How to deal with the Haters?

I’ve been creating games for months now and publishing them on android platform (play store). I usually get 3-4 stars rating, but there’s always one guys who give it a one star and utterly negative review, he doesn’t even get specific on what part of the game he found to be terrible, “Bad game” is too vague.

Could anyone share any tips?

If a particular hater has genuine criticism, than take it to heart, and see if you can integrate their insights into future efforts. (or even possibly in a patch for your current effort) If the hater in question is just being a troll, and hasn’t contributed any comments or critiques of meaningful value, than ignore them. Someone who doesn’t like your game, and gives decent reasoning why, that is feedback. Someone who provides nothing but vitriol is simply a troll, and can be safely ignored without guilt.

Don’t try to remove their review, don’t call them out or contact them. Just ignore them. They want attention, and acknowledging their presence in any way will just give them fuel. If you try to stop them from posting or reviewing, it will just give them justification for complaining that their voice is being silenced. Don’t engage. Don’t feed the trolls.

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Can’t please everyone

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I’m just starting out with unity, it really affects me and other beginners who are just starting out, when these trolls write such reviews, it impacts the store listing of our games.

If it had been a more specific feedback, I could have worked on it, but phrases like “Bad Game”, “Don’t download” or “Uninstalling immediately” are useless and leave bad impressions on the user who just landed on your game page.

True

Welcome to doing business.

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There will always be silly/dumb/troll people giving bad reviews with or without reasons no matter and no matter what the product is. 1 star review because the player had a bad day and died on the first level, 1 star review for a jacket because it makes someone look fat when the light hits from the wrong angle, 1 star restaurant because the water had bubbles in it or a 1 star review for a VR only game because the purchaser could not afford a VR headset :stuck_out_tongue:

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All of this is true. But you just have to suck it up, and move on. Attempting to control or throttle feedback, even negative, obviously pointless feedback, always backfires on the developer. Don’t give yourself further headaches. Just ignore it.

Even big-name, successful games get this kind of trolling. In fact, they are usually the prime targets for this kind of trolling. But struggling against these kinds of trolls is a waste of time and energy. Your efforts would be far more productive in simply trying to improve your product with the assistance of actually useful feedback that other users leave.

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you could try to even make a bad review look positive if you comment a question below like “Hello xxx, which part of the game was a bad experience for you ? we like feedback and are constantly trying to make our games better”

this at least looks better to anyone who’s looking at reviews since he sees that the devs are trying to better the game

Just suck it up. Someone posting a bad review likely isn’t a “hater”, they just don’t like the game. Market places are public and reviews, you’ll get positive and negative. If you get a high percentage of negative, improve your game (or take it into account for the next one). No one cares if you are a beginner, the only care about the game.

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If you are new to game development, chances are your first couple of games are just not good from the perspective of people outside your circle. In such case, you can decide not to put it in a store and avoid the negative feedback altogether.

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Well if your game is “Totally fully faltu game” you should probably listen to them!! :smile:

Joking aside - All above give great advice.

Then the trolls are winning. They hope to effect you. Ignore and don’t worry about it. Thicken up the skin. :sunglasses:
If the game is good there will be 10x the number of good rating compared to negative ratings - so it will balance out.

I see, it’s Trolls vs Developers, can’t lose.

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