The secret to getting thousands of appstore user ratings

[BdR]

I've always wondered how some apps get ridiculous amounts of user ratings, but now I think I know how they do it:

Reward the player with in-game tokens for bringing out a rating.

Yesterday I came across a free iOS game Move The Box. It's an okay but pretty unremarkable game. However, I saw it has more than 10.000 user ratings in the Dutch appstore alone. I checked the US appstore (open iTunes, change language in bottom right) and there it's got almost 300.000 user ratings! This is amazing because its initial v1.0 release was only last january.

The game is like a simpler version of Puzznic and you can buy hints as in-app purchases; a 4 hints pack for $1 or a 12 hints pack for $2. Or, and this is how they do it, you can get 5 free hints for rating the game. The only other way to get hints is by spending money, so this really reinforces the feeling of getting someting for free. Btw it's a very simple implementation because the app doesn't even check if you actually give a rating. You get the free hints just for clicking the "rate this game" button, but apparently that's good enough. This tactic seems to be working on the Android market as well.

What do you think of this, manipulative or pure genius?

[Crivens]

That's pretty crafty. I was thinking of a fake monetary system for my next game, where you can get more "money" by playing the game lots, or "cheat" and buy some with real money. If you can balance it right then great!

Interesting idea with bribing people for reviews though. That could work...

But how do you know the user has rated your game?

Actually now I remember that one game I played gave you "money" if you bought some other games (or even downloaded free ones from it's list). Again though, how do you know they actually did buy/download a game?

Cheers

[BdR]

They don't know if the user has rated the game, that might not even be technically possible. But as you see it doesn't matter.

I was thinking of implementing hint-tokens into Snake Slider and then add a button "rate for 5 hints" just to get more user ratings. But on the other hand I don't like giving away the solutions of my puzzles. Also without the alternative of in-app purchases, the users might not be as motivated to get something for free.

Btw the trick of getting in-game money/unlock levels by downloading some other games (even free apps) is not allowed, see incentivised app downloads.

[bigsofty]

Probably using a rating bot farm service.

[BdR]

Probably using a rating bot farm service.

I doubt it, just browse the "Move The Box" user reviews in any language and you'll see several to the effect of "I rate this just for the hints".

[Crivens]

might not even be technically possible

I think it is. One app I have really doesn't give you credit until you download one of their games. Must be an API or somesuch.

Btw the trick of getting in-game money/unlock levels by downloading some other games (even free apps) is not allowed

Really? Must have changed since the app I'm talking about then (Coin Dozer). I'm pretty sure though if this isn't allowed then exchanging ratings for credit will be banned too soon then. I mean not allowing downloading other games for credit seems almost fair enough, but actually giving more credit for a 5-star rating seems a right bad way to slant the review scores. As a developer though I'm all for it Mwahahaha...

300000 reviews for that box game though seems amazing... Damn...

Cheers

[erico]

I doubt it, just browse the "Move The Box" user reviews in any language and you'll see several to the effect of "I rate this just for the hints".

bots can be tought to speak

I think it is good idea, could get some more sales, it would require a test to check it out.
But won´t get that fidel clientele...only a good game can do that.

[Wampus]

You don't need to know that the rating has actually been made and you shouldn't try to spy and force people using your app to make such a rating. Even if that were possible its not a nice thing to do. If they click an option like 'Yes, I'll rate the game' in your app you should direct them to the appropriate webpage and just trust that they have rated the app from that moment on. Some won't do it for real but cheaters gonna cheat. Let them.

Anyway, thanks BdR! This is a great idea. I owe you one. I've realised the hard way that its vital to encourage people to rate your apps. This is a lot better than the solutions I came up with.

[Crivens]

You don't need to know that the rating has actually been made

I don't know. I mean that box game looks nothing special at all and 300k reviews is nuts. I doubt they would get anywhere near 300k if you got the credit without a proper review. People would surely cotton on pretty quickly and just click the link without reviewing it after a while. Maybe not though...

Cheers

[Wampus]

I think many people will click the 'yes, I'll vote' then possibly not bother when they discover they need to log in or whatever to complete the process. Doesn't matter. So long as a significant percentage of people who say they'll go through with it do go through with it your app will benefit a great deal. Maybe you won't get 300k without checking people are actually rating the app. Regardless its still not cool to attempt to spy/force a rating imo.

Actually, imagine this scenario: Someone says they'll vote for the app. They get directed to the app rating area but don't bother. When they next start the app the app checks and nags them about it. So, they go vote for your app to get the extra bonus offered in exchange but give it 0/1 rating because they're annoyed at you for the nag. Could happen.

[erico]

One paranoid thought is that such system was implemented so cover up for voting-bots...so that way it may sound it was legit.
I didn´t check the game but you guys say it is nothing special.
I know I sound evil here, just some extra bad-thinking about it .

It IS a great idea to ´remind´ users to rate the app, I like this approach, like Wampus said, no spying.

[BdR]

Anyway, thanks BdR! This is a great idea. I owe you one. I've realised the hard way that its vital to encourage people to rate your apps. This is a lot better than the solutions I came up with.

You're welcome Just wondering, what solution did you come up with?

As for me, I build a dialog into my apps (Snake Slider and Triple Dutch) which appears at the puzzle select screen after A) the app has been started/closed 5 times and B) after the last puzzle. It shows a message "We'd really appreciate it if you could take a moment to rate this game. Thanks for your support!" with 3 buttons Yes, rate it/Remind me later/No, don't ask again... This got me about 6~7 customer reviews world wide. In the next update I'll at least change this to a smaller but permanently visible button "rate this app" or "tap to inspire the developer" (like in Siege Hero) or something to that effect.

If you ask me, the user rating system is fundamentally flawed. There's this perception that users will spontaneously fill out a user review form, and good apps will automatically get lots of good reviews. But in practice I see that developers with lots of user reviews either made use of a rating bot farm service or reward their users with extra features for rating the app.

//offtopic; I've also sent an issue to Apple about not being able to find user ratings/reviews in iTunesConnect. I can only view user ratings made to the current version of my app, all user reviews made on previous versions are forever lost as far as iTC is concerned.

[ampos]

On WebOS Glowing Sky I have thios numbers about reviews:

Free: 55.000 downloads, 118 reviews = 1 revier per every 466 downloads

Paid: 880 downloads, 35 reviews = 1 review per 25 downloads.

In Android free has 16000 downloads / 3098 net installs, 39 votes = 1/410 & 1/79

The paid in Android is 104/41 and 2 votes, making 1/52 and 1/21.

Ios Free: 2456 and 3 votes... and 2 were my wife and a friend.

iOS paid: 81 and 7 votes but... around 5 are from here!



I am making a new experiement with DOTS-N-LINES: Get 5 images for free if you (press the button) review the app.

Another (paid) apps in WebOS are getting 1 per 19, 1 per 11, 1 per 18...

[Kitty Hello]

How can they verify that the user did a review?

[Crivens]

How can they verify that the user did a review?

We talked about it earlier. Basically you don't. The user probably wouldn't even check. However even though that will probably get a few people I can't believe the 300k review figure of that pretty average box game if that is the case. I mean people would realise and tell other people surely? 300k just wouldn't be reachable. Still at least it should get a fair few more reviews than currently. Definitely think I will implement something like it.

Cheers