Game Developer Defends Negative Review Of Their Game

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I am not up to speed on the "conspiracy theory" surrounding this story and I haven't played the game yet, but this is the first time I have ever seen a game company (or any company for that matter) come to the defense of a reviewer that gave their product a negative review. That definitely says something about the company.


Finally, we'd like to go on record and say that we value the freedoms of critics to make any review they see fit. It's best for the consumer and, ultimately, best for us. Although we may in some cases disagree or be disappointed by a review, this doesn't detract from the fact that reviewers should have absolute freedom to give their own opinions of a game, free from external duress of any kind.
 
Apparently it's very similar to Endless Space, on the Europa Universalis engine.
 
I have to respect the developer for standing up for someone that gave them a negative review rather than trying to suppress negative reviews. It's probably a PR move that plays better than attacking the press, sure, but they're showing that they know how the business works and that in this day and age, you can't really hide bad quality easily.
 
I just bought the game. Probably won't play it longer than and hour to see whats up (didn't look like my cup of tea), but any company that will publicly support freedom of speech even when its against them should be rewarded imo. voting with my wallet.
 
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Their reply if nothing more than a PR stunt. "Look at us, we don't mind a bad review, hope this goes viral, please buy this game"
 
I'd like to see a dev honestly address criticisms, rather than just playing the good guy dev with a nice, blanket statement that says nothing of the specifics of their understanding of the criticisms and what they intend to do in the future with those criticisms in mind.
 
I appreciate the developer accepting a bad review. I work in the software development field - it's tough to make great software. It's also tough to see someone rip you a new one over something you put blood, sweat, and tears into. Best thing you can do is accept the negative feedback, consider it for something you can fix in a next version (which is not always feasible), and move on.
 
Ocellaris said:
Their reply if nothing more than a PR stunt. "Look at us, we don't mind a bad review, hope this goes viral, please buy this game"
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Well, if we continue with your line of thinking, let's just argue everything is a PR stunt.

You have to draw the line somewhere. But then again, everything I wrote was actually just a PR stunt, so what do I know

(Also the game is Top Seller on Steam, not sure if they are really looking for shady conspiracy theory ways to boost sales of something that seems to already be saturating it's intended market. But it is so fun and warm to assume our crackpot ideas are not only correct, but we are so much smarter than everyone else to have them, and other's should just realize that.)
 
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Kalabalana said:
Well, if we continue with your line of thinking, lets just argue everything is a PR stunt.

You have to draw the line somewhere. But then again, everything I wrote was actually just a PR stunt, so what do I know

(Also the game is Top Seller on Steam, not sure if they are really looking for shady conspiracy theory ways to boost sales of something that seems to already be saturating it's intended market)
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But it is a PR stunt. It doesn't matter that the game was already a top seller on steam, there's no reason for a developer to make a statement like that unless it's to try and draw more attention to their product.
 
Merc1138 said:
But it is a PR stunt. It doesn't matter that the game was already a top seller on steam, there's no reason for a developer to make a statement like that unless it's to try and draw more attention to their product.
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They were kind of pressured into commenting by fans. There was some pretty massive outcry towards that review and a bunch of people shitting on the reviewer, IGN, and really everything related to it. So, of course, it's playing a nice guy but that's an attitude they've taken from day one. They've never been assholes publicly and have always treated the people they deal with well. You can claim everything a company does is a PR stunt, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing.
 
It's a bold strategy Cotton, let's see if it pays off for them.
 
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Seemed like a classy move to me. No, it certainly did not hurt PR, being classy seldom does, but the game is already supposedly selling well, why not be magnanimous, or at least appear to be.
 
Kalabalana said:
Apparently it's very similar to Endless Space, on the Europa Universalis engine.
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Yes and no. Most modern 4X games tend to be an amalgamation of ideas from different games. There's some Endless Space, Endless Legend, some bits of MOO (of course), some concepts taken from EUIV, and so on. Like Endless Space you don't control ships during battle, but thankfully it doesn't use ES' combat system. The combat is very much like CK2 or EUIV. How you learn tech is similar to tech in EUIV but also combining the resource gathering of 4X games.
 
Ocellaris said:
Their reply if nothing more than a PR stunt. "Look at us, we don't mind a bad review, hope this goes viral, please buy this game"
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I disagree, regardless of their motivations, their actions still count.

"Sir, thank you so much for climbing that tree and rescuing my Fluffy".

"Don't think anything of it mam, I just needed an excuse for some good exercise, my FITBIT said I was behind my target".

Still saved the cat, still saved the old lady from an unhappy day.
 
Ocellaris said:
Their reply if nothing more than a PR stunt. "Look at us, we don't mind a bad review, hope this goes viral, please buy this game"
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Even if it's a stunt, it's more like an Evel Knievel stunt that makes you want to cheer for them.
 
There is a group (or groups) of people on steam that will purposely give a game a bad review then all upvote the same bad votes.

They do this for trolling which is a shame because it can actually hurt people financially.
 
Ocellaris said:
Their reply if nothing more than a PR stunt. "Look at us, we don't mind a bad review, hope this goes viral, please buy this game"
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d6f.jpg


And that is a BAD thing?
 
The game has already crushed their previous day 1 sales records. The commotion was because this lone review was rather low compared to other reviews and compared to the reviewers' past scores for the other similar Paradox games. It didn't help that the score was associated with IGN. So they came out and tried to set a mature example for some of the fanbase. It's just nice to see someone is trying to set a mature example. Strong lack of that in every aspect of society.
 
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