Support NeoGAF

[Drizzlehell]

Let me preface this by saying that I don't mean to pass judgment on the developers or present this matter in either positive or negative light. It's just something that never happened to me before so I was wondering if any of you have seen it before, how common it is, and what you guys generally think about the practice.

So recently I posted a negative review on Steam about VR game Hubris, where I tried to highlight both positives and negatives, but overall I was leaning more towards the negative. You can read the whole thing below:

Spoiler

It's one of the less common examples of a VR game with triple-A level of visual fidelity, although unfortunately, it is this game's only positive quality. It's very prone to bugs, like for example, it was the first ever VR game for me where I clipped through the floor and fell into the void. These bugs led to a lot of frustration, especially when it meant reloading a save and having to repeat physically demanding sections (and believe me, it ain't much fun for a fat bastard like me).

The combat is also very basic and rarely exciting, largely due to generic looking enemies that are basically lobotomized clones of each other. It's not uncommon to see a group of them come to investigate a body of a guy that you just shot, and stare at the floor while you pick them off from behind cover. Games from the early 2000s had better AI than this. A VR corridor shooter with functional physics collisions is the bare minimum of fun that this game provides, and it's as fun as always to peek from around corners to pop off a few shots and duck back into cover, but that's about all that you can expect from the combat. There are also some other mechanics that add some variety, such as climbing and swimming, which is fine if you have the stamina for it but my favorite non-combat interaction usually involved stuffing your face with pastry and downing it with energy drinks.

It would be nice if the game played some action music during action scenes too. It's possible that the devs simply went for a more immersive experience which is fair, but this is that one instance where I wouldn't mind some tunes to liven things up because the alternative is a rather flat and anemic soundscape that mostly consists of some droning ambient sounds and PEW PEW of constant laser gun shots. It's not Half-Life Alyx where you can get away with having no music because that game was just so engrossing and had a rich sound design.

It's not a bad game but the bugs and rather basic gameplay make it a bit disappointing. If you only care about playing something with nice graphics and you already played all of the superior VR shooters then go for it, but otherwise it's a nope from me.

Interestingly enough, my review attracted the attention of the developer, who thanked me for the feedback and promised that the criticisms will be addressed in the upcoming update, and sure enough, a couple of weeks later they released a huge update for the game. Now, I haven't gotten around to playing it after the update was out, but today my review was commented on again twice by the developer, who encouraged me to try it again, and if my opinion on the game changed to more favorable, they asked if would I consider updating my negative review.

Now, I don't really think there's anything wrong with this, but it just took me by surprise because after writing close to 200 reviews on Steam, none of them were ever addressed in such a personal manner, so that's cool I guess. Kudos to them for being such good sports about a negative opinion about something that they no doubt put a lot of work into, only for some nerd to shit all over it.

I'm kinda curious now if any of you ever had something like that happen to you and what did you think about it? Did it convince you to update the review to a more positive one?

 

[Ulysses 31]

Responding to feedback and constructive criticism doesn't seem bad to me.

 

[Jigsaah]

I think developer's are uniquely qualified to do this honestly. Better than review bombing, which has no substance at all.

 

[Punished Miku]

I like it. I see smaller devs do this a lot on the Xbox store reviews too. Just reminds you that there's a real person there making the games. Nothing wrong with it.

 

[Black_Stride]

Smaller developers do this all the time, even on the Xbox store because those reviews can really hurt or help the game.
I believe Callisto Protocol also had devs on deck to respond to reviews and issues.
It makes things seem less like a machine corporation made the game and that there are actually people who work on these things who care what you think and are willing to listen to make things better.


EA Help, Xbox Support and Ask Playstation will often contact you directly if you have an issue with their products.
It makes things alot more personal because you dont feel like you are just shouting into the ether.......Ive even felt bad because theyve been so polite back that i feel like an asshole because clearly the msg was forwarded to their desk and they are told "deal with this" and here I am making their day worse because my DLC didnt unlock when I expected it too.(My account was set to a different time zone)


And respect to all the community managers out there.....this video sums up there job perfectly.

 

[ssringo]

I think an exchange like the one you outlined is great. The negative review was constructive, the dev was responsive to the criticism and their followup was appropriate. I hope you do give it another shot and update your review as needed.

I've had 2 dev interactions with a review/criticism I left. One with River City Girls 2 after the botched PC launch regarding the 30fps lock that I saw as positive (at the time anyways). The other was for a game I can't remember the name of off the top of my head in which the overhead camera movement felt bad. The dev responded and changed it. The game was okay but unfortunately it bombed super hard. Like 4 reviews and maybe 6 forum threads. Felt bad for the dev.

 

[Spyxos]

The small developers do it often. The big ones probably have to wait for their Pr department first to see if they're allowed to say anything at all.

 

[DaGwaphics]

Depends on how it's done. If they can do it in a personalized way the optics aren't bad.

Not a fan of the copy & paste responses that get stamped onto every bad review though, think Amazon or Newegg. LOL

 

[supernova8]

Sounds like a totally civil and highly constructive interaction. No different from when you buy something on Amazon and it breaks, you leave a negative review and then the seller reaches out and replaces it with a working product and then you update your review saying "OK it broke the first time but customer service was great and I got a working product -> updating my review from 3 stars to 4 (or 5) stars etc.

Even if you don't have the time (or simply cannot be bothered) to play the game again, you could at least add a line at the top of your review (to make it visible) outlining said interaction with the developer and possibly bumping up your review slightly to reflect it.

Your choice, of course.

 

[Hudo]

For smaller devs, I can understand, they just shouldn't get too invested because most "fans" are retards.

For bigger devs, this task should be relegated to community managers who, ideally, have at least some form of media training or training with how to interact with customers. Devs should never directly talk/respond to fans. X, formerly known as Twitter, is a perfect example of the shitshows that happen when both sides talk to each other directly.

 

[Filben]

Not really common but it happens, especially with small games.

But honestly, if a developer would personally ask me to try again their game I'd do so. Because it such a rare sight in this business where typically only a mass audience is addressed, typical via unsocial media channels like twitter etc that one on one interaction is pretty rare.

I made comments on the discussion board of two Indie games and each dev took their time to respond and even explain why they do thing. I thanked them for their honesty and their time. Can't deny it, it is simply a great feeling to be heard.

 

[El Muerto]

Feedback is important, it's better they respond rather than just ignoring the negative reviews. I maybe left 5 negative reviews on Steam, and had 2 developers respond. Bought one game that required a sign-in and you couldnt create new accounts for about 24hours, dev responded saying their sign up server was down. Bought Crypt of the Necrodancer, could not get it to run, dev responded with steps on how to fix but still didnt work, got a refund. Game still isnt patched afaik. I also bough The Greyhill Incident, tons of negative reviews when it launched. The dev thanked everyone for the feedback and released several updates.

 

[ahtlas7]

I like to see negative reviews acknowledged especially if the review has merit. This shows, at least, concern for the product (game, restaurant, hotel, etc). What I don’t like to see is the feedback ignored. Nothing puts me off a place more than to see a customer takes the time to add a negative critique with merited points that goes ignored by the business.

 

[Saber]

I don't think so, as long its a critical stuff or some bug or fix that may help the devs. I'm aways fan of devs who can listen to valid criticism as opposed to the social dumbass followers and automated generated feedbacks.

 

[Wildebeest]

I don't think it is a great practice to individually thank people for feedback unless they are playtesters who are going to be listed in the credits somewhere. It is obvious that some community driven games listen to feedback and might even have considered your feedback, or even have implemented ideas you suggested pretty much as you imagined, but it is very unusual to be called out or thanked.

 

[Knightime_X]

Of course it makes sense to change the review if the issues making it negative are fixed.

 

[Miyazaki’s Slave]

The impact 1 star reviews have over 5 star reviews (for self published titles) is criminally unbalanced. As a dev you have got to respond to those one start reviews and try to turn those around. The amount of 5 star reviews that you get with ZERO context (folks just drop a thumbs up or a 5 star rating and don't leave any reason for that rating) also hurts when you look at the number of comments that are given with a 1 star rating.

If you are an indie dev and do not have a marketing budget you can use to harvest a ton of players to dull the impact of the bad reviews, almost 85% of your time post launch can be spent reacting to reviews, appreciating feedback*, and working to turn those frowns upside down.

If you are a person that does leave reviews please leave comments as well. It is insanely helpful. If you leave a review, that review gets reacted to, and you change your review....please leave EVEN MORE comments as those tend to grab other potential users attention as they are scrolling through the comment section.

Thanks in advance

 

[ReBurn]

I like it when they argue

 

[Drizzlehell]

I played all the way through the game last night. They actually managed to polish it up so much that I didn't even notices how the time flew by. Previously I would get interrupted quite often by annoying bugs or crashes and give up on playing it any further but now everything went very smoothly. It was also pleasantly surprising to discover that many of the things that I mentioned in my review were already in the works for this big update so overall, props to the developers for continuously improving the game.

In the end, I've updated my review to a positive one. They've earned it.