{"id":18803,"date":"2023-05-10T17:20:13","date_gmt":"2023-05-10T08:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=18803"},"modified":"2023-05-10T17:20:14","modified_gmt":"2023-05-10T08:20:14","slug":"20230510-18803","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20230510-18803\/","title":{"rendered":"Do game devs prefer high sales with bad reviews or vice versa?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><br><br>A question posed by one game developer to other developers on Twitter has been gaining a lot of attention: \u201cWould you rather have 1 million people play your game, but 75% of players give it a negative\/not recommended review, or only 100 people play your game in total, but they are all massive fans and love what you&#8217;ve created?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The question comes from Ori Mees, Junior Development Manager at Firesprite. In a follow up tweet, she clarified some assumptions regarding the question, stating, \u201cFor those asking if the million players bought your game (in this hypothetical question) &#8211; Yes, but at a normal\/reasonable price for your game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">For those asking if the million players bought your game (in this hypothetical question) &#8211; Yes, but at a normal\/reasonable price for your game<\/p>&mdash; Ori Mees (@Legend_Ori) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Legend_Ori\/status\/1655327185987682308?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 7, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Based on the replies, there are many developers who prefer the situation where one million people play their game, but 75% give it a negative review. There are varying reasons for this, with one developer <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/valensiyagames\/status\/1655320688947785732\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">saying<\/a>, \u201cif only 75% gave it a bad review that means that 250,000 people liked, loved, or indifferenented my game. Surely out of 250,000 100 people will love it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another gave the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Rolling_Crown\/status\/1655484848214032384\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">opinion<\/a> that \u201cMaking a good game that just gets ignored is incredibly depressing, and as others have said, 1 million sales = no financial worries anymore. Also, in the million players case, you&#8217;d probably get more than 100 people who liked it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Having one million people buy your game would most likely result in substantial revenue, even in the worst-case scenario where 75% of players had their purchase refunded. This would mean that the money they make could go toward living costs and could even be used as funding for their next game. In that sense, it\u2019s easy to see the appeal of \u201cone million players with 75% bad reviews\u201d when faced with the decision between the two scenarios proposed by Mees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some developers felt that the bad reviews could be seen as a good thing. In the hypothetical situation where 75% of reviews are negative, this could mean that there are some major flaws in the game. The reviews would essentially act as feedback on the game\u2019s problems, something that would be very valuable to the developers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I would prefer the million of angry players. Because if 75% of them left a negative review then it is because I fucked something up as a designer, and that is very important feedback.<\/p>&mdash; MrZed\u2503 \ud83d\udd1e (@MrZedgames) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MrZedgames\/status\/1655507143280279552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 8, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>On the other hand, there were also developers who believe that a strong negative reception would be the less desirable outcome, with one <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SabrPath\/status\/1655590065815314433\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">commenting<\/a>, \u201cReputation is valuable and hard to repair. Would rather have a failure in marketing than to have a failure in shipping a quality product.\u201d Such a great number of negative reviews means that there are probably major issues with the game, and it calls into question whether it should have been released in that state to begin with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One developer seems to have experienced such a situation themselves, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/johnfredcee\/status\/1655466389291913218\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">saying<\/a>, \u201cHaving already faced something resembling the first scenario somewhat, I\u2019d definitely go for the second.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are also a number of developers who are fine with not selling many copies and would rather have players really enjoy their game. One developer <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/erdbeerscherge\/status\/1655437883505881089\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a>, \u201cI know that the thing I am doing now is incredibly niche and not without flaws, but it&#8217;s a labor of love and a very personal thing. I can always try doing sth. more universally marketable after.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">75% of 1M is a lot, i\u2019d rather getting 100 positive reviews, they\u2019ll lead me to 1M downloads someday \ud83d\ude09<\/p>&mdash; XSGames (by Frank Eno) (@xsgames_) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/xsgames_\/status\/1655606036613545987?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 8, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>There was one developer who was split between the two choices, seeing each as beneficial in a different way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">As a creator I would go with the 100.<br><br>As a person needing to afford to live I would go with the 1 million.<\/p>&mdash; David Olson \ud83c\udf49\ud83c\udf49\ud83c\udf49\ud83c\udf49 (@The_GingerSheep) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/The_GingerSheep\/status\/1655320311028654081?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 7, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Although there are some developers who prefer the scenario where only 100 people play their game but passionately support it, the vast majority would take 1 million sales and the 75% of bad reviews that come with it. Which situation is preferable appears to be heavily dependent on the person, but Mees\u2019 question shows that it\u2019s quite a difficult dilemma for many game developers.<br><br><br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:12px\"><em>Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/articles\/newsjp\/20230510-246779\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">original Japanese article<\/a> (original article&#8217;s publication date: 2023-05-10 10:34<\/em> <em>JST)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do game devs prefer high sales with bad reviews or a few diehard fans? A question posed by one game developer to other developers on Twitter has been gaining a lot of attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":18805,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-18803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-global-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Do game devs prefer high sales with bad reviews or vice versa? - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Do game devs prefer high sales with bad reviews or a few diehard fans? 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