Post by Thund in It's Time to Awaken! comments

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Honestly? I don't know why, maybe it's because it's a free release on steam and was therefore targeted... I'm the first one though to feel sorry for this situation because I'd like to get some genuine feedback. I've released other works before but this is my first commercial attempt and I hope this doesn't happen when the full game comes out because I would be hurt to have my reputation "ruined" for something not up to me.

Feel free to evaluate, I could tell you that since the prologue is free you can try it so you can make your own idea without any influences. However the initial impression also matters so I understand if you prefer to avoid it. I don't want to force anyone, on the contrary, I prefer that those who are really interested play the game, that's all.

iv16224 days ago (1 edit)

I'm sorry to say but I have to be doubtful after finding the pattern on itch as well, from a couple of different accounts that were both created shortly after the game page was published, having similar comments, and remaining inactive since. It is to a way lesser extent, but it being present here at all and it repeating on a wider scale way later on is too weird. Are these people you know? Is there anything you can do about the strange spam on Steam?

Also sorry but Michael Primo's reply reads a lot like one of those reviews halfway through, but clearly that account belongs to a real person so I don't know.

This is too weird and while I hate assuming the worst, seeing even a bit of it on itch way earlier than it happened on Steam is too suspicious to disregard.

Thund224 days ago (2 edits)

I understand your doubts, I'll try to clarify as much as I can, just to explain the situation to you.

I'm an Italian developer who has mainly made games with RPG Maker. Soul's Spectrum was born from a jam (IGMC) I did last year and since it was a competition some of my friends supported me. The comment you linked is from my sister and there is also the subsequent comment from Javarnanda (who is the musician in the game) who wanted to express a positive comment. Some comments from my other maker friends, like michael, may have errors as English is not our main language.

That said, the jam went pretty well and, following the comments received, I wanted to expand the demo I created into a full game. Over the course of these months I have worked really hard and a few days ago I released the prologue. As you can see the situation on Steam is different as these are reviews that are clearly fake, from people I don't know. For this situation the only thing I can do is ask for clarification since I can't delete these reviews. I'm the first to be sorry if the game will suffer as a result.

iv16223 days ago (2 edits)

After taking a closer look at the accounts leaving weird reviews, I found most of them were spamming reviews on very cheap (like up to 2 dollars) or free games. I don't think they're particularly targeting you, I think they're trying to farm Steam Points cause apparently spamming reviews helps with that a lot. Valve seems to interpret people leaving a lot of reviews as supporting the games without considering if it could be spam, but I think that if your full game isn't too low on price then this might not happen to it. They're all a bit weird and they seem to just pretend to play most games, but they do seem to just play some, so I do think they're just trying to farm for Steam Points.

I do hope that's all there is to it and I'm sorry if this caused you stress during work, the game does look nice and I hope you get to finish it. Best of wishes.

Michael Primo224 days ago

Not only I know Thund, but I tested both version of Soul’s Spectrum (at least until the final version, which was a mystery for me). In my review on Steam I am even said that on my review, because I didn’t want to sound like a random guy who just passed by and reviewed the game.

As Thund said, I am a maker, not good as him, though I even partecipated to the IGMC with him. So I am worried about this situation as a friend of Thund.

itch.io

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