Post by Watercress in Cautionary Tale comments

Viewing post in Cautionary Tale comments

I'm going to have to ask you to stop harassing our fans, please. We don't make puppet accounts - we're too busy for something like that, even if we wanted to. I really do appreciate the feedback you've given us and others in the EVN community, but your rhetoric here is offensive to the community at large. Just because someone is trans doesn't mean they are fake - while where you live it might be less common, trans people aren't uncommon here in the west. You'd be hard pressed to find a college student who doesn't know a trans person here!

Also, the EVN community is a very LGBT positive community, which naturally attracts a lot more trans people (as it's a place they can be more free of abuse). So, believe me, you will see plenty more trans people around these parts - and Watercress, roughly 30 people strong, is about 50% LGBT, with more than one trans person working for us. You'll see a lot of that in the EVN community :)

Wolf, Watercress Studio Director

roboq66 years ago(-3)

You can not believe me, but I really hope that I'm wrong. I like your studio for creating "Our home" and thought that you can resort to puppet accounts makes me sad. ( Even if you did it, please don't do it again. ) This is my last post about your possible puppet account because here I already said all what I wanted to. So don't worry, I won't be nagging you about it anymore.

"Just because someone is trans doesn't mean they are fake". Of course I agree, there is no 100% guarantee that the user isn't really a transgender. Although it was just one of factors (transgenders are rare in any country, so statistically speaking here is higher chance to meet a cisgender who pretends to be a transgender for some reasons) that made suspect that it was puppet account. Aside from suspicious date of both account creation and the post itself (plus fact that it was the only post of said user) at was also good contrapost to my critique of the game, where major aspects of the game that I critiqued were mentioned and given big thumb up. Of course there is chance that I was wrong, but considering all chances it looks improbable that it was genuine fan account.

"we're too busy for something like that, even if we wanted to."

It doesn't take too much time to create a puppet account and write positive review of your game. Besides, games with positive reviews are good for your portfolio. You seem to work as non-profit for know, but I guess you hope to gain recognition and then become commercial game-making studio. But again, I would be glad to be wrong.

Watercress6 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

Simply put, we don't need to make puppet accounts to gather positive reviews to gain interest in our games or to 'build a portfolio'. We already have hundreds of positive reviews on our Steam games alone, and the reviews on itch.io speak for themselves. We're a studio that prides ourselves on our undying commitment to ethical development - both in community building and in how we treat our members. Puppet accounts serve no purpose to us, and would actively damage our own goals - both to our average member and to the community at large.

If anything, the first thought shouldn't be 'the devs are making false reviews', the first thought should be 'maybe this person is new to the EVN community, or they are a dev's friend that wanted to congratulate them on a successful release', or something like that. I don't know the person who reviewed us, and while I deeply appreciate the words they've given us, I don't believe there's any Machiavellian plans going on in the background here.

Something like that would only serve to hurt us. We've been around for four years with seven game releases, multiple talks on game development and ethics, and are an incorporated company - we don't need to prop ourselves up with false reviews. Our dedication speaks for itself here.

Wolf, Watercress Studio Director

Ginger6 years ago

To clear things up for Wolf's sake - I asked a few friends who'd played the game when it first came out to review it now. Just a friend who told me what they thought of a project I worked on, nothing more.

-Ginger, Beyond Yesterday's Grasp Project Lead