Cozy life sim Starsand Island asked players to stop leaving suspiciously glowing reviews after dozens of near-identical posts flooded Steam in minutes.
The moment also arrived during an already sensitive launch window. Some Kickstarter backers, including higher-tier supporters, did not receive their keys right away and found themselves moving between Discord moderators and Kickstarter support while the team worked through distribution issues. At the same time, influencers and new buyers were already sharing gameplay.
As if the cozy launch didn’t have enough to juggle already, the game suddenly found itself swimming in “Overwhelmingly Positive” reviews, but not the kind any developer dreams about.
Starsand Island dev questions sudden wave of glowing reviews
The latest flashpoint came when gaming creator Play with Josh highlighted a surge of glowing Steam reviews. “In the span of 30 minutes Starsand Island got all these positive reviews from users who happen to all have the same account activity,” he wrote. “If you need a larger sample, here’s about 100 of them, and there are more. @Steam please look into this.”
One reviewer wrote, “The Game is very simple, Yet it is complex. Beautiful Game.” A separate review added, “If the price is fair for an indie game, I’m definitely buying” while yet another account, said, “The game has huge potential, and I’m definitely buying it on launch day.” These last two make no sense, since Steam only lets you review a game you already own.
Players reacted quickly on Reddit. “Oooy. This is so shady. They didn’t have to do this,” one wrote. “Despite the bugs, lack of story and lack of character depth, I’m still having fun. They should’ve let the reviews be organic.” Another added, “Damn that is weird… I don’t understand why you’d do this when the positive reviews were bound to come in eventually.”
In response, the developers issued a Steam statement titled “Announcement Regarding Artificial Comments.” They said they first believed the praise signaled recognition, then noticed short playtimes, clustered timestamps, and wording that “appeared to be AI-generated.” They said they had no concrete evidence of foul play but suggested someone may have acted intentionally, noting some accounts refunded the game after posting reviews.
“We simply want to focus on building a good product,” the team wrote. “So, to whoever may be behind this, please stop.”
The studio said a follow-up post will address “the main concerns raised by the community.”
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