Summary
Current analytics tell us what players did (plays, retention, playtime) but not how they felt. The only sentiment signal is the Like/Dislike/Favorite buttons, and a dislike carries no reason. I’m proposing a lightweight player review system with a matching Creator Portal section, so creators can see exactly what players want and why they leave a dislike.
The problem
- Retention drops and dislikes are visible, but the cause is a guess. Was it a bug, difficulty, confusing onboarding, or just not their taste?
- Creators currently fish for feedback on Discord or X, which only reaches a tiny, biased slice of players.
- Without reasons, iteration is trial and error, and time is wasted fixing the wrong thing.
Proposed solution
Player side (in the Exit menu, opt-in, takes seconds):
- Keep the existing Favorite / Like / Dislike row.
- Below it, a “How would you rate us?” card: 1–5 stars plus an optional text box (~1000 chars) and Post Review / Cancel.
- Optional short prompts Epic could rotate: “On a scale of 1–10, how would you rate the last game?” and “Did you have fun in the last game?” (Yes/No).
- Shown only after a real session (e.g. 3+ minutes played), never more than once per player per island version, so it doesn’t become nag UI.
Creator side (new “Reviews” tab in Creator Portal analytics):
- Rating distribution (1–10 or star histogram) for the selected date range.
- “Did you have fun” Yes/No split.
- Benchmarks: this island vs. all islands (and ideally vs. the same genre tag), the same way other metrics already compare.
- Review list with the star rating, text, platform, session length and island version, filterable by rating and sortable by date. Reviews are anonymous to the creator (no account names).
- Export to CSV like other analytics.
Why it matters
- Turns a dislike into an actionable reason.
- Gives small teams the kind of qualitative data that only big studios can afford to gather today.
- Rewards creators who actually listen to players, which is good for the ecosystem’s quality overall.
Considerations
- Moderation: run text through the existing chat/text filters, allow creators to report abusive reviews, and hide text reviews from the public (creator-only), so it can’t be used for brigading.
- Spam: one review per player per version, only after a minimum session length.
- Mobile / console: the card is designed to work with a touch keyboard and controller navigation.
Mockup attached (in-game Exit prompt on the left, Creator Portal analytics view on the right).
