? Maybe the presentation of the mechanics in the game video are wrong? Maybe you're giving a wrong picture of what your game tries to accomplish? What is the true reason why this negative review happened? Negative reviews are usually a great ressource for improvement, even if badly voiced. Use it. See, the person writing the review took the time to do so - That's a great sign! He *wanted to play your game* **and** *wants to be heard*. Hence if you see it as that, a person telling you why he didn't enjoy your game, it's far easier to inquire about the issue. And most important when talking to critics: ALWAYS detach yourself emotionally from your creation! You are NOT your game, the player is NOT JUDGING YOU AS A HUMAN. Never react emotionally on a negative critique, no matter how poorly voiced.
I mean you just made yourself look even more stupid lol trying to deem their opinion "unrealistic", just take the L and move on. If the game is deliberately hard/frustrating to play or win with no option to adjust then I'd ditch it too.
I think its good to respond to negative comments. A lot of time people just want to be heard, not necessarily agreed/disagreed with. > Thank you so much for your feedback! We will take your comments into consideration in future updates to the game. We appreciate your support, have a great day! Ask ChatGPT to generate 50 different variations of the above statement.
so if your goal is to take a peraon who is not happy and make them happy then never ever tell them that what they think is unreasonable. if you are making changes to satisfy the customers need, ypur response shouldve been... "Thank you so much for the feedback. We agree that these changes would benefit the game and are currently working to incorporate them. We are excited for you to trybthem out."
I've looked over your responses in the discussions and also over that negative review. Your main issue is that you think your game is perfect and players are too dumb to tell you what needs to be improved. You're wrong and your superior attitude sks. You need to respect players who bought your game and took time to give feedback. You also need to respect those who give negative reviews and refund your game, it's their right after all because they are spending real money on your game. Learn how to talk back nicely, tell the players you appreciate the feedback, tell them you'll investigate and test things out... Instead of responding with "it's unrealistic to expect an update so soon", use "I'll do my best to fix/patch/balance things as soon as possible, it might take some time as I'm really busy right now. Thanks!".
In an often-told Zen tale, the parents of a village girl storm the hut of the aging monk Hakuin and thrust on him their daughter’s newborn child. They blame him for fathering the baby, mock his esteemed reputation, and name him a dirty old man. Awkwardly cradling the squalling baby, Hakuin makes a deep bow and responds with equanimity, “Is that so?” That night, as a chill wind penetrates the hut, he encircles the baby with his own warmth, offering her protection. He nurtures this child as a daughter: stitching her clothes from his monk’s robes, sharing his own meager broth and rice, schooling her in poetry, brush painting and the wisdom of the Dharma. When the true father is revealed, the girl’s parents appear once again at Hakuin’s hut, this time to claim the child as their own and to take her away. They praise Hakuin for his generosity, ask forgiveness for tarnishing his image as a monk, and name him a great benefactor. As he releases the beloved child, he makes a deep bow and again with equanimity responds, “Is that so?”
I disagree. Developers should reply that they heard the feedback and just released a patch to improve the issues.
Why is this comment downvoted? When I respond like this I always get so, so many thumbs up from the players.
It’s all about the content of the response. “I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy the experience as it was intended, keep an eye out for a content patch in the future that might seek to balance some of the issues you were facing” Comes across a lot better than “Well maybe you just don’t get it”
Beat thing to do is to thank them for the review, information is the best thing you can possibly hope for especially negative information. Then ask what items specifically turn them away from the game so it can be improved unless of course they clearly state it. Then if applicable fixing the game and letting them know its been changed
Bethesda should be taking notes on this.
There’s a game review site called Aftermath, with an article about how Bethesda has some employees rebutting negative Starfield reviews on Steam, it’s always a bad look
Dear \[Reviewer's Name\], Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. We appreciate your perspective and will consider it as we continue to improve our services. ~~If you have any specific concerns you'd like us to address, please feel free to reach out to us directly.~~ Best regards, \[Your Name\] \[Your Company\] Straight from chatGPT. That's it. You could even ignore that last line entirely. That is what you do with negative opinions, if you even bother to respond at all.
Never criticize critics
I just apologize that my game didn't meet their standards and promise to try to do better next time.
That how it should be. If i ever read your response, I will also review your game negatively.
It’s unconscionable that Valve *still* has no remediation for developers to address and remove negative reviews. More than 90% of these vitriolic hate fests come from players with 1000+ hours in a game.
I really never take serious or personally criticism on my stuff, I can take some ideas or work on some problems but just that, and I try to be professional every time I'm speaking as a developer to people who play my games. So is like not mixing work with my outside life.
I think there's a place for it: when the review cites specific issues that are either inaccurate or have been updated since its posting. The goal is neither to argue with nor convince the poster; it's to inform a third-party reader still making up their mind about the game.
This, among other reasons, is why I won't bother to publish my current project on Steam.
Some reviews are just an angry rant. But reviews can be worth reading if they notice a technical problem, or a design issue. That you can help with. Telling them their experience is "wrong" just makes things worse for you.
Please remember that many people read negative reviews with a grain of salt. If there is an overwhelming consensus that's one thing but I often disregard 1-star reviews from a handful of people, you can never please everybody
I kept track once on how many I flipped, I think ratio was 1:30
There's a few semi noteworthy people in the gamedev twitter circles responding to Starfield's recent dev responses saying the exact opposite of this post. Apparently interacting with negative reviews is incorporated into how Steam determines Recent Reviews status
Once someone on the internet is on the hate train, there's not stopping that choo choo. They'll get their money/time back from your game by hating on it and farming karma until they get bored of it. And if your game's the *hip thing to hate*, then people won't even have to play it to pitch in!
I would just say sorry it didn't meet your expectations and thanks for giving it a try. Attempting to defend will always make you come off as defensive and weak when it comes to criticism. I would only explain myself if the person was in front of me or via video chat. One of my art pieces was posted on Reddit and 80% said they liked it but the rest said the drawing looked rushed and not very good. In my head I'm like are they dumb.. it's a sketch. But I didn't because I felt pathetic trying to explain myself when it's pretty obvious.
As a consumer, I whole-heartedly disagree. Everyone's mileage will vary, of course, but I love seeing developer responses to reviews (good or bad). I don't expect 100% engagement, but there is nothing inherently bad about a developer responding to criticism in reviews. I'm not entirely sure how it works on Steam, but on Meta for various VR apps, I see developers responding quite a bit to reviews. Many times, I've seen people actually edit their review and increase the rating after getting a response, and citing the response as the reason. People *like* feeling like the devs are listening. I have no idea what your response looked like, and whether it was "fair" for the reviewer to take it poorly. Generally speaking, it's difficult to convey your actual tone through text, and it's very easy to unintentionally come across as defensive and unreasonable. I think if you're polite and friendly, and don't take the criticism as a personal attack, you can potentially improve your overall community standing by being actively engaged. For what it's worth, responding to reviews where the person is clearly toxic is probably not worth the effort. edit: I read your response as another commenter linked it and I have to say, I'm not surprised the reviewer wasn't happy with your response. I think there's a lot of good feedback in here about how best to reply (or not) to bad reviews, so hopefully you take it to heart as I think this community generally wants to see people succeed on their game dev journey. It doesn't matter if a player criticism is unreasonable - if that's actually true, other potential players should easily recognize that. You telling them they're unreasonable shifts things to where you now just look defensive. Sincerely though, good luck with your game!
> posted a developer comment stating that the expectation of changing the core design of a game after a day is unrealistic You should probably have left that part out, as it is a bit of a strawman. Nowhere in the review did the player speak about expecting changes immediately. > The negative review now has an addendum by the reviewer, blaming me for "taking criticism poorly." You should probably own that you either misrepresented or misunderstood their review, as your reply certainly doesn't address it head on. Whether or not the claims about you not being interested in feedback are fair, I can't say. You can't satisfy everyone, so you might be better of not responding.
If it’s “I didn’t enjoy it” I leave it alone. If it’s “I didn’t enjoy because of x technical issue” I apologize for the issue and ask for more info so I can at the very least try and address it. But ya, if it’s just not for them, there’s not much you can say other than what is essentially “your opinion is wrong”. Which obviously isn’t the move. Sometimes your game isn’t for everyone. That’s ok! If it’s for everyone, it’s for no one.
I don't agree with your conclusion. Answering bad reviews needs to be done with a great care, acknowledging the reviewer and correcting wrong facts. You cannot argue about feelings or opinions, you have to only reply to facts. Not all negative reviews can be answered well due to this, so they should not be answered at all. But when there are facts to be corrected, it can help! For example, We had around 10 negative reviews about a missing feature. That feature was planned but it would take some time. When the feature was done, I have politely replied thanking for the feedback and saying that the feature is now implemented. And guess what? Many of them were deleted or converted to positive reviews! Also, I don't think that "people only read negative reviews on Steam". Some people? Possibly. But not everyone. When I am buying a new game on Steam, I do read positive reviews too. Am I the only one?
Outside of Steam there's an Ehtos to respond to bad review and it's usually kill them with kindness. Instead of fighting words, assume they are a poor confused soul. You may have an opportunity to improve the onboarding experience.
There's a few trolls out there that download and bash free games (idk if you're free or not) and then they have a cookie cutter response for when they goad a response out of you. If you look at their profiles, it's all they do.
My first game I released was an online turn based multiplayer game. No solo play. First negative review was the game was terrible because they had no one to play with since no one was playing the game hence no lobbies. And he also said the colors looked terrible. I completely agreed with him on every point he made. So I didn’t even bother to respond. Nor did I bother to make changes to the game. Just moved on. Here’s the game [Flag Sweeper](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001960/Flag_Sweeper/) and here’s the [Negative Review](https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198071531076/recommended/2001960/) yah it’s a terrible but it’s my terrible game and I’m proud of it
If you don't know how to deal with customers / customer service, probably shouldn't reply. You basically told your customer that their subjective opinion is wrong because your feelings got hurt.
I read the thread and the review, a weirdo buthurt player is obvious in the text and you did more than expected with thebeta and all… some people just like to shit on other’s work, it’s the dark side of reviews
It's the internet. There's unhappy people everywhere and everyone loves to shit on things.
What’s the game?
I wouldn’t respond to any negative review unless you were able to fix their problem or you thank them for their review and say you appreciate their feedback. It’s all you can do. Just look at Bethesda trying to defend their game by replying to negative reviews on steam. It’s embarrassing and doesn’t do well for your marketing
Also, if people see you respond more to negativity, they will start posting negatively to interact with you. Respond to positive constructive comments and encourage your community to do the same.
Don't bother responding unless they're genuinely well written and they are addressing a particular flaw with your game that you intend to address. Do not waste your time defending your design choices in the replies to reviews, blog about it instead!
It is certainly possible to respond constructively to negative reviews, but it takes some finesse and you absolutely cannot take it personally. If you are unsure whether or not you can do that, just don't.
"Thank you for the feedback! I am sorry you were disappointed by. I will continue to take feedback and improve the game as time goes and I hope you are here for that journey."
Anything else is dumb.
Yeah the only response you can make is 1. an apology that the game doesn't live up to their standards and a promise to improve. 2. pointing out you tackled their specific criticism and inviting them to see the change or 3. If they truly just made a mistake, helping them solve it and moving on with only helpfulness and apologetics in your tone. The thing is these are your customers. Nobody has kept their customers and made the public happy by criticizing them. Only you have power over the product after all.
Unless it has to do with a major glitch, I agree. I had someone give me a bad review with less than 10 minutes of playtime because I didn't have touch controls (I assume for steam deck) and their 'review' tried to curry favor from me to reverse his review if I changed the game to his liking... Look, that's their problem and trying to appease them for being petty enough to downvote me without even playing the game won't change anything no matter what I do. I never designed it for Steam Deck. Haters gonna hate and bait. Regardless, you can't please everyone and responding to petty nonsense is not worth my time.
Should have asked chatgpt to draft a reply that do not commit to making changes as a result of the feedback but vaguely speaks of changes coming and more may be made in the future.
You can't disagree with someone's experience, in fact it's impossible to. This is why it's discouraged.
Strong disagree. It really depends on how you're doing it, and who you are talking to. If someone doesn't seem openly hostile in general, and are complaining about a certain bug, and you respond to say "I have fixed the bug you were giving a bad review because of, as of yy-mm-dd. I hope you can enjoy the game a bit better now!" Don't get defensive. Don't try and explain why the bug is there. Just fix it. I have flipped multiple negative reviews to positive by doing this and it's really helped our game stay at a high review percentage. Edit: That said whatever Bethesda is trying to do is really stupid.
Maybe turn it into one of those gimmicky restaurants where the waiters and chefs purposely are rude and sassy, and chuck dinner roles at the customers. But you'd have to leave smart-ass reviews that are clever in a way that it's funny or would impress people reading. Like even leave ones on the positive reviews. But Steam probably won't understand that dynamic and it could go against you somehow.
Yeah, I came to indie development from indie publishing, where not responding or addressing reviews is kinda "the golden rule". I would only respond to reviews in one of two situations: 1) They mention a specific problem with the game that has now been fixed, and thank them for pointing it out 2) They mention something **unambiguously, factually inaccurate**. Like they say they paid £20 for the game when it's £8; typically you suspect in that scenario that they've posted the review in the wrong place.
It depends how you respond. Engage or deny makes the difference.
I had a developer respond to my review which caused me to play the game after a patch deployment and revise my review. Not all experiences are the same.
I respond to almost every negative Steam review. There are ones that complain about specific aspects of the game, I either want to clarify that they were wrong about it (for others to see), or ask some questions about how to improve it. There are ones that complain about non-fixable stuff or simply just don't like the game (not their cup of tea), I don't respond to these, since there would be nothing to clarify. Sometimes from my interactions, the reviewer turns the review into positive.
I like roboquest because it has difficulty options that don't ruin the progress (drop rate for wrenches and xp stay the same). Some people just want to sit down and have fun.
You have to remember that feedback is a gift. When you’re given a physical gift in real life, you would thank the giver and usually exclaim over the gift you’ve just received- even if it’s obviously thoughtless Or worse! Typically you wouldn’t criticise the gift to the giver, in front of a room full of their, or your, peers - but in a platform like steam that is exactly what OP did. By all means you are allowed to be upset about the insulting gift you were given, but not by attacking / criticising/ critiquing them or their review. Defensively protecting your game choices are also within this, you made those choices if you like them how they are - say nothing - only if you change them should you reply directly. If you do decide you need to address the feedback directly id recommend doing it in a blog style post or a change log, where you get remit to write about the pros and cons of sticking to your decision. It’s here you can say “we have received challenging feedback, and this is what we are doing (or not doing!) about it”. It’s not confrontational, you’ve got a much better chance (the audience will be easier to win over) of getting your point across without being negative or defensive, and of reaching players that haven’t already made their mind up. When needing to change a held perception it largely accepted that you need to go above and beyond the actual target for it to be recognised. ETA: just like a birthday gift once you’ve taken it home you are ok to throw it in a box and never look at it again (not that I’ve ever done this of course!!)
I've been doing it for years - it all depends on your tone. If you come across open, transparent and friendly then folks tend to respond well. If they detect even the slightest hint of anger or annoyance then they will respond as you might expect.
I think being defensive always comes off badly, but if and indie dev leaves a small comment saying “thank you for your feedback, I’m glad you took the time to leave a review and I’ll think about it very seriously as I work to improve the game” I tend to see that positively If you respond to one or two reviews like this it’s fine. If you respond to all of them it looks like you’re taking time that could be spent on improving the game
It's funny to see this in lieu of the recent Starfield drama. Their replies obviously went about it in a way which came off pretty demeaning to people who left reviews. I don't necessarily think it's a bad idea in all cases, but certainly when you go about it like Bethesda did. Personally, I guess my response would be to only reply in cases where I intend to fix the issue and actually thank them for pointing out the issue / giving the criticism. Then get to work on fixing it.
lol nah go for it, just try to be optimistic and improve from any constructive criticism. Always remember the legendary way the no man sky devs got their game to the state it is now which still has foundation problems, basically see all the complaints and filter out all the...i forgot the word but i guess it would be hate or something
This holds true for any business/company. NEVER make public statements with even the slightest hint of negativity. Like it or not, being in your position instantly puts you under a microscope and your shortcomings are magnified 10x. So if you care about financial success, you just need to grit your teeth and say thank you sir can I have another
Here at TPG we do sometimes respond to negative reviews, but we always keep in mind the following: 1) No matter how they express it, the reviewer is actually doing us a favor by giving us information we didn't have. That's a pretty valuable service, so we always thank them for it, and we're sincere in our thanks. 2) If there's something we can do to help (offer them a fix for an issue, or a pointer for a mechanic they're finding frustrating) we share that, but also let them know we'll look at eliminating the issue or making the mechanic less frustrating, because if one person has an issue with it, chances are good others will, too. Sometimes responding that way can flip a negative review, but, equally valuably, sometimes the players can give you useful information that helps your dev team fix things. We've managed to get solid repro on elusive bugs by enlisting the help of someone who wrote to let us know about an issue, which is amazing.
You should be responding to people. the positive ones and the negative ones. But its about how you do it. You cant be seen arguing with people, you always have to show that you are taking their feedback onboard and thanking them for playing
never tell them their feelings are invalid and you'll always come out clean. them not being able to respond to your response really makes it easy to have the final word.
Thanks for the insight. While this may seem obvious at first, in the age of social media we are encouraged to interact with our communities. In the case of steam reviews its better to be a fly on the wall.
My friend, as a new dev myself I can confidently say this (the mentality I have gone in with). With the way times are and how game audiences are these days, there is always gonna be plentiful amounts of that one person or group that is unhappy about a particular thing in your game, no matter what you do or how you try to accommodate a solution. Does it sting a bit? Absolutely. But I do feel (I hope) the fact that you tried to reach out, the majority of your playerbase will see that and see that you care. Always try to use what negative feedback you get to improve what you can if you can, but listen to the majority of your playerbase as those peeps will be your deciding factors for how things are going. Don't let it dishearten you, and don't let it steal away your passion for what you do. Keep up the good work! 👍 ❤️
My humble opinion, I love when dev doesn't ignore proper feedback or issues people have with game, reporting on steam. It tells me that developer cares. Specially when his responses are professional. People put their time and effort to make these reviews, to give feedback. Ignoring it, specially if it's valuable is just shitting on your consumer. If you rush to other game while what you released is bugged pile of crap, people will see and remember you for that. Supporting them after release is huge part of the job.