“Happiness writes in white ink on a white page.”
— Henry de Montherlant
It’s almost always the case that the percentage of unsatisfied customers is lower than the percentage of negative reviews on a product’s webpage. This applies to video games and other forms of art as well. The number of negative reviews almost always makes a work appear worse than it actually is.
There’s nothing surprising about this: we tend to be much more vocal when something bothers us, yet remain silent when we’re satisfied. But I’m not here to pass moral judgment on this phenomenon—calling everyone (including myself) an ungrateful, yapping baby. We might be, but that wouldn’t be a particularly useful conclusion.
Instead, I want to explore two practical questions about this tendency:
- Why are we like this?
- As reviewers and reviewees, should we do something about it?
Why (I Think) We are Built This Way
Positive and negative reinforcement each serve a distinct purpose, and one can’t replace the other. Imagine you’re learning to shoot free throws. The positive reinforcement comes from the satisfaction of making a shot; the negative reinforcement comes from the slight disappointment of missing one.
Now, let’s tweak the training environment. If we use a basket ten times larger than a regular one—so you never miss—you won’t improve. There’s no need to adjust your stance or technique because every action yields the same outcome. On the other hand, if we make the basket invisible so you can’t tell whether you made a shot, you also won’t improve. Without feedback on your successes, you can’t build useful muscle memory.
In short, learning involves two essential cognitive processes: understanding what to do and understanding what not to do.
But here’s the tricky, often-overlooked part: these two processes aren’t symmetrical. It’s much easier to pinpoint what makes us uncomfortable than to articulate what brings us joy. It’s easy to explain why you find certain words offensive, but harder to break down why a joke is funny. You can immediately tell that cilantro is ruining your guacamole, but describing what made last night’s taco tastier than the one you had the day before? That’s much trickier.
I’d argue that this difference exists because recognizing “goodness” often requires capturing the entire state of an experience, whereas recognizing “badness” usually requires identifying just one or two problematic attributes.
In other words, badness can be represented in fewer dimensions, making it easier to describe in words.
Let’s go back to the free-throw example. What makes a successful shot? A ton of factors—your stance, the force applied, the follow-through, the angle, and so on. But what makes an unsuccessful shot? Well, closing your eyes while shooting would do it.
For something to go right, all its components need to align, and we often rely on intuition—this feels right, so we keep doing it and try to remember the sensation. But for something to go wrong, a single faulty component is enough to ruin the outcome, making it easier to identify and describe in natural or mathematical terms.
So, why are we more vocal about negative experiences? It’s not because we’re ungrateful—it’s simply that pointing out what’s wrong is easier. It doesn’t require capturing the entire picture, just identifying the part that’s off.
Is It Bad?
Not necessarily.
Personally, I do believe that being able to intellectualize why a piece of work brings people joy is much more productive than simply pointing out its mistakes. But as we’ve discussed, that process is difficult. You can’t expect people to develop a perfect theory for every beloved game or movie that explains why they are loved so much. You can only assume that if a game or movie lacked certain elements, people would love it less. But such analyses are hypothetical and often fail to capture the “essence” of a work’s greatness—because there probably isn’t one singular essence. The experience of enjoyment is likely an extremely high-dimensional state, with all aspects of the work contributing to it in ways that are hard to distill into words.
Your review of something may come across as negative overall, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t see anything great in it. You’re simply focusing on the parts that are more obvious and easier to describe, and that’s okay. As reviewers, we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves. Pointing out mistakes or simply highlighting aspects we dislike—while easy to do—is still valuable, as long as we’re not being rude.
And as creators, it’s important to remember that getting better at something comes from repeatedly doing it, succeeding, internalizing the feeling, and trying again—just like shooting free throws. If you want to make a great video game, you keep playing the ones you love, making more games, and sticking to whatever you find works. The path to success, or at least most of it, has to be learned and internalized in an intuitive way. While theories about “what works” can enhance our performance, they can’t replace the learning that comes through practice and firsthand experience—experiences that often can’t be put into words.
So, it’s okay if people can’t perfectly articulate why they love your work. In the end, you will have to figure it out yourself through practice.
That’s my take on the why and how of negative reviews. I hope you find these thoughts helpful.