Anyone noticing a trend in fake reviews for the top apps?

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by Balloon Loons, Mar 31, 2014.

  1. Balloon Loons

    Balloon Loons Well-Known Member

    Jun 20, 2012
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    #1 Balloon Loons, Mar 31, 2014
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2014
    Hey everyone. Hope you're all doing well.

    I was browsing through the App Store top lists for free apps and I noticed something that really frustrates me. Reading through the reviews for the top apps I notice that they are the same style of reviews for most of these apps. I'm referring to ones that look so mediocre you wouldn't even think about downloading them. Yet there they are.

    I'm looking at the app 2048 which seems to be at the top now. With reviews like what have you done..I was enjoying my life until.... Etc. sound familiar? Yup. Flappy bird reviews. All these one paragraph long reviews about how the app ruined someone's life.

    And it doesn't end there. Browse through the other free apps and you'll notice the same thing. Also what seems to be a bad review giving 5 stars. And on top of that reviews with the same titles! One after another with the same exact title.

    What is going on here? Is bot farming now the norm? How can regular developers compete with cheaters?

    Thoughts?
     
  2. Pixelosis

    Pixelosis Well-Known Member

    Jan 28, 2013
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    #2 Pixelosis, Mar 31, 2014
    Last edited: Sep 25, 2014
    The entire ranking system appears to be deeply screwed and gamed today. It is nigh absolutely irrelevant for true genuine advice, pegged down to a race for the best spots to rack in as many $$$ as possible, and has thus become a profitable source for shady businesses that keep blossoming, offering more and more cheap opportunities to champion your product up the ranks. With so much proliferation of these activities, considering that so few companies ever get banned by either Apple or Google, you've got some evidence that those methods are widely used and relatively safe ontop of that. Sad, isn't it?

    These days it's supposed to be totally normal that a rather obscure game can get like half a million reviews under a month, the vast majority of them overly positive.
    I'd go as far as say that getting to the topmost positions (say 250 firsts) on the merits of your app uniquely is pretty much wishful thinking. Your choice is between white marketing (which we already knew) or black marketing (which is gaining weight at an alarming rate).

    Anyway, e-portals are only fair during the first two years in general. Beyond that indies can't fight much without craving exposure at any cost.

    On a sidenote, I think even excessive white marketing is frowned upon, theoretically, unless you're a very, very big publisher (EA for example).
     
  3. neilw711

    neilw711 Well-Known Member

    Nov 19, 2012
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    Definitely! Especially on flappy bird and its clones. I have this feeling that's how flappy bird made it to the top. Games like Smash Hit deserve good reviews but I'm also seeing a trend of weird reviews for the top 10 apps. They also have very strange usernames like "omg iphone rules like crazy" or "guywhowantsmorecideos"
     
  4. psj3809

    psj3809 Moderator

    Jan 13, 2011
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    Some of it is probably due to competitions. Check out the promo code section here for example. People leaving stupid 5 star reviews for any game just to try and win a gift voucher.

    Reviews on the App Store are sadly a joke mostly
     
  5. Phil128

    Phil128 Well-Known Member

    Jan 21, 2013
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    Noticed the same thing in the German appstore. Also found some fake reviews for rovio apps and other big players. Very sad that apple is not doing anything about it...
     
  6. Pixelosis

    Pixelosis Well-Known Member

    Jan 28, 2013
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    I wouldn't be so optimistic about Smash Hit, really. This game gets a tsunami of super scores like it cures cancer but by its visuals alone it screams intellectual obscure PC game that would have no chance to make it big. It's perhaps decent, but that good as to storm the top ranking? Just no. Have you even gotten a look at the ranking chart on App Annie. :eek:
    Even white marketing takes time to kick in. So what's that?
    :confused:
     
  7. Pixelosis

    Pixelosis Well-Known Member

    Jan 28, 2013
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    I'd also point that the flood of fake reviews, both in quantity and the notation they attribute, might begin to put review websites in a precarious position.
    Rule of mob being what it is, what is a website to do as it hopes retain its entire relevancy and not lose like 10~20% of its audience if it were to contradict the zerg rush of marvellous reviews? Most people would say half a million people can't be wrong, so who are those websites to be so harsh and out of tune, really? That would get me a little bit nervous. It could very well push things into Famitsu realm, the fan pandering one you know, where people expect perfect scores because FINAL FANTASY! A similar phenomenon might kick in, where [big name] gets replaced by [huge amount of 5/5 reviews on stores].
    It might be even worse than previously thought, because a torrent of positive reviews and scores might become far, far more relevant, cash wise, than any yet already favourable review on otherwise respected websites.
    I mean, a good score here gets you what? 10K to 40K downloads in one day and the effect fades out rapidly, and there's not much money to be made from that, whether you go with freemium or advertising (or even plain premium unless you sell at two digits).
    But trusting the top positions, that's a guaranteed high revenue on the long run.
     
  8. neilw711

    neilw711 Well-Known Member

    Nov 19, 2012
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    Smash Hit was beautifully executed :cool:
     
  9. Balloon Loons

    Balloon Loons Well-Known Member

    Jun 20, 2012
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    I think someone somewhere figured something really big out when it comes to these reviews and flappy bird was more of an experiment for it than anything. It's just very coincidental that after flappy bird rockets to the top using these types of reviews, that other apps are now implementing similar reviews.

    Makes me think the developer of flappy birds wasn't trying to make a good game. He was trying an experiment for a method that is now being used all over. It would explain so much if this was the case.
     
  10. Balloon Loons

    Balloon Loons Well-Known Member

    Jun 20, 2012
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    This is crazy. Another app hits the top today. This one from Japan. It's so bad even the title is written improperly. "Don't step the white tile." So I start reading reviews and again it's these very generic reviews. And I'm now noticing many of them contain comparisons to flappy bird even though the game is completely nothing like flappy bird.

    I'm going to run a test. I'm going to release my own flappy bird clone and without cheats let's see if we can get reviews like this. My bet is no way. But I want to see first hand. Let's see if a legitimate app release has any chance of competing and getting reviews like this.

    The developers are claiming they did nothing shady. Ok so let's see if that's possible.

    I will be posting updates on how we do here. Expect a release very shortly.

    If we go by the claim that there is nothing shady going on then my release should rocket to the top and gain similar reviews. Then I will admit I was wrong to accuse these people of wrong doing including the flappy bird developer himself. I will make a public apology.

    But if I am right hopefully we can all shed light on this and have apple put an end to it if we draw attention to it.

    This is not fair to us hard working developers who try hard every day to make a product worthy of being called an app.
     
  11. psj3809

    psj3809 Moderator

    Jan 13, 2011
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    I think most decent iOS gamers dont bother reading the app store reviews as they seem to be a joke. Tons of fake reviews, tons of fake reviews due to competitions and so on.

    I use forums/youtube now to check out games and what people think of them (not people with 1 post though !).

    But obviously from a devs point of view its great to get app store reviews to get 'noticed' on the app store. I used to leave a lot of reviews but i'm constantly fighting against stupid kids with reviews such as 1/5 stars, terrible game, only has 900000 levels, finished it in a week, want my 99c back.....' or just small one line fake reviews. Depressing
     
  12. Glorkbot

    Glorkbot Well-Known Member

    Aug 14, 2013
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    How does this work? I thought you can't leave a review unless you actually bought the game.

    I got a game with a promo code once (Hello World, an absolutely unique and fantastic action adventure game from Here Be Dragonz) and I was blocked from leaving a review, the app store said I didn't "own" it.
     
  13. mr.Ugly

    mr.Ugly Well-Known Member

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    ths white tile one is free.. so there is no problem to pay an agency for some fake reviews

    as for loons.. i doubt the 10.001th flappy bird clone will make a difference.

    except maybe you can make it look like the "legit" version.


    what i don't quite understand is why anyone would be angry about "fake"
    reviews.. its a marketing technique ages old.. well known.. and usualy no one cares about thoose reviews anyway.

    and who knows maybe the game is fun to play? i would not download it by the looks if it.. but for the casual gamers who love free games they just download it for the heck it it.. its free anyway.. if its crap can delete it as fast as it was downloaded..

    anyway fake reviews have been here long time. gaming the store rankings is nothing new either so everything boilds down to one thing.. money. If you have it you can invest into your game and whatever marketing techniques you are fine with an boost sales. if you have no money your stuck with what you have. hoping for a viral outbrak like flappy bird which is like a lottery win.. a very slim chance, is silly and unrealistic.

    the time where every second shoody "game" can make money is looong time over.
     
  14. Balloon Loons

    Balloon Loons Well-Known Member

    Jun 20, 2012
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    I'm not sure exactly how it works. But my understanding is you can create an unlimited amount of iTunes accounts for free using no credit card. Google how to on that if you don't know. Then simply automate a system to download a given app and use the bot to generate reviews using keywords or predefined reviews. That explains why some reviews seem to not even be about the particular app being posted about. They are very generic in nature and can be observed when in review after review flappy bird is mentioned as a comparison even if the app has nothing to do with that game type.
     
  15. Balloon Loons

    Balloon Loons Well-Known Member

    Jun 20, 2012
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    Clash of the clans which is a legitimate game has to date 700k+ reviews. The day flappy bird exploded it had 4,560,000 written reviews!!! 2 days later the amount dropped to 500k. Which can only mean apple deleted 4 million+ reviews themselves since there is no way to delete a review yourself.

    Those numbers are staggering and a clear sign of cheating. Why media outlets are praising the developer and this game as some sort of genius is beyond me and a slap in the face to legitimate developers.
     
  16. Balloon Loons

    Balloon Loons Well-Known Member

    Jun 20, 2012
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    The problem comes in not about reviews exactly. The problem is artificial inflation of download numbers. If a cheat developer can artificially generate reviews using a hack or by paying for a service that does it, then how can regular developers compete using the old fashioned way of asking sites like toucharcade for reviews to spread the word etc. remember each one of those reviews is a download. If the review is fraudulent then so is the download. And that's what I have a problem with.

    What is the point of anyone trying to make a good game if some guy is just making crap but has the ability to push it artificially to the top using hacks. Do I think the flappy bird developer paid a company? Absolutely not. I believe he himself set up the hack or farm. There is no way a no name developer could afford 4 million+ reviews to boost his app.

    What happened without a doubt in my mind is that his focus was on the cheat and he just needed a way to test it. So he made the most basic app possible in 1 day of work, then put his true asset to the test.

    And finally the main issue with this is that the top lists are flooded with really dumb apps that normally no one would want. A regular developer stands no chance against this.

    Yup I'm going to make my own version for two reasons. Main reason is I spent the last year learning 3d full time. We started working on a 3d balloon loons title but seeing how things are working with the rampant fraud, I'm worried. I don't even want to attempt cheating. I want people to dl the game because they want to. And if it makes it big on it's own I can be proud. So reason 1 is I get to put my 3d assets to a quick test. And mostly I want to test out my theory. So I'll make a 2.5d clone that actually looks pretty. Or legit as you say.
     
  17. dancj

    dancj Well-Known Member

    Jan 25, 2011
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    Are you in America? In the UK App Store the reviews for 2048. There are some potentially generic ones that could be for other games - but then bar a couple words, so is the one I just left. The fact is 2048 is really addictive - and I'm only just free of there shackles of it having finally got the 2048 tile about an hour ago.
     
  18. Balloon Loons

    Balloon Loons Well-Known Member

    Jun 20, 2012
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    America here. One of the reasons it stands out so much. Coincidence that many of these are Asian companies at all? In the last 6 years I've never seen a title that not only looks bad, but has a grammatically incorrect title, as well as Japanese text not even in English, make it to the very top of the American charts. That is some magical stuff
     
  19. Balloon Loons

    Balloon Loons Well-Known Member

    Jun 20, 2012
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    Case and point flappy bullet. Made by zhicong ruan. Scroll down the reviews what do you notice. First thing I did was that so many have the same exact title. That never happens. Really? When people wrote reviews they all just put the name of the game in the title? That's a first for me. And apparently this game ruins lives too. Seems to be the common theme now. Really? All apps just ruin lives now? For everyone who downloads them? Lol.
     
  20. Balloon Loons

    Balloon Loons Well-Known Member

    Jun 20, 2012
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    One review raves dumbest game ever then asks why would people make clones of flappy bird. And then still gives 5 stars. Lol. Wtf is going on here? How are they doing this?
     

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