The Shill Review List - List all devs/companies

The last few posts have highlighted exactly why I don't really consider reviews by friends to be strictly shilling, and why it is unfortunately sometimes difficult to identify actual shills.

A developer really can't control what his family and friends do. And really, how is a friend's review all that different from your garden variety fanboy's? Yeah, both may be "biased" by definition, but they clearly do like the games, even if only for superficial reasons.

There are really two types of shilling that I think should be noted here.

1. Developers (as in the developer or anyone who works for the development company) posing as customers.

2. Reviews that are paid for ("astroturfing").

Both can be pretty hard to prove, but I can't say that I've never felt 99% sure I was looking at right at them.

Also, to kamazar who wrote:

I wish I did care less . But your statement doesn't make much sense to me. How are we supposed to know what is a "good game" if we are seeking information before we decide to buy a game? Sure, I can judge by screen shots or gameplay videos. I can tell right away whether the art style or gameplay appeals to me, but there's so much more to learn.

It's silly to put stock in good reviews and then in the same breath state that you don't care whether a developer writes a Bible length fake review. And to be clear, I don't care whether a developer writes a Bible length review worshipping his own game. I DO care when a developer writes a Bible length FAKE REVIEW under an anonymous name.

I also have no problem with much of anything when I get my hands on a good game. But the point is to be as informed as possible. You know when we see posts with people whining about prices changes or lack of updates, etc. etc.? The reasonable response is usually that it is the consumer's responsibility to make informed buying decisions. Seeking a broad array of opinions is a solid way to become thusly informed. I said this earlier, and I'll say it again. Touch Arcade is a good source for opinions, but it shouldn't be the end all, be all. The opinions around here are sometimes not as diverse as they could be. I like reading reviews in iTunes. I think the quality in general is average, and I'm typically pleased with what I see there. Shill reviews invalidate this experience. Shilling is insulting on principle, but in practice, it really is harmful to the environment.

 

The biggest shill reviewer I have ever seen is PressOK Entertainment

Their new game Bumber stars got about 70 reviews in the first day or two:

1) All 5 stars
2) All by people who had never reviewed a game before

And then the reviews stopped, and no one reviewed it for a week.

When I questioned them on it, they said that they had down a lot of marketing prior to the release and it was just coincidence that everyone who had decided to review it had never left a review before.

70 shill reviews has to be a record of some sort.

Michael

 

I'm a definite fan of Gameloft. Some of their games, I haven't bought because I wasn't sure about them. But I have BIA, Hero of Sparta, Midnight Pool, Ferrari GT, and Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles. I honestly love them all. I am really anticipating the arrival of their new Gang$tar, and I might buy Terminator and Castle of Magic if I have enough left from iTunes holiday shopping.

 

I exchanged a few posts with him in this thread:

http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=18966

and his position was "well, maybe we left a few fake ones, but most of them were just loyal new users." At some point I dropped out of the conversation, because I didn't want to help him by keeping his thread going.

Michael

 

I'll be upfront about this before hand, my game was just released in the appstore, 2 Block Infact, don't think you can even search for it yet lol
So now I've asked a lot of my friends to buy it and if they're going to leave a review to leave, only to leave it if it's a good review, otherwise don't. I honestly don't see too many of them actually leaving reviews, cause they're lazy but we'll see. If you'd like I'll try to keep a count how many are friends posting

 

When dealing with your friends, I would suggest you use the same method as some of the developers here: Just tell them to try the game and if they like it, to give it a fair review. I think it's fairly evident that your friends are not going to bash your game. But it's probably a good idea to let them know how damaging poor reviews can be, just in case.

There's nothing wrong with friends reviewing your game as long as they give honest reviews. Like... I would appreciate it if they had actually played the game, you know?

To be honest, regarding coming to TA for reviews... it's a toss up. Most people just want promo codes. You may end up with some very good feedback, but coming to any singular place with the intent to "get reviews" is not a good idea. Let the reviews happen naturally, as much as possible. They will be the most honest, and therefore, most useful to you as the developer and us as consumers.

 

Ya I told them to be honest, that's why I said if they think it's bad don't leave a review lol

And I probably will start a thread on it and give some promo codes, but I'm also waiting for it to show up on the store, so probably will post it sometime tomorrow. Well I've posted it on about 5 forums and just told all my friends to "spread the word" I think people generally look to specific forums are one for the user base, but other than that it's also really hard to "market" the game without being a big publisher, or having a previous following

 

I don't think there is anything wrong with this. Here is my review "Ok I'm a little bias cuz I love word games and I was the designer but this one is great. Cool look and music too but whatever. 5 stars " which is at http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=321071245&mt=8

Everything I say is my true opinion, and I don't hide the fact that I worked on the game. I also use the same ID there as I'm using here. Actually, by listing these names, it makes the shady devs who use fake names look better in comparison, since those names would not be listed.

 

I can't fault you because you were honest. But don't you find this practice a bit... tacky?

I understand that this is a tough marketplace, and independent developers usually don't have the same means as the big shops to market their work. But still, even if this isn't strictly an issue of ethics, isn't it one of integrity?

<tangent unrelated to Randimonium>
I get the feeling that because it's so easy to develop an app for the App Store, a lot of new developers have neglected to think about operating as a proper business. I see, so often, developers complaining about never making a Hot List or not getting any reviews. Why only rely on Apple or random strangers to promote your product? It is not Apple's responsibility, nor ours, to market a developer's app.

If everyman John Smith put his life savings into opening his own restaurant, does that give him license to post a giant sign in the front window that reads: "BEST EATS IN TOWN! MY NEW FAVORITE RESTAURANT! I'VE NEVER HAD BETTER PASTA OR RECEIVED BETTER SERVICE. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!" -- John Smith, Owner.

I mean, there's nothing technically dishonest about the sign, but does reeking desperation really appeal to people?

Because of the environment, community involvement is key to marketing for the App Store. But just because it's a more casual and often anonymous way to conduct business doesn't mean that it's appropriate to appear desperate to your consumers. Yeah, the App Store is an unforgiving marketplace. But how is it much tougher than any other industry? Try opening a small business or a restaurant and see how long you can survive. The failure rate for restaurants, among other startup business ventures, is around 60%. Not everyone is going to make it big. Not everyone is going to be the next Rocco, the next Matt Damon, the next Demiforce.

It's great that the App Store is providing the opportunity for developers to really flex their wings and create some great work for a hungry consumer base. But an opportunity is all it is. Success was never guaranteed.
</tangent>

Anyway, yeah, if you're a developer and want to give yourself a good rating under your own name, that's legit. I just think it's an unnecessary way to ding your budding reputation.

 

Although his honesty is appreciated, I don't see that making an announcement in this thread is going to reach most of the people who will see the reviews in the appstore. I'd say the vast majority of appstore purchasers do not visit this forum.

However, having friends try your game and asking them to review it if they like it isn't so bad - I have no problem with it and to me, an apology or confession is not rquired anyways - especially when compared with the shills Skyworks has on their pages. Those are very obvious, and are the types I am strongly against. I'm releasing a title in the future and I would certainly give out my game to people I knew. Unfortunately most of my friends don't have iDevices and don't play games anyways.

As for giving away promo codes...this doesn't guarantee a good review, at least not from me. I may tend to give more positive suggestions for a game that I received a promo for (rather then outright slamming it), but if it's a bad game it will get as many stars as I think it deserves, and I will state why.

 

As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, we provided a very thorough description of what we did to get reviews when Bumper Stars launched, so I won't repeat it here.

I don't blame you guys for thinking we "schilled" for reviews, I'd think the same thing - we didn't. We got a bunch of sales and reviews the first two days, we assume mostly from people who already know and love Bumper Stars from the Facebook, Myspace, etc. version.

Since then, we haven't done substantial additional marketing to those people and the # of reviews we have gotten has dropped (it certainly doesn't help that after day 3 we dropped out of top 100 in our categories). But, we've still been getting a steady stream of reviews since then - all positive except 1.

We readily admit to posting reviews ourselves, this # is less than 10. But, we do truly love the game and is exactly why we partnered with Large Animal to bring it to iPhone and other mobile platforms. I personally have played ~ 3,000 games - I certainly wouldn't have played that much if I didn't love the game.

The only other thing I can say is that we have 2 other iPhone games available, Gin Rummy Deluxe and Go Fish Multiplayer, neither of which have either a ton of reviews, or all positive reviews. If we were going to "schill" for reviews, we certainly would've done it for those games as well.

We have a "free" version of Bumper Stars being released shortly, you're obviously welcome to try the game and determine for yourself whether you like the game.

I'm also happy to answer any other questions you guys have about what we did, what we are doing, and what we will do for mobile game dev, distribution, and marketing of Bumper Stars and other iPhone/mobile games.

 

User reviews in general are SUCH a tricky thing. A lot of times people just try to justify their purchase and will praise something even if it sucks. Or on the other hand are complete dicks and will give a low rating for a game because it lacks one feature and they think they're owed the world because they spent 99¢ on a game.