The secret to getting thousands of appstore user ratings

[ampos]

About the other method of "install my other games to get extra things" I don't think apple offer a way to let one app to know it another app is installed.

I think that they solve it filling a custom online database with serial number of installed devices, and app A ask the DB if app B is installed in device ID.

[Crivens]

Yeah that makes sense. Overall though I think the idea of clicking a link to review/download your game will give them extra "credit" in their game is a good one. It may not reach 300k reviews if you don't check they really did review your game, but I'm damn sure it will get you a fair bit more reviews than without the link.

Cheers

[Kitty Hello]

The are ways to exchange data across apps. I don't think they are using the legal API only, but threre deffo are..

[Kitty Hello]

Heres it: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4400062/what-kernel-level-c-function-does-frenzapp-use-to-detect-running-ios-processes
I think theres also a way with the photos directory.

[ampos]

The experiment app is online. DOTS-N-LINES Demo has 5 images, and if you rate it (ok, we know it is just only if you touch the button), you get 5 extra images.

After 10 minutes online, it got 1 review. So it seems it is working.

Of course, if this review is not from anyone from here... (if you rate it, plz, sign with GLB)

[erico]

You will get more, that is an honest choice.
Let us know how the experiment goes on.

[BdR]

what I miss in this discussion is whether more user reviews indeed lead to more sales?

Ocean

Good point, I think the answer is yes (provided the average rating is 4 stars or better of course). Users are more inclined to look at an app when it has many good ratings, for example "57 users reviews avg. 4,5 stars". This average stars-rating of an app is shown in the AppStore app on search results and other "overview" pages (top 25, new apps, category etc). But it is displayed to the user only when there are 5 or more ratings for that country, else it just shows "no ratings". So for example, I just saw that my app has 1 German review (thanks Kitty, I overlooked it earlier), so the 5 stars are not shown to German appstore users, unless they open my app's page and click ratings.

And again, I think the "Move The Box" app is proof that more ratings lead to more download (which in turn leads to more ratings, like a feed-back-loop). One of the first things users see is the amount of user ratings, and this immediately gives them the impression that it is a popular app, simply because 15.000 review equals at least 15.000 users; It's been hovering in the top downloads for more than a week now.

@ampos: nice going but I think you can only tell in about a week, when most users have updated your app.

[BdR]

A few weeks back I've added a hints-system, where the player gets 3 hints for reviewing the game, and it seems to work.

For example, on US market I've had 5 reviews since december 2011, since last update (may 2012) I've had 5 more reviews, see here. Although on other markets there's much less response.