Hi all, Maybe this has been discussed before - I searched a bit but couldn't find a thread, so here we go: I am quite new as an iOS developer. We released our first iPad title yesterday, and when following up today I was surprised at some of the reviews. Especially two reviews in the US which stated that the game "didn't download" and "was a ripoff". How is that even possible? Obviously I have contacted Apple about them, but I am not sure if they will act. Anyway, I would like to ask your advice - as users and gamers - on how a developer should handle reviews like those ones. Are they worth commenting on in the game description or should we just ignore them and hope the good ones (which we have several of) will win out? I have nothing against fair/honest reviews (we want to improve the game obviously), but these ones seem more like shill reviews to me - as if someone is marking the App down on purpose. In case you are interested, the game in question is here: http://itunes.com/apps/machineworld If you are in the US, you should be able to see the reviews I mentioned. Anyway, thanks in advance for your thoughts on the issue. A bit depressed here. :-/
If the game is over 20mbs it's probably because the person or people are trying to download it over 3G And you can't download games over 20mbs over 3G (only wifi) If that's the case you can address it in your description and say "we have had reports that some people are having trouble downloading this over 3G, games of this size can only be downloaded through wifi, a rule Of apples, not mine" If it's not that then I dunno what it is, I doubt people would be shilling unless your game is very similar to someone elses so they are trying to make yours look bad. But generally devs/publishers don't even respond to negative feedback on iTunes, they just ignore it, addressing it may just bring more attention to It and lessening the sales, plus each country can only see their own countries feedback, And everytime you update your game the old reviews dont count as your feedback score, it starts fresh.
That's right! I didn't think of that - that is probably the case. Although I am quite sure you do get a notice explaining why it won't download. Anyway, perhaps I should add a notice like you suggested. Can't hurt. Thanks!
Don't worry about a couple of bad / fake / unfair App Store comments as a good game will generally receive positive feedback too. You can try to encourage more people to review your game - but don't expect all reviews to be positive, because someone will always hate what you do, no matter how hard you work on it. If you start adding notes about possible problems or bad reviews to your app description, that draws attention to the negatives and puts people off. That's not a good idea unless you have a major problem affecting many customers and want them to know it's being worked on. You could add a general note inviting people to contact you directly with any problems, so they can be dealt with promptly. That may deter some customers who may have left a bad review otherwise.
Thanks Red1, In general I am not worried about a few negative reviews. We are in it for the long haul and as long as reviews are constructive in some way I am happy. What bothered me was the claims that the App was not possible to download, but that may definitely be due to the App size (it is above 20mb). As for the few other negative comments, I have asked people to communicate with us on our forum, but obviously not all users will do that. Which is sad, as it would have given us a chance to rectify whatever problem the one-star reviewer had. The App Store sure is an interesting place...
Yeah I would add a line in there - "Problems? Email xxxx@xxxxx for help!" That is sort of a blanket statement that doesn't say anything specific about a problem (like the over 20mb problem). The thing is, as soon as you start to write a review there is a block on the top of the box you must fill in that says something (off the top of my head) like - Technical Problems? Contact technical support -- and then gives the email that should be on the link in your description at the bottom. People will find anything to complain about and I think most devs have just learned to ignore the ignorance and focus on the positive. Good luck!
Sadly there are lots of fake/shill reviews. Look at one of the sections here where people just give out 5/5 reviews just to try to win an iTunes voucher Most people can see past these fake terrible review things and ignore them
yeah obviously these reviews are a pain in the bee-hind. but i too believe that a good game will eventually float up and the average score of all will prevail. so a few pins and needles here and there should not cause a big riot, even for small indie developers.
What is most annoying is not the negatives reviews in themselves (IMHO). It is the fact that people tend to ignore the options that exists for getting help. On the App pages there are two prominent buttons (Developer Site + Support), but I have yet to see a single email or post from users with problems. That takes away the opportunity to help people who do have problems. For example, two of the recent reviews in the UK: 1. Someone was disappointed that the game was a bit too hard for his/her 4y/o. Rated the game with one star. I would have loved to be able to get some more feedback or help the customer. 2. Another customer said it crashed on startup. We have hard tested it (and it does not crash in our experience), so the most likely reason was that he was on an iPad1 and had run (or was running) lots of other things. In such cases the OS may be unable to free enough memory for a game to run. Maybe a restart would have helped him? Now I don't know. He rated it with one star and was requesting a refund. So it seems that some will not give a developer the benefit of a doubt, and given how the App Store works we can't really step in and help people who have problems. That's a bit sad. Anyway, we'll continue to improve on the App and listen to the constructive feedback we get and hope that the positive reviews win out. We have had more 4/5-stars than bad ones, so all in all we are quite happy all things considered.
Lol I gave a 2 star review to a game, and they haven't chosen the winner yet... Haha. They did say give an honest review! Anyway, don't worry about it. Your game is great to me, but there is always room for improvement. Just need to take suggestions into mind.
Great point, i had a problem with a recent game, cant get it working, emailed the dev and theyre looking into it. I'm not going to add a silly 1 star rating for the sake of it, an update should cure my issues and then i'll be happy. People nowadays seem to leave a 1 star rating no matter how tiny the issue is, if you emailed the devs and they said 'shutup, go away' then yeah leave a poor rating, but if they say 'sorry about this, we know there is an issue and we'll be updating it asap' then i would wait a bit longer before leaving a review. Any review i see though which is only a few words i ignore as to me its a shill rating. Good on TakenXXDeadly above for his true comment ! Be funny if he won the gift voucher. But seriously when you look at peoples comments in that thread, 99% give 5/5 just to win a voucher and you know they'll be deleting that app in seconds but are happy to give a fake review, poor show
The majority of app store users seem to be ignorant, selfish and far too lazy to put any effort into anything (apart the zeal with which they approach moronic illiterate whining in the reviews!)
One thing I do in all of my games is give people an email button for feedback on the main menu. It doesn't help the people who can't download unfortunately. But what it does do is allow people who may have issues or be upset by something to contact you directly rather than through a bad rating/review in the app store. This wont prevent dodgy reviews, but will help people genuine problems to at least contact you easily so that you can try to solve whatever problem arises
