The developer of a popular dungeon-crawling word game has addressed Steam users who leave casual reviews assuming they won’t impact the overall rating.
Paul Hart, co-creator of Cryptmaster, recently shared a screenshot of a Steam review that was marked as negative despite praising the game. The review stated, “This game is amazing, but it has a VERY niche target audience. I marked it as ‘not recommend’ so that complainers and haters are aware of what to expect. Also, because 1 negative review won’t affect the game’s ranking.”
While the user was technically correct, Cryptmaster still maintains an ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ rating on Steam. However, Hart revealed that this single review did lower the percentage of positive reviews to 95%. It has since risen to 97%, likely due in part to the response to Hart’s tweet. At the time of the tweet, that one review almost caused the game’s Steam rating to drop from ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ to ‘Very Positive’.
“Charming sentiment but rather amusingly this review did in fact drop us to 95%, so almost out of Overwhelmingly Positive. Unless you have a game which sells a LOT of copies, which unfortunately we don’t, one review certainly can make a difference…”
Hart makes a valid point. Leaving a negative review for a game you enjoy can have a significant impact on the success of developers who rely on financial support. Cryptmaster has received less than 1,000 reviews since its launch, while a more mainstream title like the Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, has over 50,000 Steam reviews shortly after release. This highlights how a single review can carry a lot of weight for a niche title.
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