Hi, Does anyone know a way in which you can contact a user who leaves a review on a product? - I've had a review left which (combined with some reviews the chap has done on other products) is simply down to a hardware issue with his device (accelerometer giving rogue feedback). If I can contact him then I can explain how he turns that side of things off so he can play the game - however I'm at a loss as to how to contact him ... any ideas? Thanks in advance for your help, Marc
Welcome to the world of iTunes reviews, there is currently no way to contact a user that left a review. I really hope they implement some sort of developer feedback option where you can comment on user's review as a developer.
This is what has bugged me about their review system. It's very one-sided and doesn't allow the developer to address their own customer base to help their customers out with the problems they're having. I seriously hope they fix this, because it's a fairly significant source of consternation when you get one-star reviews for absurd, novice reasons by users who didn't RTFM. Legit issues are fine, though a review isn't quite the right place to report it, but I see way too many reviews from people who just don't get how to play or use the app, which is not necessarily the developer's fault.
Here is a trick that has worked for me on multiple occasions. Search the user name in google and don't be surprised with a little investigation you might find the real person. It works best when the user has a very unique name.
Apple is making lots of changes on the Appstore on these days (Top 200, "In the Spolight" / "What's Hot" for Game categories), I really hope they will integrate a way to contact reviewers or to post a comment as a developer, maybe they will announce that during WWDC...
Yeah, I think commenting on a review would be best, it still lets users anonymously leave their opinions, but gives the developer a way to explain things if the bad review is just some sort of misunderstanding
Is it you, Kijib? You know if you do something you have to tell a developer or !!!!!!THE DEVIL!!!!!!! will take your soul.
Yeah, it's tough. At least on Yelp I believe you can respond to people. The best thing I think, is to be as clear as possible with your in-game documentation (develop it for people who don't wanna read stuff in mind) and pretty much force that it will be seen. You need to make this as non-annoying as possible. Otherwise, just have a decent way for your customerbase to reach you (support webpage with an email address setup) and maybe a FAQ on there as well, though for an iPhone game I'd expect most people aren't going to go through to bother since the games feel very disposable.
Thats quite possibly one of the strange things I've ever heard - I can contact anyone on numerous forums via. PM's and optionally emails - yet a paying customer who needs help it would be 'harassment' .... ? .....
I've gone this route HEAVILY - there's a manual in game complete with a trouble shooting section (which actually explains this issue and how to fix it already but he hasn't bothered to read it), it also has my contact email in it .... I've found thats helped a fair few people, but isn't reaching everyone and tbh I just want to ensure that everyone possible gets to play the game is all ...
hmmm. ultimately it does sound like something that needs to be addressed in design. if it's just one guy then I doubt it matters much, but if you have a lot of people complaining then it sure is an issue. What's the app called?
The apps 'Football Manager Handheld' - tbh the percentage of users complaining isn't huge and the problem is down to hardware failure. Basically when I first released the game I didn't realise that accelorometers 'went faulty' - so I defaulted a control which used 'shaking' to being on in the game. This meant that if someone had a duff device which detected as shaking all the time then the game was unplayable - you can fix it by turning the option off in preferences, but some people didn't manage to figure that out - even with the addition of a trouble shooting guide explaining the issue and how to solve it (first update). The second update defaulted the option to 'off', however some people had installed the original version of the game and thus already have their preferences setup so this won't help them unless they uninstall and then reinstall. Third update I'm going to try and put in some code to 'detect' faulty hardware unfortunately I haven't actually got a faulty device to hand so this is going to be somewhat err 'fun' to ascertain tbh ... (if you're wondering I know its down to this as a couple of users with the problem contacted me directly and turning this off in preferences fixed the problem, its probably about 0.02% of users who get this issue - but I'm a bit of a stickler for trying to ensure everyone can play my games without issue, if they can't they won't recommend them to a friend after all .....)
I think there was a guy with this same name who lady 1 star reviews on just about everything they went on, and almost all if them were on very good games...............
Thats pretty much the case with the chap I'd like to contact - I looked through his reviews and anything with a 'shake' feature he's found unplayable and slagged off, if someone could explain to him his device is faulty it'd help both him and any other developers he's reviewing ...
