Big Question...

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by Alex Graal, Dec 6, 2010.

  1. Alex Graal

    Alex Graal Well-Known Member

    Jul 11, 2010
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    I've always wanted to know...


    how are the Reviews, or Ratings for that matter, proportional to how many people bought the app.

    I am trying to ask that if there are....lets say 300 ratings, about how many people bought the app? Usually, how many people out of 10 will rate the app?


    Same thing for reviews...How many people will review an app out of every 10?
    On average, of course.
     
  2. K?!

    K?! Well-Known Member

    Nov 5, 2010
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    #2 K?!, Dec 6, 2010
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2010
    for Pocket God, something like 1 in 60 based on publicly available figures. For Angry Birds, 1 in 35. For NYZombies, 1 in 100. For tilt to live, 1 in 67. For AppBoxPro, 1 in 411. This is going on ratings for all versions.
     
  3. mr.Ugly

    mr.Ugly Well-Known Member

    Dec 1, 2009
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    the number are correct you can expect around 1:100 on average..

    and the rating will decline with ios4 since "rate on delete" is removed..

    so you will alot less 1 start rating since people will just delete and not take the extra time to rate it on the appstore.
     
  4. Alex Graal

    Alex Graal Well-Known Member

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    #4 Alex Graal, Dec 7, 2010
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2010
    So, 1:100 would be a fair estimate on the app store? So when I see a game out there with...10 reviews....it has about 1000 downloads?


    EDIT: Does anybody here have an AIM that they are on commonly? I'd love to have a source that if I have a question, I can quickly send an IM to. It would help greatly. Thank you.
     
  5. It also makes a huge difference if you put pop up alerts in your game that go to the review screen when you click ok.

    Several games put them after the first level, or a significant milestone, or some feel good part of the game.

    Bribing people by insinuating updates to the game are tied to 5 star reviews is also popular.

    Also, astro turfing via giving out promo codes for reviews, or hiring people to add reviews, and getting friends and family to review you game are all popular, and can easily get the numbers of reviews up quickly.

    This is just for written reviews. The star only reviews tend to be easier to get, for a number of reasons.

    If you are trying to work out sales numbers for game based on the number of reviews, I think you are going down a risky track.



    FWIW - My free game, A Snake had 2.1 million downloads or so, and had around 110 000 star ratings (1 in 19), and I think it had around 3500 written reviews in the USA store (1 in 600). Those numbers are over all versions.

    From memory, I had a pop up asking for reviews after the 10th game after first play and after each version update.
     
  6. Stroffolino

    Stroffolino Well-Known Member
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    Apr 28, 2009
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    The majority of app ratings are triggered as follows:

    1. rate on delete. These are good when a user deletes a lite version after upgrading, or bad when the user didn't like your app. Personally, I don't like the fact that Apple is doing away with this feature in newer iOS. Before the AppStore had rate on delete, reviews tended to be artificially high - people that hated an app usually couldn't be bothered to rate it. Of course, it was even sillier back when Apple let people review an app that didn't even own it.

    2. solicited via in-app popup. Angry Birds does this pretty aggressively. It does make a big difference.

    3. from users that feels strongly about the app. These can obviously be good or bad, and usually result in written reviews.
     
  7. Alex Graal

    Alex Graal Well-Known Member

    Jul 11, 2010
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    Hmmmm, I have another question. How long does it take for an App to get accepted when sent in for final review?
     
  8. Krehol Games

    Krehol Games Well-Known Member

    review

    When its in review its about 5-6 hours. Someties I hear that its faster but I cannot comment on that.
     
  9. Alex Graal

    Alex Graal Well-Known Member

    Jul 11, 2010
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    Wait, well, I have a friend who submitted an app and he said it takes about 2 weeks...
     
  10. Once submitted, the app goes into the "Waiting for Review" state. It can stay there for days or weeks depending on how busy the review team is.

    In theory, once a reviewer is looking at your app, its state changes to "In Review". Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to always indicate an imminent release

    I've seen apps be "In Review" for 5 days sometimes, even for a simple update.

    Other times an app might be approved within an hour of going into the "In Review" state, so it's difficult to put an average number to it.
     
  11. Alex Graal

    Alex Graal Well-Known Member

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    How do they review it?
     

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