In light of the recent news about the 1000 apps that got removed from the iTunes App store, I have some words of warning. It seems that the scandal involving gaming review scores has a solid foundation to stand on now, but what worries me more than an unscrupulous publisher or developer gaming the system, is the possible witch hunt that will follow. For example we just got accused in an iTunes review of having a ratings scam because a user did not get our control scheme for bitFLIP and couldn't see how others had given us so many five star ratings. Controls have not been an issue in none of the press reviews we have gotten and to call "scam" in an App review can really hurt us since we have no way to reply to it besides asking Apple to review. Every developer has friends and family rooting for them who will in blind faith, or pure admiration, drop a 5 star review to help their cause. I fear that this natural occurrence will now draw suspecting eyes. In fact, when we launched bitFLIP, our thread on TouchArcade.com had a comment or two about our initial reviews, to which we took the time to address with each concerned forum member in private. I think that we need to be careful in this regard. I am not concerned about Apple's ability to tell the difference; itÂ’s more of a call to those that would approach the fruits of indie labor with suspicion. The cream will always rise to the top and the app reviews are a critical part of encouraging the impulse to buy great products; and since we developers can only respond to them with app updates, it makes it a bit more difficult to get there. In the end, I can firmly say that there is nothing worse than the inability to address customers true concerns. Thanks for listening.
Every app has one or two "fake reviews" like what you said these days...As long as you're not faking all 1000 of them, the overall rating will sort out themselves, I don't think Apple is that dumb to ban you just because of one or two 5-star reviews at launch.
OK, I just posted a quick review (glowing, because I happened to like the game) anyone wanting to accuse me of being a shill reviewer can wade through my 767 reviews and judge for themselves whether or not they're fake.
Because TA is the most active community of iPhone/Touch gamers on the web and as a developer I wanted to share my concerns with the community and get feedback. What they should beware of is in the post .
yup, i just didnt get what we end users should beware of. Now that u clarified abt reaching to other devs here it starts to make sense
Gameloft has about 100 shills on Modern Combat, which Apple has turned a blind eye to. It really goes to show that Apple does show favoritism
Srsly? I mean the motive is there, they do need the bigger devs to maintain idevices as a profitable gaming platform
Ya MC's ratings were getting butchered because of the broken multiplayer, and they raised the average from 2.5 stars to four. If you click on the reviewers from about 5 days ago 90% of them will have a review for Gamelofts Backgammon, Diamond Quest, Modern Combat, and then like 2 reviews of free games. All the reviews by these people say how awesome the game is, say the multiplayer works or how to fix UPnP, or put down other FPS's
