Merry Christmas! Did you have fun over the holidays?Maybe you spent time with your extended family, remembering the good times from years past and creating new memories you’ll cherish forever. Maybe there was an unexpected connection with an older relative whose wisdom will guide you through difficult times. And - who knows - maybe you opened a few gifts that are going to give you a much-needed helping of comfort and joy during what can be a dark and often depressing time of the year. There is peace. There is hope. There is understanding.
But also, there are users giving yourfavorite game negative reviews on Steam and this must mean it’s a personal conspiracy against you. Your favorite game is objectively a near-flawless masterpiece that lacks faults within humanity’s capability to detect them, yet vile trolls seem intent on writing bad-faith reviews. Oh, these reviews might mention commonly-held criticism of the game! But just because thousands of paying players write, “This could have had maps” or “Characters should be interesting” that doesn’t mean they actually believe those claims! And if they do, they must be gravely stupid. Maybe they even played the wrong game! Or a beta. Or early access. Or on bad hardware.
Much more likely than these people disliking a game you like, they are chaotic evil villains and paid shills from a rival corporation. As we all know, video game companies love paying people a lot of money and keeping those people paid. And there’s no better use of that cash than hiring dorks to write two-paragraph reviews onSteamor Amazon. That’s why there’s an army of people who put in 50 hours into a triple-A game and then write something you disagree with as an objective. While this would technically mean copies of the game are still getting sold so fake fans can review those games (therefore contributing to the success of the game anyway), that’s just a technicality. It’s fifth-dimensional chess.
Oh, don’t get me wrong! In this vast conspiracy against you and the game that you like getting a score that makes you feel smarter for liking it, some fans are just doing it because they hate the company that makes the game. Or the console that the game is on. They own a different console and must prove that a very different game for it is better because only one game can be bestest of the bestest. Or, I dunno, maybe they have a grudge against the storefront the game is sold on. If you tied every human on Earth to a chair and asked them with a truth serum, “Do you like this person’s favorite game?” They would - to a person - say “Absolutely. This is truly a good game that I am pretending to criticize because the games I say I like are secretly bad.”
It’s a dangerous world out there. And it can be the most painful news in the world to see a game you like falling to Mostly Negative on Steam, even if your experience was mostly positive. But the reason that it’s hard is because when a fan - not even a disgusting video game reviewer; a fan! - criticizes a game you like, they’re actually criticizing you as a human being. They don’t think you have any right to exist. How are they making this leap without ever explicitly saying so? Science has yet to find that out. Important historians and chemists are at work every hour on this case. But the medical community can attest that if someone says they don’t enjoy a game you do, it means they might not even have self-awareness or object permanence. They are dead flesh mannequin robots whose views are an illusion. You live within the silliest microcosm parody of the human condition. And. It’s. Not. Your. Fault.
A wave of bad user reviews immediately after a game is released is only proof that the conspiracy against you wants to ruin the experience before it even starts. They didn’t finish the game! A wave of bad user reviews a couple months after a game is released is only proof that the conspiracy against you wants to drive down sales out of pure cruelty. They have fifty hours listed in their review! They must have liked the game if they finished it! A wave of bad user reviews far later is only proof that the conspiracy against you jumped on a Steam sale and therefore casual players are misunderstanding the experience. Or something.
Plus, in your defense, a large number of people played the game that you didn’t make nor profit from the success of! It is impossible for a game to have a growing player base and a growing number of negative player reviews. That math dog just don’t hunt numbers. One couldn’t ever lead to the other during a free period or a reduction in cost. And fans of any ongoing art form have never ended up more disappointed than they started. Rather, this must all be malicious action against you personally. Anyone who disagrees with you is lying. Nay, not even lying, they are bullying you and the billionaire game company owners who need you as an emotional shield.
All this time you were right. Anyone who does not enjoy a game and says so publicly must be confronted with the truth online. According to polls, 90 percent of the world’s citizens agree your game is the most fun of the year and it only didn’t win at The Game Awards because of a briefcase that shines gold when you open it. Sure, you could just have fun with the game anyway and enjoy a good time with the experience you’ve paid for - and maybe even write a positive review yourself.
But, no, we must deploy government forces before anyone else can criticize your baby. The culture depends on us. The console race depends on us. Humanity depends on us. God bless, and good luck.
