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Do ratings actually matter? The only time I look at them is when it’s an Indie game and I want to see people’s impressions of it. Even still, I’ll go on Reddit and find the reviews there.

I say this because I have seen excellent but popular apps have very low ratings just because they are popular. Also, when someone gives it a low rating because of a bug that’s fixed 2 days later, is there a mechanism to take that into account?



If the app is not a scam, low ratings often mean the users failed to find a way to report an issue or get help. They care enough for your app to go through trouble of finding their way back to the store page, find the feedback form there and write an angry letter.

If you don't receive much written reviews but only low star ratings, it probably means that your app is asking the wrong users for a review or asking at a bad time.

Popular non-scam apps with low ratings probably simply fail at the feedback collection and communication with their users.


Exactly. For example, I recently tested out some child protection software. It has a terrible rating in the store, precisely because it's good. All the teens and children give it one star ratings!

There are many other reasons why an app might have low reasons despite being pretty good - for example, people often have unrealistic expectations of technical apps, in spite of the fact the app does exactly what it's supposed to. So, many people give it a low review, but the few people who understand the limitations find it useful enough to pay for.

Both of these types of app will find their way on to this list, but there would be no point in trying to build a better version.

> when someone gives it a low rating because of a bug that’s fixed 2 days later, is there a mechanism to take that into account?

I think so on the play store. Not sure though.


Another reason why you may receive low ratings is because competition is targeting you. This is fraud, and has a good chance of being picked up by the store, but also a whackamole game, where some fraud will slip though and leave you with several (percents) of bad reviews. In the hope that this benefits that competition.


Yeah I play some games that have low ratings. The quality of the games is great but...

The issue seems to be (based on the negative reviews) that people don't understand the game. They assume it is like popular game X, but they're playing a different game.

The tutorial explains that the game has a view distance and fog of war.....but the top reviews are negative posts about opponents in the distance "disappearing"....


I have a mobile app, on Google Play I have a 3.6 rating, and on ios I have a 4.6 rating.

I haven't seen a difference yet, but I read for app store optimization purposes, higher ratings help.

Makes sense.


Case in point, Civilization VI currently has a 3.3 rating on the App Store which is criminally low


Civilization VI is, in my experience, buggy to the point of being almost unplayable (in multiplayer, which is all I care about). I'm not sure 3.3 is criminally low, it probably just reflects the fact that reliability is a very important feature.


To be honest, I don't much like Civ VI on my iPad. Its not a matter of performance but the interface, as well as the game is just conducive to be played with a touchscreen. My opinion of course is biased since I play a lot of Civ (1000+ hours on Steam) on my PC, but not at all on the iPad.

I also imagine that most people who'd buy civ on the app store are like me: looking for a more convenient way to play the game, already used to it on PC, and find the ipad offering quite dissatisfying.


It's a full fledged game with great graphics and tons of DLC... of course it's not the same as the PC experience, but it's meant to work even on an iPhone, which makes it quite the achievement IMHO


I’m not denying that but its still not half as feature rich or intuitive to play as the PC version. It goes a long way towards enabling mobile players to play the game but just not far enough in my opinion.


Is that AI opponent still completely incapable of making decisions / rage quits?

Like if the AI isn't even playing.. that sucks.


At least in my country, Google's PlayStore has a big problem with fraudulent ratings particularly from shady payday loan apps.

The source and the credibility of the ratings is an important consideration.


I am in the real money gaming space and gambling apps have a ratings ceiling of 3 stars in my experience.


they matter because they tell you how to make the app better.


So if you are a calculator app and you see a 2.3/5 stars as your average score, what does that mean you should change?


The rating alone won’t tell you what to change.

You must read the review text and count what aspect each review is talking about. And then on analysing you will have an insight on what you should or should not change.


So if Henry Ford read reviews of horses, what would he change?


Change the division operator by the multiplication, then you have 11.5 stars.




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