Public trust in Godot and Steam Reviews issue question

General
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I have been supporting the godot community for the better part of a year now and even trying to be supportive over all the games devs are making with godot and then posting about their progresses on the twitter. I have been trying to help them when they have questions especially regarding one layout vs another and on matters of how they could market their games when they have them ready for release.

I really believe in Godot Engine and the game dev community, I dont take sides in one political or personal matter or another as i feel that topics should be about game development and game market ideas and viability.

Godot Version

4.3 and upcoming 4.4

Question

I never wanted to ask this question on this community forum but Idk where else to ask as i think i have tried every other avenue to get clarification on the situation that is going on.

…

5 weeks ago there was a massive issue which I am extremely concerned about regarding STEAM and negative reviews on STEAM…

I have seen several game developers who made games using Godot get initially great reviews…

BUT THEN after the incident that occured 5 weeks ago; i have seen many game developers who released games on STEAM get hundreds of negative reviews where beforehand they had no issues…

They post on social media like twitter that the Negative reviewers are saying that:
the only reason they give a negative review is because of the fact that the game was made with Godot engine.

I have tried several times to contact the godot foundation members but they haven’t responded to me and i am concerned that they may have gotten the wrong impression that i was somehow taking any particular side in the issue and maybe they might have blocked me by mistake??

… at this moment I am finding it difficult to figure out a way to move forward with godot engine given the situations i have described in this post and i have seen many other game developers having the same concern about Godot’s public trust atm.

I reallllllly believe that we all need to hear from Juan and Emi about what happened and help us have more faith moving forward that everything will be ok and that godot’s leadership is not doing what the twitter is saying.

I believe it would be a great idea for Juan and the others to publicly explain (preferably in a short video) that the Godot community doesnt shun or block or disrespect people because of any political or personal belief .

I am mostly concerned about the negative reviews being tossed on STEAM to anyone making a game with godot and i am really hoping Juan and the others can help us figure out a way of dealing with that problem as we try making games with godot.

Also as a sidebar, i forked godot on the github because i wanted to try and help work on it and see if i could contribute but i never contributed to a public repo before and a friend pointed out to me that my forking godot may come across in the wrong way given that others have done so to hurt godot and i want to reassure you that is not my intention in the slightest, just to be crystal clear there.

I love what all the hundreds of developers around the world have done in building and maintaining Godot engine and I hope to be able to make something great and fun with it over next year if i can.

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Can you give an example so I can see on Steam what you are referring to?

Like you, I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience with Godot. I am thinking that my current game (my third game) just might be good enough to launch on Steam and I am very interested in your comments and the possible implications. However I am sceptical that this is actually an issue, however right now I would say simply that I don’t know, not that I disagree.

If it is not breaking any guidelines or forum rules, (which I don’t think it is) could you post an example or two of this affect seen on Steam?

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I find out about the negative reviews by users posting on the twitter.

here is a couple examples

https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/1fvy2lz/getting_my_first_negative_review_because_some/

I am very concerned about getting a great game ( or worse,a game i half a_s got right ) “review bombed” just for using Godot.

I think if Juan and Emi could work up a “how to deal with fake reviews” blog post, it would go a long way as least for me

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Looking at Brotato, a game my students are always excited to hear is made in Godot, it has overwhelmingly positive reviews, and any negative ones are about a fairly new DLC that has mostly positive reception. No mention of community drama.

ExZodiac, a game I rather like and was the first published Godot game I knew about, has few reviews but all positive, and again no mention of community drama.

The only review bombing example I did find was on the Godot steam page itself, which has very little impact on your products.

If I can add my own aside, I think it’s quite funny how many of these review bombs are “I just want to make games not politics” even though they have under an hour time in Godot (granted it’s just steam) and are only leaving a review to talk about politics.

Forks are a great thing in open source, it is the furthest thing from an offense to the project.

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Looking at the evidence posted, I am relieved to say that I don’t think this is an issue at all. Certainly not something to be concerned about or even consider.

I am delighted that with the evidence presented so far, this is definitely NOT a massive issue as OP first stated, in fact, appears to not be an issue at all.

Long live Godot!

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Are there direct links to this? (Steam-Link + Reviews)
Unfortunately it doesn’t say which game exactly:

here is a couple examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/1fvy2lz/getting_my_first_negative_review_because_some/

your account?: x.com

Game Dev and Scientist

What science is it exactly? If I may ask, I am very curious and also interested in science.

I have been trying to help them … and on matters of how they could market their games when they have them ready for release.

More data is needed for a serious scientific study and a marketing strategy:

  • number of reviews before and after.
  • sales figures are much more important.
  • also possible by country?
  • not every country in the world is ready to defend “woke” values. Were profits previously made in this country? (If not, it wouldn’t be a major catastrophe)
  • for many modern and intelligent women, “Woke” is very important because it is also about women’s rights. After the campaign, will more games now be played by women?
  • what game is it, what target group is it aimed at?

Maybe it was just some Twitter trolls looking for attention?:

  • to rate it you have to own the game (at least that was the case about 2 years ago)
  • did the customers buy the game just to leave a negative review and then demand their money back?
  • Have customers even tried playing the game?
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The Godot Editor has been open and running on my computer for thousands of hours over the course of the past few years. These days I use a Godot version manager called Godots to launch Godot, but there was quite a while where I preferred using the Steam version, and many of the hours Godot has run on my system were as a result of launching the Steam version. Despite that, Steam has only recorded 36 minutes of “play time” on my Steam account.

So I wouldn’t be so quick to make judgements based on Steam’s reported “play time” of Godot on the account of people leaving reviews.

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That’s why I add “granted it’s just steam” I figure most people do not use the steam version. I haven’t used it at all, and from your experience it sounds like maybe it only counts the launcher? But then folks with +100 hours seems off, unless they love looking at their project library.

All and all my point being they could just make games and ignore the politics.

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Thanks everyone for your evaluation and input on my concerns.

My big thing about Godot is that it has thousands of people using it to make games plus hundreds of developers creating the engine itself. I have always found this one of godot’s best features ever and I love all of the hard work the devs have put into the engine itself :slight_smile:

When I first found godot a few years ago, I saw how people were tolerant of other people’s personalities and self-perceptions of themselves.

It was truly a great thing to see so many people from so many countries and different backgrounds and cultures ALL getting along withOUT trying to SEGREGATE each other off into multiple groups.

I have friends from most every walk of life and we all come from a huge variety of life experiences. None of us is exactly the same so why give ah shit and be a tetty ass wipe about people’s differences in the first place?

In effect if you wore a hat with the color purple in it, and some people hated the hat, they wouldn’t drill it in your face. because, who cares BE YOURSELF but just be courteous to others and let Them be Themselves as well.

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All good things come to an end.

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@tomcat Yeah that’s how the godot community hating each other thing has been making me feel too.

I’m hopeful that if Juan and @Emi take a day to go over the situation that maybe they can say something inspiring and helpful to convince everyone to stop being so divisive especially since every single divisive person is doing so only for their own self perception of themselves.

Then we can all get back to game dev and make some great games!

The biggest disappointment I have is when people all over the software world has started hating on every Russian citizen and start banning them everywhere which is total b.s. and 100% anti-woke to ban someone because they are just born in a certain country, as if civilians have any power over their govt over there.
again: as if civilians have any power over their govt over there.

@Emi: can you please help the entire community with some great and unifying words :slight_smile:

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Well, I live here and I can state with full authority that there is ample reason to do so. Those who do not approve of the war (like me) are a statistical error, even among those who have left (another smashing of Navalny’s monument in Cyprus is proof of that).

I very strongly doubt that they have anything to say.

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@ucmrich @tomcat We would never and have never banned a user because of where they were born. If you ever see an instance of that happening my DMs are always open. I’ll look into it. Our community is made up of people from many different backgrounds and countries and we like it to stay that way.

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Godot already made a public statement about the situation. And honestly, it wasn’t that big of a deal in a political stand point. I’ve kind of already forgot about it. Policies of the Godot community and twitter are in themselves the very definition of politics. And most policies do prohibit harassment.

We are all just people here and no one is perfect, don’t put us on a pedestal.

Game developers can ask steam to remove reviews that are not relevant, or related to review bombs. Also Steam has similar political policies.

Not at all, it is very common and encouraged.

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Thank you for making me feel much better about things after all the fuss a couple months ago! I’ve been so very worried about getting harassed over at Steam just because I use Godot Engine but you’ve made me feel much better about it and I’m not going to let myself worry about it anymore, Thanks guys!

I really have a massive amount of praise and excitement for Godot because of all the developers on the backend who’ve worked so hard to make it as great as possible. :slight_smile:

I am looking forward to Godot Version 4.4+ with those new features that blow my mind!

I think it will take me the better part of the next 12 months but hopefully I can get a game ready to test play before next halloween (hint).

I’ll reply to this thread and let you all know, I would appreciate any constructive feedback

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This isn’t on Godot or the Godot foundation but on “capital-G-gamers” that use Steam reviews to whine about whatever they feel whiney about in a given day.
I’ve seen this with games using any engine (targeted Unity as well at some point), and the most ridiculous of reasons (“this game is fantastic but they changed this one value with an update → Negative review”, “this game features a divorced woman so it’s anti-family-values → Negative review” and stupid stuff like that).

It’s sad and upsetting, and 100% on bad-actor steam users and Steam letting them submit reviews like that.

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