“Sticks and Stones may hurt my bones, but words may never hurt me”
Child’s Expression
Since starting my work in the Games Industry, I have been in touch with numerous game developers from all over the world, you can easily say that I have been in contact with over 500 gamedevs from different cultures, religions and backgrounds. But what is one thing they all have in common?
They don’t know what to do when the reviews pour in.
Most of the developers I have worked with were either working on or releasing their first commercial game, and with commercial games comes social contact. And while you, as game developer know how much blood, sweat and tears you put in your game, someone behind the screen will sometimes not be able to imagine that there is a human behind your game.
Your game might still be very positively received, there might be some players standing out. Next to responding to those odd ones out, it’s also a great thing to reply to the good reviews!
Try to stay polite and learn how to say "Thank you!"
As commercial games mostly get released on Steam, you have numerous encounters with your players either through the Steam Forums, or through Steam Reviews. And while they both are important, it’s also important to be prepared and to not let it get to you.
- Don't look a gift horse in the mouth; Even though some feedback might not be of importance to you, it could still be relevant in the future.
- Stay polite; In most situations you can be most helpful by staying polite and trying to figure out what the player is describing, without trying to protect your stance.
- Say "Thank you!"; The player most of the time wants to be heard and acknowledged, saying thank you and that you will look at it, but maybe won't implement it, will already be a huge step in the right direction.
- Prepare for the storm; You might get a lot of questions or feedback that you want to respond to, releasing a game doesn't mean you are done with it yet. Be sure to reach out to friends for help answering the forums.
There are a couple of ‘don’ts’ that you should not be doing when replying to your customers. Never reply with a no, but rather explain why. Try to think as your players, why are they feeling this way, why are they strongly expressing something?
Even when their feedback or review is not in a polite way, be sure that you do respond in a polite way, because a lot more people are reading. As developer response are public, people who check the reviews can still decide to buy a negative game if the developer has a good response, or of course, the other way around.
Do not contact a Curator, reviewer or user privately to ask them to turn around a review, this questions their legitimacy. And while you can strongly feel that someone is wrong, try to ask them why they felt that way when writing their findings.
You can also help turn your reviews around, someone who might express themselves strongly against something as their might for example be bugs in your game, can always change their review to a positive when interacting helpful with them as the developer.
Bram Steenhuis
Editor-In-Chief
Bram has been in the Influencer Industry since 2018 and joined the Games industry since 2020. With his experience in playtesting, operations and marketing he has the pieces to your games puzzle.