There was a question on the garagedeveloperinternational website when we signed up to have our demo included on one of their compilations. Unfortunately their mail form broke and I never submitted the reams of interesting stuff I had to tell them ;)

The question was something like "What would you prefer - ten emails of praise from satisfied customers and one bad review or ten good reviews and no satisfied customers?"

Well, I just honestly don't know! As far as I know, reviewers are customers too, right? But anyway: This is what makes it all worthwhile. (http://www.staticgamer.com/articles.php?action=show&id=70)

Cas :)

Nice one Cas!! :)

Is that your first??? .... are you drunk yet!!???

The question is very flawed because customer praise tends to follow good reviews. If these 10 good reviews didn't result in one happy customer, they are probably not worth much more than an e-mail from a customer. In that case I would take the e-mails, since those are actual users of the program that liked it SO much that they took the time to actually e-mail the developer.

Still receiving the occassional e-mail from users about the Trillian Emoticon Installer (http://www.lizardsoft.com/emoticons.php), even though it was released long ago, helps put the day off to a nice start. I don't remember seeing any reviews for it, although a German site did post it for download (I don't know what they thought of it, but I think they did post a mini review in German about it).

Having reviews is good too though, so the goal is to get both satisfied reviews and satisfied customers :D

Getting compared to some of Jeff Minter's work is one hell of an honour - congratulations!

Cool, I hope to get some attention too when I'll release my game :)
About the question... if you are asking "is better" from the money perspective, well, some good review are definitely a plus for advertising your game (the more the website are known the better).
Congratulations email from customers instead make you satisfied from a more "inner" point of view. That it is extremely important too. Receiving good feedback is a great incentive to continue working.
Sure if you don't get money for your work you won't go much far away, but some nice email can really make you feel better :)

That's our 2nd review, and now there's a 3rd at indiegamer.com! (http://www.indiegamer.com/reviews/news_template.php?title=Alien%20Flux&src=alienflux.ini) Unfortunately I've already drunk the entire profits from last month's pitiful sales! Help the Puppy Games booze fund! Donate now!

I was in such a good mood I got to Level 49 on Mutant Storm too.

And here's something for all you aspiring gamedevs: this really does make it all worthwhile, even though I've pissed away the profits, I don't think I've been this happy since I passed my university exams a decade ago. (Oh yeah, and when I got married 2 years ago *ouch* *ouch* *stop hitting me*)

Cas :)

Ill donate a can of Special Brew to PuppyGames!!

But seriously, to answer your original question, give me the good reviews anyday.
The unfortunate facts are that many gamers are a bit ..... well, like sheep! They need to be told whats good, and what isnt. Reviews are just the kind of opinion forming press we devs need. Its much the same in the music industry. The people 'like' whatever the top DJ's play.
Horrible, but the truth im afraid. We had bucket loads of personal letters/mails from very satisfied customers, but untill that PCgamer review, buisiness was slow as a snail.

Funny tho ... once the good reviews starting coming in, we started to receive loads of hate mail!!! Its like the gamers who dont like your game, get kind of 'offended' by the great reviews, and feel the need to curse you for it!!
Some of them got pretty nasty!

Do I care? Hell no!! .... Gimmie reviews anyday!!

Seeing a review of your product is surely fascinating and worth all the effort.
I still have all the product I've made in the past.
I had to buy myself the retail (small budget) games I've made, but seeing the package, the printed CDs, and the manual, was so cool! :)

Makes you feel really better!

Yes. User feedback and good reviews are great. I remember when I released my first game years ago, I use to scour the internet for any little mention I could find. I don't do that so much nowdays, but it's definitely nice when the ocassional piece of fanmail drops in my mailbox.

just for my own curiosity, you get a lot feedback from users?
I myself haven't wrote a single email to any developer (even commercial ones), but maybe only because I lack time :)

I get a little fanmail every month.

We seem to have a very small but exceedingly gracious fan base - if I had a buck for every email or posting of kindness I'd be permanently skulled.

I bet every one of the people that bought Alien Flux will buy the next game too, so we're guaranteed another 14 sales. :D

Cas :)

I would rather have sales. I'm approaching this as a business, not an exercise in ego stroking. There are far easier ways to get someone to say nice things about me.

My congratulations!

I especially love this one from IndieGamer:
Taken from IndieGamer review
but to master the controls in something like Alien Flux requires dexterity and practice.Did that guy know we were trying to force you into adding an alternate controls scheme? :)

And, Cas, take this as a promise: If I ever make a game, I will build a special check into it. It will create an error log with a single string "java.lang.NullPointerException" whenever it launches on your machine :) Still can't get your baby working here. Downloaded v1.3 and even tried to disable my sound card to see where the problem comes from. Hey, don't alienate your prospects ;)

All right, keep up the good work anyway!

Have a go setting the regional settings to United Kingdom to see if the NPE goes away.

Cas :)

Aaaand ... right now, Puppy Games is Sun Microsystem's *Featured Developer*. Check out http://community.java.net/games/

Congratulations, princec. :)