A personal view of how and why players rating and reviewing all games they play can strongly influence and curate all the game content available on the App Store
[reposted from the moWOW blog]
In spite of the fact that iOS developers are constantly asking Apple to review the Appstore and sort out the discoverability issues, the company has yet make any major changes in this direction. That leaves both us the developers and all of you players (+ us again. Hey, we play too) in quite a pickle.
At this moment, there are well over 1 million apps and games on the App Store. Probably over half of them are rubbish, not of interest or out of date. Let's go even further and say 80% fall into that category(just fictive percentage). There would still be 200.000 apps to sort through and try out.
Do you really think that the Apple App Store is serving you the best possible games out there? Well, they are trying, but they have a long way to go.
How exactly? By reviewing and rating every game that you download and play. Yes, every game. Right now you are probably only writing reviews for the games you had most fun with or for the ones that you have come to... well... hate.
Well, the truth is, if you also rate and review the games that you did not like or the ones that need improvements, the value of a good rating/review would double.
Why do I say that?
Because YOUR ratings and reviews influence the position and discoverability of games. Apple gives a higher or lower score based on what you rate and write. That goes for both good ratings and bad ratings!
Because after looking at the icon, you and us and most players instantly look at the rating score to quickly disregard those with less than 3 stars.
Feel the power yet?
Even on a bad launch, a free game will get a few hundred people downloading the game. Imagine the effect if after trying it out, at least half of those players would leave a review/rating. Let's get back to your interest. YOU want great games. So do we. Here is what you are saying when you leave a good review to a game you like:
I like this type of game. Make more of this
I like this level of quality, service, community in the game. Make more of this
I want to help other players discover and download this
The message is similar but in the other direction when reviewing/rating bad apps.
Also, when you review and rate a game, saying: "Really cool. Download now!" doesn't really tell me anything. You have 6000 characters to explain why the game is great or why it is not fun or unplayable. I'm not saying write an essay, just try and pinpoint what you liked. Players will be reading. The developers of the game even more so.
However, there is a right way of reviewing and a wrong way of reviewing. So I took the time to write 5 "reviews" for each possible rating you can give:
This is the way I see the stars and you should not take this as the ultimate right way to rate.
A few more things to consider:
Don't use harsh, vulgar uncalled for language. You cause other people to disregard what you say. Instead of taking you seriously, they will look at the review and pictre a small angry kid. The goal is to get your message across and be heard.
Writing a longer and more descriptive review lets me know you are real and not another fake rating.
Remember you can always change your review if the game changes for the better or, if it is the case, for the worse.
So please, review all that you play. Be it bad or good. Because you, all our players have a huge impact on whether our games get discovered. Thank you!
And since you spent so much time reading all the way here (or even if you took a shortcut via scroll) we have a fun present for you. Just click (no scam) and read the first 3 reviews.
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