Very much agree which is why the sidebar in the store should describe the actual game, not how awesome it is, not how it's related to others "If you loved a,b,c,d,e,f,g etc you'll love this too". And then you come here and to other sites with a set of clear images, actual size showing the game screens (not just menus), you get a video, you again post a good description. That alone tells people like me that you care about your game. Throwing promo codes at people is a waste of time - choose carefully, think of them as an investment.
So... when politicians vote for themselves...? There is something kinda smarmy about the first few reviews being so 5-star mega awesome, tho. I usually just ignore the first few and look for constructive reviews.
Even if I believed your story that 55 or so people who had never left a review for the iPhone were all moved on the very same day to leave a 5 star review for you (which I don't), leaving yourself 10 shill reviews still makes you the king of the shillers as far as I can tell. I am not sure I understand what you are saying. Above you admit shilling for your own games, and here you are denying it. And in any case, it certainly looks like you did it for these games as well. Gin Rummy Deluxe starts with 5 5-star review on the first day or two, all (with one exception) by people who had never written reviews before or since. And then it has a whole bunch of normal looking reviews. Go Fish Multiplayer has only three reviews. All 5-star, all in the first couple of days, all (with on exception) written by new reviewers who haven't written any other reviews. The one exception above is that one of the reviewers wrote 5-star reviews for both games. So yea, it looks like you shilled for those games as well. Not to the same degree as your new game, but still quite a few phony reviews. No thanks. Even if I liked it, I wouldn't buy your game, so what's the point? Michael
Apples and Oranges. Votes are a count of the voting populace who think a particular candidate is best to be elected. Obviously, the politician is part of the voting populace. Review are supposed to be feedback by impartial users of a game as to the quality of the game. Equally obviously, the developer of the game is not part of that group. Michael
Fair enough. Though I think the dev is entitled to a commentary on their product as much as anyone else. I actually like when the dev uses their single review to comment on the game or even respond to other reviews. Abusing the review system by using multiple accounts to hammer the awesomeness of an app is beyond the pale, which is really what the post is about I guess. As in the online retail market, however, most shoppers are sophisticated enough to cut through the bull. Why I always encourage people to leave constructive reviews. "Game is great!" does no one any good.
I have no problem with that either. Provided they identify themselves as such. "Hi, I am the developer of this game and I thinks its great because...." The problem is that dishonest developers will keep upping the ante. Customers ignore the first review...I'll leave three. Now customers ignore three...Ok, I will leave seven. Now we have a developer who freely admits to leaving 10, who I actually thing has left closer to 70. Pretty soon, the whole review process breaks down. The irony is, shill reviews are actually a good indicator of quality. I have yet to see a game that started with a bunch of shill reviews end up with a high average. A good developer who has developed a good game know he or she doesn't need to leave a shill review because good ones are coming. A good example of this is a game that came out last night called Match-3d. I downloaded the lite version and then purchased the full one. As I was leaving the game the first review later last night, I was thinking that I knew the developer hadn't left a shill review because I was the first one. This morning there are three 5 star reviews, none of them from the developer. Quality will tell. Michael
.... We've provided an honest account of what we did with Bumper Stars. After that, there's nothing else we can do - everyone's welcome to their opinion, whether we like it or not. If someone isn't interested in purchasing the iPhone version, they can try the flash version on a variety of social networks and MSN.
I think the problem people have (certainly this is the problem I have): 1) You still seem to think that 10 or so shill reviews is ok. 2) You are still being less then honest about your shilling activities in your first two apps. and (this may be just me) 3) Your story about all the other reviews for this game doesn't seem to be an "honest account". Michael
While I think it's good to describe the actual product/game as opposed to saying it's related/like other such products, that's the first thing that will probably catch the viewers eye. Or have a chance to. If they like said related games, then they'll probably read more about yours, but if there's none to liken it to, then they have to read it with potentially wasting their time. So it kind of gives a very broad filter for people looking into the game. I originally didn't have that in my post, but then added it later, mentioning Tetris/Puzzle Fighter/Dr. Mario. While I agree that over time people who get shill reviews will eventually have the quality of their game revealed, I don't think it's the fact that people with good games will get noticed at all over time. Like I think my game is pretty good, and I've asked people here to review it or leave reviews, I'm pretty sure they're all honest from them but sales are dismal. Sadly, although people on these forums/boards may look for the quality of the review, the general populace are much more interested in the quantity. Hence, why I hate to say, it but shill reviews probably work. oh and shameless plug! My game! 2 Block - $0.99 Update already Submitted (Side note - even though I mentioned in this post for my friends to review it I don't think they have... lol I'll have to go force them to or something, lazy people!)
1) There's no answer to that. I think a vast majority of developers write reviews of their own games - I know of a bunch that have and do (and more than 10 at that). It doesn't make it OK, but it is what it is. 2) The claim was we created 70 accounts and left reviews under those accounts - I simply stated that if we were going to do that for Bumper Stars, we would have done it for our other games as well. Clearly, we left reviews for Gin Rummy & Go Fish, but the # here is around 5 for each. I didn't think it needed to be stated that we did this. 3) There's nothing else I can provide here to do anything to change anyone's mind. You either believe us, or you don't based on the info already provided. All in, developing & publishing games is incredibly expensive and everyone should do whatever they need to do to succeed; frankly, everyone has to, or they simply won't survive. Believing that developing a good game and putting it in to the universe is all you need to do to be successful isn't exactly the best bet for any company or any individual that wants a positive ROI. This is true across all lines of business. Once again, it doesn't make it right, but that's reality. We do our best to make a good game, inform people the game is available, do ads where they make sense, small twitter promotions, and in the case of our iPhone games leave a small # of reviews when the game launches. That's what we can do. Other companies can and do a LOT more; if a companies games don't succeed after doing everything they can then they won't be around to make another, but they need to at least try their best. All developer/publishers have 2 common goals: 1) make awesome games that people across the world love and buy and 2) make money so they can make the next one. If us leaving a small # of reviews offends people, we apologize for that as it wasn't our intent. But, we like what we do, we think we make great games (especially Bumper Stars ) and we'd be stupid to just throw them up there and hope for the best, because that's a recipe for us not being able to make our next games and at worst not having a company that we work hard for exist at all. Finally, to wrap up this long a$$ response, it's not as if the ~ 10 reviews we left for Bumper Stars (or even the bunch we got from our initial push to existing bumper stars players) magically vaulted us in to the top 10 and we are taking baths in $100 bills with models . Far from it, we're scratching, clawing, and fighting for each and every download we get and we're going to continue to do so because that's what we HAVE TO DO in order to succeed, and every other developer out there is either doing the exact same thing, or they should be.
I bet you can't show one bit of evidence that shill reviews work. All they do is anger people by insulting their intelligence. I don't know about you, but if I meet a person and that person tries to trick me to take my money, even if the trick doesn't work I'm not gonna like that person very much. Its about the principle more than anything.
man, this is quite a sad thread guys. How about we all cut each other some slack and support the games/devs we like & just avoid the games/devs we don't. It's funny how some people see devs as these mean out-to-get-you types when they're just trying to give this crazy thing a go. Live & Let Live. Geeze.
I figured that a few devs were gonna come in here and not say they are devs and try to call this a sad thread. I wonder why.....
yep. Still an avid gamer though. And, for the record I save my 1 review for rebuking people that leave stupid 1 star reviews with things like "level 7 isn't beatable"... so annoying that there's no rebuke or comment or FAQs system.
I'm just curious as to why you didnt announce that you were a dev at first yourself before trying to play it off like a regular poster saying this is a sad thread.
seems like the guy is worried about something. Funny how the thread had a 4 star rating and the moment he posted it went down to 3 stars. Sneaky
...well there I think I brought it back to 4 stars? Anyhow, it's true that there are prolly no "facts" other than I guess devs that did, and did not do it, to notice a difference in sales and what not. But I guess the people that do it, just weigh the pros more than the cons. But I guess it brings about the fact or point rather, when a Dev does everything he can do, forums, videos, spamming people, and so forth, what other options are there? short of luck being featured on the iTunes Store. Like I haven't for my game, but it does sound uhh... promising? If one were to do it, properly, and not get, I guess, "caught" then it would only work out in their favor and I think that's what most dev's bank on. Sure there's this thread calling people out on it, which is good, but really the general public aren't gonna notice it. And sadly the community here is still only gonna make up a relatively small portion of the market
Shilling does not work in their favor. They might like to think it does and it might be tempting to them, but for every 1 person they trick into buying their game with a shill review they piss off another 20 that won't buy it because of the BS review. People aren't stupid. In the case of your game... you say its not selling well yet, I think it will once the update comes out. You know I've played the new update and all I can say is its one of the best updates I've seen so far. Keep working like that and your game will be successful.
