Reward to rate - Featured by Apple

BigDave

As google play bans games that incentives/reward players to rate the game.
Apple featured an app this week that gives 20 coins to rate the app.

So whats the official statement now?

Approw

@BigDave the statement is "keep your apps exclusive for iOS" hahaha

BigDave

@Approw do you have reward to rate in your games?
because i think their official statement is still no go since it counts as effecting/manipulating the ranking

which it also does its highly effective but since they can also rate 1 star I don't think it should be forbidden. Its just motivating them to give their honest opinion.

supafly129

I've seen a lot of games doing this, but maybe it's only banned if you mention how high you want them to rate you a.k.a 5 stars? This article claims incentivized ads/social sharing is ok, but incentivized reviews are still banned because it's considered cheating in terms of app store rankings. Sucks because I had planned to implement this in my game

http://www.macrumors.com/2014/06/24/apple-reverses-course-on-app-ban/

BigDave

@supafly129 google play definitely banned my 100 k installs app, only because i gave them 5000 coins for rating the app, not mentioning how many stars.

"Tell us if you like the app"

no conversation opportunity nothing, banned and finished for them.

I know apple would talk to you before and give you time to remove it.
But since I want to avoid such problems I removed it out of all my apps. They all ranked around 50 rank positions higher when they received the big amount of ratings per week.

Now they feature an app doing so just makes me treated a bit unfair.

jay2dx

@BigDave the only way to get this past apples reviewers is to have the reward to rate set to a game attribute that is linked to a timer and a save system! Ie. have a normal rate my app selection going on "for apples reviewers" then have a rule that says for example" after player deaths is more than "say 100" maybe! Set it to display the incentive reward to rate instead of the normal one, have it unlock a character or something! Not an iap!

This works if you set it up right! Sneaky!

Best jay

Approw

@BigDave I actually do in one game. I think @supafly129 can be right, my game just says "rate to unlock item", but I don't rub it in the players face with a pop up or something. Its just in items menu.

jay2dx

Rule if thumb is if Apple catch it it will fail! If they miss it as you've hidden it they won't see it at all, and everything will be Garvey

supafly129

Apparently Apple even investigates apps that are already live so maybe it's best to not reward a player for the time being

Chr0nos

That's crazy. I have played (and still play) so many games that reward you for rating the app.

BigDave

Yeah its getting more critical the more players play your game. If it becomes big they double check. But they still featured a game doing this, this week. So maybe they just missed it.

jay2dx

I think a more sensible way to do this would be to do the following.

player ends current level/game.... message displayed:

"well done, you scored XX

Here you go! have a free character! or life, etc..

And while your here why not leave a review and rating?" "link to app store"

This way your rewarding the player regardless, but you have a little sweetener before they choose to leave a review! this way your more lightly to get a good review and its not incentivized breaking the rules.. this is how I,m currently setting things up in my latest game.. it makes more sense, no!

Crossy road do it sort of, by letting players use characters for a limited time before asking you to buy em!

have a good day all

BigDave

@jay2dx thats good i also experience difference in star rating depending on timing.
normally i had the rate pop up before they see the first ad pop up ever and a couple of minutes in. So only players that are invested and did not had yet an ad experience rate.

right now i broke this rule in orcs and pug game and i see more bad ratings rolling in.
mostly about the ads and the price to remove them.

supafly129

@jay2dx @BigDave that being said, do you think a single popup menu similar to what's shown below would be okay?

"You just won 100 free coins!

Enjoying yourself? Rate the game!"

Hopscotch

A nice trick is to ask the "Do you like the game?" question in game, giving them the option there to say yes and no. Then only forward those to the rating page that said yes, thus filtering most of the players out that would leave a bad review.