One-star reviews flood Amazon in protest
December 11, 2008 – 10:19 pm by Griffin HammondSocial media inherently gives power to the community, and new social structures like Facebook and Twitter are revolutionizing the way people fight against the injustices of their world.
But in the last couple weeks, the biggest groundswells have come out of a much older social media system: product reviews.
Search “Grand Theft Auto IV” on Amazon.com. If you look at the Xbox or Playstation version of the popular video game, it has four out of five stars. Pretty good. But on the PC version, released earlier this month, you’ll only see one-and-a-half stars.
Likewise, the 2007 edition of TurboTax, the popular tax-filing software, is a four-star product. The 2008 edition? One star.
The developers, Rockstar Games (GTA4) and Intuit (TurboTax) command their respective software niches, but their latest products are facing a PR crisis right in front of 62 million Amazon shoppers.
That’s because consumers are lashing out in protest over unexpected changes to both developers’ product lines.
GTA4, recently heralded by Time as the game of the year, has been slammed by former devotees after the much-anticipated PC release includes intrusive anti-piracy software and other restrictions that seem to penalize paying customers. This, on top of relatively buggy gameplay, led 95 shoppers in nine days to brand the game with Amazon’s lowest rating.
TurboxTax 2008, released last month, has already received 268 customer reviews, nearly as many as the 2007 version. All but 16 are one-star reviews, due to Intuit’s unannounced price jump and poorly advertised additional fees.
TurboTax VP Bob Meighan posted a comment to explain the corporate motivations, but as far as I know, Rockstar Games hasn’t put out any messaging to confront GTA4’s critics.
Wouldn’t you think software companies would be better equipped than most to avoid such social-media-driven PR disasters? Or maybe, because their customers are so web savvy, these companies have resigned to the fact that small problems will always create a big splash in their communities. But please tell me they use this case as a lesson for the future. Certainly this kind of full-tilt revolt shouldn’t come from former brand evangelists, and can be avoided with better communication. Of course, I’d also recommend some fundamental respect for the people who purchase your products. Just a thought.
