iTunes doesn't allow us to view "top rated" games. They organize their stuff by sales instead of how well reviewed different apps/games are. It would be interesting to see what games have the highest average rating after 100 reviews. I use metacritic to buy console games because it averages a lot of reviews and seems to give a good average scale of a game. Is there anything like this for iPhone games?
That would be an awesome feature. I think a minimum of 50 reviews is a good cutoff. As for undermining small dev's games, on the contrary, I think it would emphasize them. For example, Quantum Collapse has about 30 reviews and a 4.5 star rating right now. Once the game reaches 50 reviews, it would be in the top 100 of this list I'm sure. I'm sure lots of high quality games by small devs (Mecho Wars to name another one) would end up near the top of the list due to a passionate fanbase that loves the game. And those rare few big name dev's games that really are so good that they have close to 5 star reviews (F.A.S.T. Real Racing) etc have had a lot of work put into them and deserve to get more attention actually. More importantly under the current system expensive games get ignored completely. They don't show up on any of the lists. With this feature expensive games like Real Racing and F.A.S.T. that are worth every penny would show up here atleast.
Problem with this feature is that the games with only 1 review with 5 stars (even if done by developer.) would be at the top of the list.
Or just have a qualifier of a minimum of X reviews, but the problem with this is that it would further obscure the under-the-radar games and make the bigger games more visible. Which is the whole purpose of this idea to make the gems be noticed.
I think a minimum of 50 reviews is a good cutoff. As for undermining small dev's games, on the contrary, I think it would emphasize them. For example, Quantum Collapse has about 30 reviews and a 4.5 star rating right now. Once the game reaches 50 reviews, it would be in the top 100 of this list I'm sure. I'm sure lots of high quality games by small devs (Mecho Wars to name another one) would end up near the top of the list due to a passionate fanbase that loves the game. And those rare few big name dev's games that really are so good that they have close to 5 star reviews (F.A.S.T. Real Racing) etc have had a lot of work put into them and deserve to get more attention actually. More importantly under the current system expensive games get ignored completely. They don't show up on any of the lists. With this feature expensive games like Real Racing and F.A.S.T. that are worth every penny would show up here atleast.
They don't have it but sure its a great feature. It could be a little tricky on the algorithm part though. Highest Rated = Most Vote or Good votes? If good votes, should games with less amount of reviews but good rating, rank higher than games with more reviews with bad ratings?
I don't mean this in a rude way, but who cares? The way things are set up, you only get to see the games that are "most popular" and any small developer that doesn't release a game with a prior fan following is going to be buried somewhere in the abyss. Allowing the option to sort by ratings would just give consumers another way to discover new apps. It doesn't penalize any developer any more than rating by popularity does. But it could push a good virtually unknown game into the spotlight. Most importantly, though, it's something consumers will benefit from. Amazon has this, and it works great. Sure, you'll get some apps with a single one star rating, but overall, it's just an option -- not something that will affect a developer worse than the current status quo. I think the ability to sort by rating (no minimum necessary) should be an option in iTunes -- NOT made into an "Top Ratings" list.
Well, I think a small minimum number or reviews would be good, 10 atleast. Otherwise, every dev would just rate their own game 5 stars and get to the top of the list, and the list would always be jam packed with 5 star games with a single review. I do think this feature should precisely make it easier for people to discover quality indie games without a lot of downloads yet. But just one review is too small. My only concern with this is that it makes reviews too important. One mean spirited 1 star review can make the difference between a game topping the list and taking off, and being ignored completely. Competing devs might try to hurt each other's review too (very unlikely but still a possibility). But I think the positives outnumber the negatives by far.
This is why I think it should not be a dedicated list like "Top Paid" etc. It should just be a SORT option (in iTunes). This way, it doesn't necessarily hurt any particular developer (If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?). It's purely a consumer tool. I don't see the harm in having a review minimum, I guess. But no matter what safeguards are put in place, people are always going to find a way to cheat the system and ruin things for everyone else. So, at a certain point, I'm inclined to say just implement something and let people exercise their own judgment. If you see a game with a single 5-star (or 1-star) review, simple good judgment should lead you to conclude that the sample size is too small to make an informed decision on such data. Sometimes it seems like people are obsessed with policing others and micromanaging everything because this might happen or that could happen. It would be great if we could address every single issue that might affect every single person, but it's never going to happen. People will always abuse public reviews all across the Internet. This is where common sense needs to prevail. I'd rather have a flawed "sort by rating" option than no such option at all. And that was quite a tangent for a not very important issue, wasn't it? I guess I've just wanted this option for a while now!
a member on TA made a webapp that pulls reviews from all the countries and aggregates them i forget the link though
