'Please let us focus on making our game in peace' developer says to whoever is behind a slew of fake positive reviews that it swears definitely isn't them

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Starsand Island's reputation is off to a bit of a rocky start.

Starsand Island
(Image credit: XSeed Games)

A developer has claimed some unknown bad faith actor is flooding its new game with positive Steam reviews—and it's definitely not the culprit, swear—after players began to notice droves of AI-generated accounts padding the numbers.

Starsand Island hasn't had the easiest week in the run up to its launch on February 11. Despite being a pretty good and fun farming sim—I had a great time with its demo in December, and Lauren was equally impressed when she took a deeper dive into the full early access build—the game has been mired in discourse. From plonking anti-cheat into what is (currently) a singleplayer game, to Kickstarter backers not receiving their keys, to launch-day early access DLC that costs half as much as the game itself.

It's no surprise, then, that a sudden influx of positive (and clearly AI-written) reviews have raised a few eyebrows. Content creator Josh's Gaming Garden initially noted the unusual activity on X, writing "Funny how 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 followed it up with another post showcasing around 100 alleged bot accounts who had left a positive review for the game on Steam.

Many of the accounts sit at around Steam level 4, with around three to five hours of playtime, as well as having the same recently played games when clicking through to their profiles. It's not exactly hard evidence, but coupled with some very strange reviews like "Grandpa, that game you've been talking about for a year is finally almost here! You gotta see this!" and "The scenery is so Chinese!" the whole thing is certainly a little suspicious.

After several hours of silence from developer Seed Sparkle Lab, it finally took to the game's Discord server to say that it definitely isn't responsible, promise. "We have recently noticed a large number of overly positive 'praise' comments about our game appearing across various social platforms," the announcement read.

"At first, we believed this meant our game was being recognised and appreciated. However, we soon noticed something unusual on Steam: some comments were posted after a very short playtime, were released at nearly the same time (appeared to be AI-generated).

This made us realise that something might not be right."

The announcement goes on to ponder: "Is this some kind of overpraise as an attack? We have no concrete evidence, but it does feel as though someone may be doing this intentionally. What makes it even more puzzling is that this approach is not cheap, since leaving a review requires purchasing the game."

Seed Sparkle Lab claims "some of these accounts refunded the game after posting their reviews," but I was personally unable to spot any still-live positive reviews with the "Product refunded" notice.

Starsand Island

(Image credit: XSeed Games)

"We would like to say this clearly: making an indie game is not easy," the announcement continues. "We simply want to focus on building a good product and giving the players who truly like our game a better experience. So, to whoever may be behind this, we kindly ask you to stop. Please let us focus on making our game in peace. We pose no threat to anyone."

As of writing many of the alleged fake reviews are still up, but it seems as though potential new botted ones have slowed to a crawl or stopped entirely. It'll be interesting to see if they end up getting taken down, and how many will remain once that happens—the game's currently at just over 1,700 reviews with 91% of them being positive.

Mollie Taylor
Mollie Taylor
Features Producer

Mollie spent her early childhood deeply invested in games like Killer Instinct, Toontown and Audition Online, which continue to form the pillars of her personality today. She joined PC Gamer in 2020 as a news writer and now lends her expertise to write a wealth of features, guides and reviews with a dash of chaos. She can often be found causing mischief in Final Fantasy 14, using those experiences to write neat things about her favourite MMO. When she's not staring at her bunny girl she can be found sweating out rhythm games, pretending to be good at fighting games or spending far too much money at her local arcade.  

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