Are App Store ratings for iPhone and iPad apps and games trustworthy?
Ste Pickford, basking in the glow of his new game’s slew of great ratings on the App Store:
It was while basking the warmth of a positive critical response, and wondering how exactly to turn ratings into dollars, that my good mood was punctured by an email from somebody offering their services to “improve our visibility” on the App Store.
I was suspicious, but curious.Curious because I’ve been asking pretty much every iOS developer I know for tips and advice (and every one of them, to a man, has been brilliantly forthcoming and helpful), so I’m always ready to listen to anyone who might be able to help us reach a wider audience for our game.
Suspicious because since releasing the game and firing out press releases to every review site I can find, I’ve soon learned that pretty much the only review sites who ever reply to emails are the ones who come back with a price list for the different reviews they offer. (Yes, really! I’d pay for straight advertising for a game, but I’d never pay for a review.)
Well, the “App Store visibility” guy emailed me straight back with his price list:
$100 for 100 App Store ratings and 20 written reviews
$200 for 200 App Store ratings and 45 written reviews
$300 for 300 App Store ratings and 70 written reviews
Woah!
Indeed. This isn’t something that’s restricted to the App Store, of course. Amazon’s been plagued by this problem for years. But in a store where devs are clamouring for attention, fighting to be heard above the noise, I suspect some might get tempted. Here’s hoping Apple’s slapping down anyone who goes for this.
It’s also reprehensible for sites to still be charging to review products. I don’t really care whether you state as much in your terms or your ‘hidden’ about-us page, this is utter bullshit. If you need revenue, get it from advertising—don’t have devs pay you for an ‘expedited’ review on some random iOS website that hardly anyone knows about, enabling said dev to excitedly add that they got 4/5 from WeGetPaidToReviewiOSApps.com.
*CALMFACE*
Anyway, Pickford again:
Yikes, I hope our phenomenal critical response doesn’t mean that people think we paid for those ratings!
Likewise. Magnetic Billiards: Blueprint is a very good game, and anyone who thinks the ratings came from paying some dodgy geezer for ’70 written reviews’ clearly hasn’t played the game. And given that I’m not reviewing this one for Tap! (someone else is), I can say this having actually paid for this game myself.
There also seem to be “organisations” out there that will write critical App store reviews. I’ve had this with the “reviewer” citing bugs with features that the App didn’t actually have, never had, and probably never will have.
Fortunately, Apple were really very helpful in getting them removed, and when they were added back after removal, removing them permanently.
Groups with the capability to put up positive reviews (lots of App store accounts, basically) will also be in a position to put up negative ones. Either as blackmail to encourage possible clients to use their service, or as corporate warfare (putting bad reviews on other developer’s Apps).
In my case, while I’m absolutely sure that the bogus reviews came from one organisation. I don’t know that they tried to get in touch. It might have been “for fun”, or it might have been a test. It did significantly damage sales for a while though.
It’s worth noting that another very important piece of visibility for an App’s reviews comes from the “Was this review helpful” buttons that give the “x out of y users found this review helpful” state. This is what is used to order reviews. It is very simple for an organisation with multiple iTunes accounts to completely game these metrics and the effect that they have will not quickly be diluted by genuine users. This would let them (and did, in my case) ensure that their review (positive or negative) is right at the top of the pile, just after an App’s description.
I hope I don’t come off sounding bitter 🙂 I’m not, because all this worked out, and from my experience, Apple are making a good job of handling it. In my case there were obvious connections between the bogus reviews. As the App store grows I’d expect the criminal types to get smart though, and get better at hiding this away.