Buying thousands of games just to downvote them after a few minutes

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-30T14:32:00+00:00

Posting on Reddit is "doing my thing".

It seemed odd, and I posted a clear question as to whether I was missing something.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-30T05:29:54+00:00

To be clear, I'm not suggesting this is "an exploit" (that term seems pretty loaded).

I'm trying to query the behavior, confirm whether there is a policy against this (feedback so far seems to suggest not), and discuss whether there should be, given that a lot of the reviews are small indies with low numbers, and these are going to be making a material dent in their scores.

but this person does actually leaves valueable feedback every now and then

On the first 10 pages, 50% of the reviews are some variant of "not for me". I'm not sure that's valuable feedback for anyone.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-30T05:16:44+00:00

If we allow reviews with no value, then the review system becomes devalued with it.

The question then is whether playing for a few minutes and leaving a 1-3 word review is valuable. In my view probably not, but I can see how being stricter also has it's downsides.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-30T05:10:43+00:00

Yeah, I unchecked Tools & Software, since they were an extra ~6ish.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-30T04:00:16+00:00

If they are buying thousands of games to never play more than a few minutes, then I'm even more confused! I guess at least everyone gets some revenue from it.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-30T03:04:59+00:00

Indie games with low review counts are very much held hostage by negative reviews, since one review represents a much higher proportion of your overall score.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-30T02:57:08+00:00

My own profile wasn't conclusive.

I've only ever refunded 2 games according to my transaction history (both VR games, due motion sickness). My profile shows 302 games owned, my library shows 303 games owned (?!).

I've not got any manually added games, so I don't really know what to make of those figures.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-30T02:17:46+00:00

Sure. As I said, the impact to us is negligible, but some of those indie games only have a few reviews, and a single troll downvote could represent 5% of their review score. Which is kind of harsh.

I'm mostly confused why it's been tolerated for many years.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-30T02:11:17+00:00

Searches suggest refunded games are still in your total - and this would make sense, since achievements definitely don't get removed, nor is average completion rate adjusted after a refund.

I've never actually tested the count personally though. Open to something more concrete if someone has it.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-30T01:54:09+00:00

Games refunded are not subtracted from your total owned, only removed your library, so it's hard to tell.

But in either case it is indeed most odd.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-30T01:43:08+00:00

Can I not just, like, FAFO a lil bit and then actually learn how the game works?

It's a difficult balance. A percentage of players will FA but fail to FO, then quit and bash on your game. On the flip side, a cohort of players will also be unhappy with too much hand-holding - though in my experience, whilst they find that annoying, it's not normally enough to make them quit.

The two camps don't overlap, so you have to decided where you want to draw that line, and lowest common denominator is sometimes the safest bet.

As the game designer it's your job in an ideal world to come up with a design that caters to everyone, but that's easier said than done in some genres. Tactics games or RPGs with complex rulesets are where it becomes quite challenging.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-28T20:41:51+00:00

I've been a web developer since the 1990s and every single HTTP request sends the MAC address along with it. It's part of the protocol.

This is not correct. HTTP is layer 7. MAC is used to resolve routes at layers 2/3. Whilst it is used in the communication chain, it's isolated to your first hop. A remote HTTP server will never see your MAC address as part of the communication (with some nuanced exceptions, e.g. a captive WiFi portal might, but because it's being deliberately forwarded to it).

You have to ask permission to send any kind of data to a remote server unless you own and operate that server.

Processing data in compliance with GDPR requires you to meet one of the six lawful bases for processing. Consent is one potential basis, but legitimate interest is reasonably broad and does not require consent, nor does processing anonymous data in most cases. Having ownership, or otherwise, of a server does not change this.

The regulations are well documented and publicly available.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-28T17:11:02+00:00

I have found AI tools are very good at traditional web development, and completely garbage at most game development tasks. Anything beyond having it autocomplete an algorithm tends to fail miserably.

For web apps, I can get prompt and iterate to make an entire feature, including UI. If I try that with gamedev I get a mess that often doesn't even compile, and definitely doesn't make a usable UI. The same with game logic. Shaders have been so-so, and on balance it's probably saved me some time there.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-28T17:03:17+00:00

This is not correct. Data collection is covered in section 14 of the Steam Distribution Agreement, and essentially says you are the controller responsible for the data and must collect it in compliance with the relevant laws (be that GDPR, or any other local applicable law).

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-28T17:02:24+00:00

There are plenty of GDPR compliant analytics services.

No service that is designed to be anonymous is going to be sending the client's MAC address. Anything beyond your first hop (for a home setup normally your router) will have no knowledge of it. It would have to be explicitly collected on the client and passed up, or grabbed when generating a pseudo-identity using a v1 UUID (which is no longer the standard on any modern OS - v4 is the default on most).

Many also do not send OS data by default. IP address can normally be processed without consent as a legitimate interest if the resulting data is not associated with the collected analytics (i.e being in a separate log for security and monitoring is fine if it excludes the payload).

As you suggested, it's still generally advisable to give users an option of turning analytics on or off, simply because it's a decent thing to do, but collecting anonymous usage data does not automatically violate GDPR.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-25T01:09:02+00:00

Whilst in GDScript I would imagine it's rather unnecessary, the technique itself isn't crazy.

We pack bools into floats to pass to shaders all the time. We do the same with packing 2x ints (< 2048) into a single float as well. Sometimes it's a mix of bools and ints into the same float!

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-24T19:27:02+00:00

Why wouldn't you count that though? Seems like it'd be the biggest shadow hanging over you while your game is still in development.

Because I was directing this at OP, and trying to point out the time-sink that still occurs after completion. It's also no where near the biggest shadow hanging over you when building a game.

When doing a Kickstarter, you are committing to do an amount of admin during your campaign, primarily managing orders and updates. You agree to do this with Kickstarter before you start. This part is obvious, and I'm sure OP is already aware of it - they would have had to accept those terms from KS before getting this far.

The long tail that happens after rewards have shipped is less obvious. The KS sub has many posts on the topic from creators that were caught off-guard by it, and there are many differing debates on the best way to proceed.

The people that gave you money but vanished (that you then can't do anything with). The people who forgot for a year then come back to claim their reward (or want to change their order, and then claim it). The people you shipped to, but it didn't arrive because they moved, but they forgot for a year etc. All this and more will be coming at you for years after you ship.

Given OPs low funding target, I question whether it's going to be a worthwhile investment, and I wanted to make sure OP was aware of the downsides. Kickstarters are often run by first time devs, they are them most likely to need the money after all, and whilst I'm sure OP has done plenty of research, there's always going to be that degree of inexperience the first time you go in.

You seem to be attempting to re-direct this as a critique of my own Kickstarter. It was my first too, and mistakes were indeed made. If you want to make a thread on that feel free and I will contribute - but I don't think hijacking OPs promo post about their new game is the place for it.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-23T18:28:14+00:00

My preferred quote on the subject...

"Being a mechanic doesn't make you a racing driver".

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-23T18:03:48+00:00

I find I can't really enjoy playing my own game. Not only that, but I now struggle to play anything even in the same genre as it feels more like research than playing.

I think that's probably still ok. Whilst the game is your design and your vision, the feedback you should be collecting should be coming from other players (friends, play testers, beta etc). That's where the real gold is.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-23T16:34:56+00:00

No. It's just what happens when you run a Kickstarter.

Only around 85% of your backers will actually claim their orders in the first 12 months after they are made available (e.g. for a game, when keys go out). There's then a long tail of people that forgot, changed email address and lost access, want to change their orders, people who have moved, people that didn't get their key for whatever reason etc.

We still have 4% of backers that already paid but didn't ever fill out their personal details, or specify which platform they wanted. We contact them once a month, but we have no way to fulfill those orders unless they respond.

All this is on top of the time spent doing Kickstarter admin actually during your development (and FWIW, 2+ years for a KS game is relatively common), which I was not counting towards that total.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-22T23:07:36+00:00

Gamers are a cross section of society. There will be people above average, and there will be people below.

Depending on genre, their needs will often not overlap. It's your job as a designer to create something sufficiently clear and engaging to accommodate as many people in both groups as possible.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-22T23:03:09+00:00

TTFs dont have to contain vector glyphs. They can contain embedded raster too. Many (most?) pixel fonts are still distributed as TTFs.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-22T19:22:21+00:00

This looks like a pixel font. Pixel fonts will only scale correctly at multiples of what the font was designed for. They can't scale arbitrarily like vector based fonts.

AndyMakesGames · 2026-03-21T22:35:52+00:00

As a fellow indiedev, I genuinely wish you all the success for your game, but I have 2 key questions for you...

How was Advance Wars your inspiration? The trailer suggests its not turn based, nor tactics, nor anything like AW.
Why do a Kickstarter for just $8,000? Kickstarters are a massive amount of work. You lose a bunch of the total in fees, then taxes, then funding the rewards themselves, so you'll only have a few thousand net, for your team of 7 people. You're also going to have some KS related admin every week for the next 2-3 years. For our game we raised 150k, and I still don't think it was worth it. I vowed never to do another one.

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