Frequently Asked Questions

Getting Started

What is CritMap?

An AI-powered review analyzer for game studios. It turns thousands of player reviews into source-backed SWOT analysis, store-page promise-vs-experience checks, and a Review Workbench that drafts developer replies, for developers, publishers, and the curious.

How do I analyze a game?

Search by name, developer, or publisher in the header. Pick a result and hit Analyze. You get a SWOT summary plus optional source review quotes.

Do I need an account?

No, basic analyses work without one. An account unlocks history, favorites, and the paid Indie/Studio plans (see Pricing).

Analyses

How does the AI generate the SWOT?

We pull Steam reviews via the public Steam Web API, send a curated subset to an AI model (Claude, GPT, or Gemini), and parse a structured SWOT plus quoted source citations.

How many reviews are analyzed?

Standard: 100. Deep Analysis: 300.

Why does the same game sometimes produce different results?

LLM outputs are non-deterministic and the review sample rotates. The structural SWOT is stable; phrasing varies.

How accurate are the analyses?

Source-cited, but AI can misread sarcasm or context. Treat them as a starting point, not the final word. See the disclaimer in the Terms of Service.

Pro Insights

What is Pro Insights?

Pro Insights is the deeper analysis you get on a paid plan: Deep Analysis (far more reviews), per-SWOT-point actionable insights backed by the supporting reviews, inline review-source citations, custom scope (time range, language, reviewer playtime, around updates), the Edges tab, and on-demand regenerate. The free public analysis is the SWOT summary on its own.

What is Deep Analysis?

Part of Pro Insights: it analyses 300 reviews instead of 100 for stronger signal, at the cost of more time and API spend.

What is the Edges tab?

A summary reports the average of your reviews; the Edges tab (Indie and above) surfaces what that averaging hides. Loud Edges lists the reviews that are the biggest semantic outliers (picked by similarity maths, then quoted verbatim) and Divisive Themes shows the aspects players split on, with a quote from each camp and love/hate counts derived from what those reviews say about the theme, not their whole-game recommendation. It reuses the same review embeddings as the Player Feedback Map; no new data is collected.

Can I regenerate an analysis?

Yes. Paid plans show a Regenerate button on cached results that bypasses the cache.

Research Lab

What is the Research Lab?

A Pro feature for multi-game research: build a basket of games, pick a custom research intent, and get a cross-game synthesis.

How long does a research analysis take?

Typically 5–10 minutes. The job runs in the background and survives server restarts.

Data & Privacy

What data does CritMap store about me?

Email, bcrypt password hash, analysis history, favorites, managed games (including their digest settings and sent-digest logs), Research Lab records, Action Reports you generated, and (if you used Google to sign in) the OAuth profile. We also keep internal usage-metering records for each AI generation (token counts, the model used, and the type of generation, not your prompts or review text) and the time you were last active, for cost control and security. Per-IP rate-limit counters are kept briefly. See the Privacy Policy for purposes and retention (usage-metering records are anonymized after 18 months).

Which AI providers do you use?

Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI (GPT), and Google (Gemini). All are US-domiciled; transfer safeguards (EU-US Data Privacy Framework, Standard Contractual Clauses, or per-processor DPA terms) are documented per processor in the Privacy Policy.

Are my analyses private?

By default, the games you analyze are public: they can appear in CritMap's homepage showcase (the recent-analyses carousel and featured slots). The homepage shows the game and its SWOT, not your identity, and your wider history (which games you analyzed, when, your favorites, your Research Labs) stays tied to your account and is not exposed.

On the Indie plan and above you can switch on Private research in Dashboard → Settings: a single toggle that keeps every game you analyze off the homepage and retroactively hides the ones you've already run.

One important caveat about the underlying AI output: CritMap caches the analysis output per game, the canonical SWOT and its derived views such as Edges (outlier reviews + divisive themes), keyed on settings (model, Pro Insights, Deep Analysis flags, and scope). If another user analyzes the same Steam game with the same settings, they receive the same cached output, because the input is the public Steam review set, not anything personal you typed. See the "Caching of analysis output" section in the Privacy Policy.

Can I delete my account?

Yes. Dashboard → Settings → Delete account. The flow asks you to retype your email, then in a single transaction deletes your user record, favorites, history, and Research Labs, and signs you out. Analyses you generated are detached from your account (anonymized) and removed from any homepage slots, because each analysis is a cached, per-game derivative of public Steam reviews (see "Caching of analysis output" in the Privacy Policy), it stays in the shared game cache but is no longer linked to you. Art. 17 GDPR.

Pricing & Billing

Is CritMap free?

Basic analyses are free with rate limits (5/hour anonymous, 30/hour with an account). The Indie, Studio (incl. Research Lab), and Publisher plans are paid, see Pricing.

What happens to my managed games if I move to a smaller plan?

Nothing is deleted. Each plan covers a number of games you can manage at once (Indie 1, Studio 5, Publisher unlimited). If you end up over that number, your oldest claims stay active and the rest are paused: no Review Workbench and no weekly digest for them until you free a slot or move back up. Stop managing an active game and the next paused one takes its place. Your reply drafts, review states, and past Action Reports stay exactly where they are. A free trial previews Studio, so it covers 5 games. If you then subscribe to a smaller plan, the extras are paused, not lost.

What is the Action Report?

A deep, async report for a game you manage in the Review Workbench. An AI reads the game's stored reviews one by one, instead of summarizing a small sample, then ranks the issues worth fixing first, breaks them into categories (technical, game design, content, and so on), flags negative reviews you can win back (including ones a released patch already addressed), and gives an honest projection of how far your review score could recover, shown as a realistic estimate plus a clearly-labelled best-case ceiling, not a guarantee. Each report states how many reviews it got through. It generates in the background and we email you when it's ready.

How much does the Action Report cost?

Included on every paid plan, every month (Indie 1, Studio 2, Publisher 3). A free trial includes one. Need more in a month? Extra reports are €9 each on a paid plan. VAT included. Allowances don't roll over, and when your paid plan starts after a trial, that plan's monthly allowance applies. Extra reports start generating as soon as the payment goes through, and your 14-day right of withdrawal applies in full, exactly as it does for a subscription (the Terms state the exact rules).

Is there a free trial?

Yes. Every paid plan includes a 3-day free trial, and no credit card is required to start. If you do nothing, the trial simply ends and you are never charged. To keep your plan you have to actively subscribe before it ends. Each account gets one trial.

What payment methods are accepted?

Stripe-backed: credit card, SEPA, and similar.

Refund policy?

The Widerruf section in the Terms of Service governs. For digital content delivered immediately, such as a one-off Action Report, checkout asks you to consent to immediate generation and acknowledge the consequences for the 14-day withdrawal right; the exact scope of that right is the one stated in the Terms. Subscriptions keep the standard 14-day right.

Technical

Which Steam games can I analyze?

Any game with a Steam App ID and public reviews.

Why is a game not found?

Steam search uses our cached index plus the Steam Web API; new releases sometimes lag. Try the full Steam URL.

What languages are supported?

The UI is English, but you never translate reviews yourself. CritMap reads them in their original language, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian, German, Brazilian Portuguese, and ~25 more (every language Steam supports), and folds them into one analysis. The AI summary always comes back in English. This applies to free analyses too.

Can I see what players in one language are saying?

Yes, on a paid plan. Custom scope lets you point the whole SWOT at a single review language (e.g. only what Simplified Chinese players say) and the Review Workbench has the same per-language filter on its review list. Free analyses use the default language selection and can't be scoped to one language.

Troubleshooting

I'm hitting rate limits. What now?

Anonymous users: 5/hour. Authenticated: 30/hour on the analyze endpoint. Sign in or wait: the Retry-After header tells you when.

My analysis failed. What should I do?

Try again; transient AI provider errors are common. If it persists, email [email protected] with the App ID.