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The Steam review system has become entirely destructive and counter-productive for indie devs. I've seen so many great games lately tanked by one bad review from someone who just didn't "vibe" with the game and couldn't keep quiet. Only takes 1 bad one on launch day to ruin years of work!

And this seems to be true even of studios with previous popular titles, or back by publishers. If you got 10 reviews in the first hour and 1 was bad, goodbye release 👋 I think Steam need to change the system around this tbh, you can't change the reviewers - but you can change the impact they have.

I wish all the stores (Steam and mobile) provided a way for devs to provide a bug reporting and feedback link that can be shown to people about to write a review. We see and address bugs a lot faster when they’re actually reported through the proper channels.

This seems like such a good idea considering how many negative reviews I've seen that were really just bug reports 🙄

I mean I disagree with some of that. Yes a bad review is bad at the start, but the users who ate going to buy the game should be informed of the current state of the game, not the future. I think reviews should inform you if they were made in the latest update of the game, that might help

Unfortunately, many people will leave a negative review and you can see developers replying that it was fixed, but they never change their review ever? These people moved on, but the developer is left with the immense damage they've caused to their careers

I did try to create a possible solution in my next post, but to be fair, it is a though topic to find a solution for it. The player shouldn't be forced to update their review just because the game updates, but a review that is no longer valid shouldn't count