Do Dislikes Matter?

Help and Feedback Game Design Support
#1

Hello once again fellow game creation specialists!

So here’s an interesting topic!

CONTEXT:

So first, some context: I was planning on having my game use universes and have separate game modes for each place.

When you first enter the starter place, you’re brought to a menu, it costs Robux to play each game mode except the demo/tutorial.

The main menu will feature model signs, gifs, and more to try to explain and showcase each mode. A very old design is below.

https://i.gyazo.com/79845a5abfdec71d73612cf18c1089cf.mp4

Tell me your honest thoughts on this concept as well!

ISSUE:
So one obvious flaw is that someone can join, try to play a game mode, find out it cost money, and then leave and dislike, or worse, get a bunch of alts/bots to dislike.

So let me hear your thoughts,

Do dislikes actually matter? And if so, how do they matter? If not, why don’t they matter?

Thank you very much for reading, good luck and happy deving!!!

EDIT:

Just wanted to add that each mode is very different.

Wretched World is more roleplay based and is very, very difficult, based on survival aspects in a medieval-like world after a global disaster that scorched the world, leading to the breakdown of society.

Duel Demolition is more casual, just fighting for fun.

Mission Mayhem is a good balance in between, doing complex missions like escorting merchants, defending/storming bases, or just plain Team Death Match and so on. I also will have warnings that each game mode is paid (except the demo/tutorial)

The idea of this is to let players only pay for what they WANT, if they’re looking for a more immersive/hardcore experience, Wretched World is for them. If they’re looking for a more casual beat-em-up experience, Duel Demolition is for them. Obviously less content = lower price.

And of course more modes to come!

EDIT 2: Spacing.

7 Likes
Getting alot of dislikes on game
Getting alot of dislikes on game
#3

Yes, they do matter, if you want your game to be seen on the Top Rated sort. Some players will not play a game if they see that there are a lot of dislikes.

I would do away with the free tutorial/demo and just make the game paid access.

#4

Good catch! Just edited the post.

#5

In my opinion, dislikes do actually matter, i know a dev that made a game that actually got dislike botted which made it’s likes rating decrease from 87% to 54%, which caused the game to die and people not playing it because of it’s like ratio. Regardless of the content of the game.

2 Likes
#6

Dislikes can be used to represent that the user did not enjoy the experience furthermore this can pursuade others not to test the experience.

It’s the same with Likes, if a game has many this shows that alot of people enjoy the game and you should try it for yourself.

Overall, likes/dislikes are essential to providing the best experience a user can get. However, this can be abused and when it is abused it leaves no purpose for the dislike button.

In conclusion: Yes, the definately can.

#7

Yes, dislikes matter. The whole point of ratings is to show how the community feels about your game, not about how good it is. If the game contains a controversial topic or has some feature that is disliked, you will know something is up by the ratings. Without dislikes, then you may as well remove likes too as they would serve no purpose other then a simple counter.
If the dislike is fair or not doesn’t matter. One angry player is no big deal, but if many people are confused about something or are given a bad first impression of the game and leave, that is a problem on your end.
Whether dislikes are abused or not is a different topic. Botting always happens and if reported is usually reverted. The Roblox support department is very helpful in these cases, though it is helpful if you provide statistical evidence like Blade.

~EDIT~
About your game in particular, I would discourage you from putting paywalls in anywhere in your game. Locking content behind a gamepass is just bad practice on Roblox, especially if its a lot of content. Remember that the overwhelming majority of players may be newbies who don’t have Robux. Instead, paywall content that isn’t necessary to continue or doesn’t affect the experience past a certain, reasonable degree.

3 Likes
#8

I personally feel that the community tends not to pay attention to the like to dislike ratio. The only time I usually see people care is when the amount if dislikes overwhelms the likes by a large margin.

I’ve heard on and off that the algorithm for Recommended also factors it in which if true does affect your game as a majority of your traffic will be from there unless you end up on the front page or go wild with sponsorship spam. (If anyone could verify this ~ would be appreciated :ok_hand:)

The only other real concern usually tends to be games that appeal to an older audience having too high of a dislike, to like ratio causing players to distrust the game when it comes to purchasing any asset.

To summarize, it really depends on the game along with the community your appealing to and whether you’re going for the front page or if it’s a group-based game that uses the group as part of the in-game mechanics.

Warning: Locking levels, or large chunks of your game behind a paywall is a very bad idea unless you’re wanting some serious dislike spam from the majority who will not be able to afford it.
(Paid access may not fit your concept, but it also keeps the dislike spam quite low and prevents dislike botting as well.)

5 Likes
#9

at this point in roblox it really varies in my oppinion. mainly due to issues with dislike bots and all the rating can be fairly deceiving from what’s the true rating. at some point yes it does matter but also doesn’t. It’s hard to tell whenever it should exactly matter or not due to the reason i mentioned.

#10

Yeah, I can see your point on paywalls now.

It seems like a safer bet to just make it paid access enough to unlock all the game modes at once.

Thought this would be a cool lobby type of deal, and I’d never seen anything like it, now I know why I don’t see anything like it!

1 Like
#11

Personally, I find that the community does not actually worry about dislikes. Every day, I see many people play over-disliked games. An example are those scam/clickbait games like “OBBY! OBBY! OBBY…” - these games still get 100’s of plays a day despite their like to dislike ratio.

Hope this helps! :slight_smile:

#12

I personally don’t worry about dislikes and focus on feedback. I feel like in alot of cases dislikes arent an accurate representation of how good a game actually is. Why was the game disliked? Did they just not understand what to do? Do they have some sort of grudge against the owner? Did they get banned? I guess im just not really told much by looking at the like percentage. I’ve played amazing, poorly liked games in the past and Ive also played awful highly liked games in the past. Its just inconsistent to me.

#13

Personally, dislikes matter, depending on how bad it is, though your concept I would seriously urge you to just make the game paid access & allow users to try all the game modes, maybe exclusive ones can be paid for, though dislikes would matter in different scenarios, for instance people will see bad ratings and probably wouldn’t bother playing the game, such as youtubers, developers, & streamers, etc.

I think it’s in your best interest to make the game paid access & release all the features, maybe create a type of “club” like Premium as a gamepass or developer product and they would have access to certain types of exclusive game modes.

If people with big influence where to come across a game with bad ratings like below 50% I would doubt they would bother trying, though it depends on the players.

Thats all I have to currently say.

#16

These plays are most likely bots bought in to up numbers

#17

Yes they matter, even if they see that your game has a low rating; players will still play it regardless. However that will become a factor for player retention, lower rated games tend to have a lower retention time. People need a baseline on their rating, if they see something that has a poor rating they tend to rate it lower as well and vice versa.

#18

I’ve never understood why people use the dislike button much. I personally rarely use it, and only do it if it really deserves it in a form such as a game breaking problem, false advertising etc.

If you give someone a dislike option there will always be people who just do it cause they can.

If your game is above 65% ratings it will do just fine.

#19

Also known as “Halo Effect”. The first thing the player would see before clicking on the big green play button is the rating. This cognitive bias would even be a factor on how they see the game. If you had a really good game, yet with bad rating, this first impression will judge whether the player would actually enjoy the game.

#20

The only thing is if they have huge dislike to like ratios people tend to notice and will not play the game, so dislikes don’t really matter.