
EA certainly isn't making it easy to give Dungeon Keeper a low rating on Android - endianswap
http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPad/Dungeon+Keeper/news.asp?c=57158
======
jader201
Get rid of ratings altogether. Period.

I want to see usage statistics:

\- How many users are continually coming back to the app?

\- How many times a day/week/month, on average, is the app opened?

\- How long is the average "session"?

\- How many days is the app used after it's initial use?

\- How long does an app stay on the device before it's deleted?

These stats are more objective and less manipulable -- and therefore, more
valuable -- than user reviews/ratings.

And I realize that the value of these will vary app to app -- i.e. the stats
of a productivity app can't be compared to the stats of a casual game -- but
it gives me a much better idea of how an app is being used, and therefore how
I might use it vs. reviews/ratings.

~~~
Scaevolus
This doesn't account for apps that are unusually efficient. My bus app allows
shortcuts on the home screen to arrival times for a stop, so each day I spend
under a minute with it open, yet it's a better app than a clumsy interface
that would waste two minutes.

~~~
jader201
I think this would still address that (and I mention this in another response
below).

As someone deciding between the two, I will see that you keep coming back to
the app, even if you don't use it for a very long time.

Versus the other app that you averaged a longer session, but stopped using
after a shorter period.

~~~
Nate75Sanders
We'd have to be careful of apps that game the system by installing some super-
small/innocuous service that would hit Google Play once/day just to keep your
usage statistics falsely high -- even when you don't open the app yourself.

I don't know enough about the guts of Android to be sure you could do this,
but it seems likely.

~~~
jader201
Ideally, usage would be handled by the OS, and it could actually distinguish
between running in the background vs. being active. Background usage would be
discarded, ideally.

------
rahimnathwani
This is not unique to EA. It's a well-known pattern:

[http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2012/05/21/manipulating...](http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2012/05/21/manipulating-
app-store-reviews-with-dark-patterns/)

~~~
trycatch
Yes, e.g. Firefox for Android does very similar thing:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=774479](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=774479)
Standard tactics, nothing special.

~~~
teraflop
It's shady no matter who does it, IMO, and I'm surprised that nobody working
on that issue had a problem with it. I hope it was at least discussed on a
mailing list or something.

~~~
trycatch
It seems there were objections about ethics in another bug:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=787860](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=787860)

~~~
bentcorner
I'd rather see UI like:

    
    
      [I love it]                |
      [I ran into a problem]     |     [Review on Play Store]
      [I have an idea]           |
    

With this UI, [I love it] doesn't lead you to the play store, it just sends a
signal back to Mozilla.

Alternatively, offer this UI up front:

    
    
      [Send feedback directly to Mozilla]
      [Review on Play Store]
    

and nest the "I love it/I had a problem/etc." behind that first option, with
no redirects to the play store.

------
endianswap
Is the reason EA aren't doing this on iOS because it's against an App Store
policy or they're afraid of being removed/rejected?

~~~
andyjohnson0
It arguably contravenes the Google Play Store policies too.

 _" Developers must not attempt to change the placement of any Product in the
Store, or manipulate any product ratings or reviews by unauthorized means such
as fraudulent installs, paid or fake reviews or ratings, or by offering
incentives to rate products."_ [1]

[1] [http://play.google.com/about/developer-content-
policy.html](http://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html)

~~~
MAGZine
What they're doing violates none of the aforementioned clauses.

~~~
illumen
They clearly "manipulate any product ratings" by dishonestly filtering their
users which would rate the game well, and those that wouldn't.

This manipulates the product ratings by only letting 5 star ratings go
through.

~~~
eli
It's not like they're preventing you from rating the app however you like from
the app store -- same as any other app. They just aren't actively pushing
unhappy users there.

It's dishonest manipulation to ask happy users to rate you and unhappy users
to email you?

~~~
arrrg
Of course it is. What else could it be? It’s dishonest, highly immoral
manipulation.

~~~
MAGZine
I don't think that asking for feedback is highly immoral, but that's just imo.

~~~
arrrg
Asking for feedback? Oh, that’s a terribly nice way of framing it.

This is a dishonest filtering mechanism that is deliberately set up to
manipulate people. To refer to this as merely asking for feedback is highly
disingenuous. You are missing the point.

Asking for feedback is ok. It might be annoying for users to be disturbed by a
dialog, but morally there is nothing wrong with it. I don’t think anyone was
arguing that.

But this dialog is not merely asking for feedback. It does manipulative
filtering.

------
brokenparser
I find this story quite sad because the original Dungeon Keeper predated app
stores, shady rating techniques and was really awesome. (This:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Keeper](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Keeper)
)

------
matthuggins
I know it's "cool" to hate on EA, but assuming this isn't against any Google
Play terms of service, I actually think it's a great idea for any developer.

With that said, it's obviously not in the end user's best interest in terms of
seeing a true rating prior to download an app. It merely helps the developer
to achieve higher ratings, more users as a result, and if they actually care
about the feedback, then improving their product as well.

~~~
simias
It's a clever "hack" but it's completely black hat IMO.

I would definitely not encourage other devs to do the same, rather I think
Google should crack down on those behaviours for the good of the users.

~~~
ihaveajob
There is a number of frameworks to encourage ratings, and they range from
honest requests "you've been using this app for a while, would you like to
rate it now?" which Appirater does, to a number of shadier ones like the one
in this post.

~~~
simias
I think it's interesting that, besides selecting who gets to vote, they ask
for the rating very early in the game.

I assume at this point you don't need to pay anything to progress correctly in
the game, so they want you to rate it before you get to see the pay2win
aspects.

------
rqebmm
I think where they cross the line is not making it an option to still leave a
1-4 star review via the app. It makes perfect sense to steer those users
towards giving you direct feedback, but you should still provide a path to the
app store for a review regardless.

If you _are_ actually listening to feedback and iterating on the game, the new
version will bury the old reviews anyway.

------
dpeck
Timeline of my last 30 seconds: Elation that there was a new Dungeon Keeper,
one of my favorite games from the 90s. Vague remembrance that EA bought
Bullfrog. Thoughts of it probably being terrible in the same freemium/iap way
that the Simpsons is. Validation of fears and dissapointment.

------
bradleyjg
There's a similar phenomenon I noticed when dealing with employees of
companies that use follow-up customer surveys to gather feedback on their
employees.

When you are finished with your tech support call, or car rental, or whatever
they will ask you something like 'were you completely satisfied with my
service today'? Completely satisfied is then the label for the highest rating
on the follow up survey. The benefit to the company is that it gives you an
opportunity to express any unhappiness and get it fixed, and the benefit to
the employee is that you are more likely to put down completely satisfied if
you've already said you were (because of priming).

However, this case is a bit more shady because the probability of the follow
up survey is being effected by how you respond.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Presumably, that only has repurcusions within that individual company - e.g.
some employees get rewarded for deception. Whilst that's still bad, and the
company is obviously harming themselves in the long run, it's a lot less
immoral than rewarding deception across an industry, between different
companies.

------
josephlord
Filtering by rating definitely feels shady, would it be less shady if the
question was "Do you like this app? Yes/No" and then the suggestion to contact
the developer or the "Would you like to rate this app question?"?

I haven't yet added "a please rate this app" pop up to my app [0] but the rate
of organic reviews has fallen, none in the last few months so I think I need
to actively drive reviews.

[0] Fast Lists - [https://itunes.apple.com/app/fast-lists-checklists-
for/id481...](https://itunes.apple.com/app/fast-lists-checklists-
for/id481282554)

------
jankins
If I was building that rating dialog I'd want to still give the user the
immediate ability to rate the app on the second '1-4 stars' popup, so that's
the only thing that makes it devious.

Otherwise, this is actually a pretty good idea, speaking as a developer who
has received low ratings for things I could have easily explained to the user
if they had used the 'feedback' feature. Something like this would be a good
way to remind the user they can actually interact with me and I will respond,
at a point where they might need it.

------
davidbarker
There's a (somewhat) similar technique used in Ember for iOS
([http://www.tuaw.com/2013/12/06/apps-clever-feedback-
system-h...](http://www.tuaw.com/2013/12/06/apps-clever-feedback-system-helps-
happy-users-tweet-while-angr/)).

I don't think I have a problem with it, though, at least while the current App
Store review process is as it is (unable to reply to reviews, etc.).

------
knappador
Was kind of surprised after reading an article complaining about how
ridiculously overpriced the upgrades were, agreeing, and then seeing it at the
top of the play store chart for some category. Play store has an incentive to
make as much money as possible too... Oh well. Looking for quality human
engagements in the games section wasn't exactly the best first decision in the
tree.

------
ThomPete
Off topic but kind of related:

Although this is certainly not without some moral issues I do think we need a
better rating system for raters too.

I.e. it would be great if reviewers themselves were rated across their ratings
so you can see how critical in general they are.

I.e just like you see what how a product have been rated on average it would
be nice to see how the specific reviewer rates on average.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
I'd love to see something similar, but far less complicated and open to gaming
- trusted reviewers such as friends and known industry names; the latter being
akin to how reviews used to work before crowd-sourcing broke them. Imagine how
much better apps and games could be if there was some form of accountabilty
for quality.

------
optimiz3
Devil's advocate - most rating behavior tends to be "interrupt driven". I.e.
if stuff is working correctly, the user just carries on, but if stuff is
broken, the user gets frustrated and leaves a negative review (what else can
they do?).

The net result is your reviews will be negatively biased...unless you do
something about it like this.

------
SimHacker
I fucking love Dungeon Keeper. Why would anyone want to rate it anything but 5
stars? I have to side with EA on this one. ;) [Well, Bullfrog actually.]

Oh of course I'm joking. If the mobile app doesn't live up to the original PC
game, then fuck it.

~~~
alexeisadeski3
You haven't seen the videos describing the new mobile version of the game? If
you like the old game, you'll LOVE the _videos_ of the new one!

[http://youtu.be/GpdoBwezFVA](http://youtu.be/GpdoBwezFVA)

------
zurn
It's a similar self-selection filter as dyslexic Nigerian scams utilize, you
have to be a certain type of person to go for this. To actually submit a
rating, a G+ using certain type of person...

------
ritonlajoie
Ah, people are still discussing EA's good practices.

