Summary
Ihavewrittena lotof articlesaboutStarfield, a game that I tried very hard to get into and ultimately decided I kind of hate. A lot of its players have apparently come to the same conclusion, despite the ardent fanboying in the early weeks of the game’s launch. In the last few months, the game has received a lot of negative reviews on platforms likeSteam, which has led to its rating, both recent and all-time, dropping to Mixed months after its launch. More than that,SteamChartsshows that the number of people playing Starfield has dropped so much since launch that there aremore peopleplayingSkyrimSpecial Edition.
In itself, that isn’t a bad sign. It’s normal that single-player titles see a sharp player drop-off after release as people finish the campaign and move on to other games. But in combination with an increasing number of bad reviews, it’s unsurprising thatBethesdahas started trying to salvage the game’s reputation, though the means it’s using to do so are somewhat suspect. Over the last month,two Starfield developers have been responding to negative reviews on Steamin what seems to be a very passive aggressive tone, and hasn’t stopped despite growing media attention.
You’re A Multi-Billion Dollar Corporation, Not An Indie Studio
In particular, the developers seem to really dislike that players are calling the game boring. These two developers, likely on the customer service team, have been replying to negative reviews with a copy-and-pasted response: “Try creating different characters with backgrounds and characteristics that clash or are oppositive [sic] of your previous character. You will feel like you are playing a totally different game. Put points in different skills from a character you’ve previously created, and you are now faced with completely different decisions to make and difficulties to encounter. There are so many layers to Starfield, that you will find things you’ve never knew were possible after playing for hundreds of hours. Even after completing the Main Story, your adventure doesn’t end! You can continue onto New Game+ to keep exploring Starfield and all that is out there!”
For the record, I agree: the game is boring as hell.
Naturally, they are getting clowned on by players. This behaviour would make more sense if we were looking atan indie developer who was responding to negative reviews– developers seem to believe that Steam ratings have a big impact on how visible Steam’s algorithm will make a game, despite Valve saying that isn’t the casein an October 2023 videouploaded to the Steamworks Development YouTube channel. Many smaller developers will interact with negative reviews to let players know if something stated is false or if there’s a fix in the works for a problem. Sometimes just replying to the review can prompt the reviewer to change their review from negative to positive, which, understandably, has a big impact for smaller games that aren’t receiving widespread media coverage.
But that’s not what Starfield is. Starfield was one of the most anticipated releases of the year, promised to be Xbox’s flagship game, the herald of a new era of Game Pass. Bethesda is one of the biggest, best-known developers in the world. They are not an indie developer that has to attempt to game the algorithm for much-needed visibility, so why are they acting like they are? Arguing with subjective opinions like the game being boring isn’t going to serve anyone, it doesn’t change players’ minds to receive stock template replies, and it’s embarrassing to see Bethesda being passive aggressive to players online over something as minor as valid criticisms of a game when it’s a multi-billion dollar operation. The problem isn’t the reviewers, Bethesda, it’s the game. Focus on game updates and maybe the players will change their mind.It worked for Cyberpunk 2077!
