if you think its polite to put someone else words into their mouth and quote completly out of context then you are not very polite.. you repeat the same suff over again without realising there is not a definitive answer nor are there statistics you can ride up and down.. no one can track reviews of users , because that stuff happens outside of the app itself.. no matter what you think you see in angry birds numbers or what you might imagine they mean.. is just an assumptions.. nothing more.. if you don't understand and don't care about the flow of an app and how it can change the perception of an user to an app, then no matter how you implement an "rate me" feature will lack.. all you do is taking single pices out of context and don't even see how interweaved thoose are in reality.. --- as for an reward.. it might attract one or the other, but i doubt thoose who would be willing to give an review in the first place would need a reward anyway.. the hole apporach is wrong.. you want to lure him into doing something he would not do in the first place.. offering him something todo something only encourages missuse of the system.. once people learn from product x that they don't even need to vote go get it product y won't have that luck.. i've seen plenty of different ways of such rewards, from ingame items, to achievements etc. thing is the perspective is still wrong.. there is a difference between encourage and bait.. if you need to rely on bait then there is something wrong.. again flow is of importance i would rather reward the player for a vote (even if you can't check) without telling him in the first place that he gets an rewards.. making a bargain makes it cold .. one hands washes the other.. thats nothing where an user feel appreciated.. imagine you get the user to the point to make a review.. in a nicely manner after some success in the game where his feeling is good and the likelyhood of an good review is high.. then you show him the option todo so and show him to the way to the appstore.. from there one you can't check.. only that he comes back.. then you present him with something and thank you screen, an achievement, an ingame item etc. something you can offer.. no matter how small.. and out of an odd bargain becomes a real appreciated gift from the dev to the customer.. he did not know that he will get something in return.. any if he by chance did not leave a review.. he even might reconsider and go back and do so because you've been nice to him.. and thats just an example how things could work out.. every customer likes that he gets an extra threat.. that he feels special for a moment.. even if the underlying logic is treating everyone the same.. its about how stuff is implemented and how it looks.. if you go beyond "not annoying" them.. and stepping up and reaching out virtually shaking their hand you can turn into a customer into a fan.. and he will not just leave a review but tell his friends about the game etc. its all about user experience.. every bit of software engineering is.. maybee thats a reason why there are programmers, gui designers, game designer , usability test cases etc.
Someone needs to make a Smash Bros clone starring TA members, then we can use it to settle all disputes
Mr. Ugly, you rock! That's a great idea, and yet another reason why you are my favorite TA member! I have dibs on Link! Or Kirby if we are talking original Smash Brothers.
Then we're talking about a different crowd. I'm talking about how to get the people who usually click "No" to click "Yes" instead. Much like myself; if you don't tell me there's a reward I won't know, so you'll just never see a rating from me. If you tell me there is one, I'll know you're luring me in and trying to strike a bargain, but I'll still want it. It's a fair trade.
well then its more interesting why you don't want to review game x.. and whats wrong with the apporach they did.. again in my example there would no need for a no.. because thats no even a point in this case.. a no is only needed if you get a user stuck in an alert view or something similar.. an event where he needs to "run away" from you because he does not want to rate.. there are several kinds of user.. thoose who rate even with such boxes and there are thoose who will never rate on such a box even if they like the game.. and thoose are one who are interesting.. thoose are the ones who should be tried to get into acting in your favour. there is no definite answere for every app/game ... like each game their "rate me nagger" should be something catered to the game, the style the possibilities there.. generic stuff will always be generic and something like an alert view the worst possible solution.. why do people spend time and money into expensive cool art & sound and stop when it comes to gather user feedback. make it part of your menu/gui structure as you should put everything in there.. trying to make it as coherent as possible. so in the end its all about execution, finding the right spot, the right moment and the right way.. it should be an addition not an intrusion.. if you placed it somewhere where its prominent and does not need a "no" button then you probably found the right spot..
Hey party people, so I thought long and hard about all of your suggestions (even mr.Ugly's) and drafted and drafted and drafted and I came up with a pretty snazzy, hybrid/Frankenstein solution (I think.) I'll explain more when it's built in and fully tested. Thanks for all of your contributions that made this a productive exercise in head-butting. Cheers.
I'd say use it. For players who don't care it is only a small annoyance, but for players who really do like the game they will enjoy "giving back" to the developer. Otherwise that user who likes your app will have to go back to the app store, search for your app, click on it, scroll to the bottom, click reviews then tap add review. Only the most die hard fans will take the time to do that without a review popup. If you don't have a review popup I would at least have a review button somewhere inside the app, maybe at the completion of a level pack if your app has levels?
Not if it's a good app but that isn't the point. But why wouldn't you do these anyway? Put the "rate on iTunes" button after significant achievements, that way you aren't inviting people, who don't even like your game enough to play it, to rate it Put it on a button on your 'win' screen so players can do it after a game, nobody fires up a game to rate it Put it next to your 'continue' button, that way ignoring it doesn't even require an extra tap, making it less likely you will get a review saying "One star, the game is OK but it begs to be rated" Don't show it again until the player has earned a few more 'achievements' (in this context a level finished might be considered an achievement) Make the rate button go away permanently (or for a lot of achievements at least) if it has been tapped at all, rewarding those who took the time to rate I can tell you that doing what I did (adding 'rate' as a new option in the settings menu after 4 levels) is probably too subtle but how would I know for sure? It could be that almost all of my positive reviews come from that button, it could be that I just can't tell. I would like to know how you can be so sure that a rating system that "Jumps out" has no negative effect. App store customers have attention spans that are measured in seconds. Any confusion or irritation is going to make some of them quit instantly before they've even judged you r gameplay and in game graphics. It will make others less inclined to play a second time. Maybe some who like it will get a vague sense of irritation after tapping "no thanks" more than three times and stop playing your game. People talk about marketing campaigns and like to think it's a science but word of mouth is vital on the app store. Any game that makes, say, 50k downloads while featured and then hangs around in the chart making 100 or so downloads per day for many months is doing it by word of mouth. Games that irritate and/or confuse enough to be played even slightly less are going to spread less. It may well be that a "Jump out" rate button couldn't hurt Angry Birds, it also wouldn't hurt the sales of a totally crap app but for those developers in between the extremes (which includes everyone here) it's worth thinking about.
I've actually been thinking a lot about this point for my new game that's in development (Don't want to say "upcoming game". Haven't committed to any dates yet!). It's not possible to verify that a review has actually been given. We all know this. However, might it be possible to kind of "fake" it? By fake it I mean the following - 1) Determine how long it takes an AVERAGE user to leave a review. Let's assume it's 2 minutes. 2) The user clicks "Yes" on the rate-nag dialog. 3) Your application receives its applicationWillResignActive: notification. In here, take note of the time. 4) User does some stuff (hopefully leaves a review). 5) Your application receives its applicationDidBecomeActive: notificaiton. In here, take note of the time. 6) Determine how long the user has been "gone" for. If it's, say, 75% of the "average" time it takes to leave a review, you reward them. If not, they get nothing. That's just a very rough idea I had. It needs to be fleshed out more. But you should be able to make an educated guess on weather they left a review or not. If they are only "gone" for 30 seconds, there's a good chance they didn't leave a review. If they're gone for a minute, well there's a better chance they did. The tricky part will be finding those cut-off times.
Re: Incentivizing Reviews by giving in-game awards Lots of games have been doing this. There was a huge thread about this just over a year ago. http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=48012 I don't think many games are now actively asking for 5 star reviews in exchange for in-game rewards, but there are still plenty of games exchanging rewards for reviews. Most of these are the social games with in-game currency. Download, play a few of them, check out their ratings, and see how they implemented it. No need to reinvent the wheel here. You can see what works and tweak it for your game. Btw, you can embed analytics like Flurry and see how many people clicked on your rate button. I'm just starting to track button clicks and level progression and should've started a long time ago.
I don't think that was ever on the table in the first place. If your review request alert doesn't take no for an answer, there is a problem. As for your suggestions, they are good suggestions and I will have to consider where the achievements (or at least sense of achievement) are found in non-games. Thanks again. I would rather err on the side of giving some customers what they don't deserve rather than depriving some customers of what they do deserve. Nice thought though. And that is the kind of statistical data I have been hoping for. Please consider sharing your findings when you have a reasonable test sample.
Do you think it's worth asking one last time in a future update? As I write this it seems not, but I did read elsewhere that it might be worth considering. I guess keep it simple applies here as absolutely maximising review numbers is far from critical. But that is the point of naming the button "No thanks" rather than "Don't ask again" - perhaps a language barrier? Personally if someone clicks no thanks then the button shall not appear in a future update (so long as they don't uninstall in the mean time of course). I'm yet to decide on following mr.Ugly's advice on not forcing a tap...though I think a user can spare a moment for a tap without becoming upset about it for longer than the time it takes to lower their finger a few centimetres!
Couple (or three) things to think about... 1. Trading A Widget for a Review Anybody who has Cialdini's "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion", go read the chapter on Reciprocation again. If you give something to someone they feel as if they owe you -- they want to reciprocate. So offering a new widget for the game in exchange for a review can be turned around... ...give them the widget as a free surprise and then ask for a review. They don't have to if they don't want, but according to Cialdini's research (or, the way I interpret it for games) you'll get a higher response that way. (This is supposition, not tested fact -- my first game didn't have a nag screen but I'm putting one in the game I'm finishing up.) 2. Nagging Without Nagging As mentioned earlier in the thread, those native alerts are ugly and require the user to do something in order to continue. If you don't use the alert you can create an object that matches your game's style and just pop it up next to your score screen at the end of a level. You can even "wiggle" it a little to draw attention to it, but since it's not an alert the user doesn't have to deal with it. In a case like that you also don't have to have 3 choices (Yes, Remind Me, No) -- all you need is one, "Rate Fluffy Bunnies Now." You can just continue to show it as often as you want since it matches the game and doesn't block the user from continuing. Once they hit the "Rate" button then you never show it again. 3. Alternative Wording for Nags Just something I've wondered about -- what if you asked the user something like this: How would you rate Fluffy Bunnies: 4-5 Stars 3 Stars 1-2 Stars You only send them on to the App Store if they choose 4-5 Stars, otherwise you throw up a message saying something like, "Thanks for the feedback! Your rating has been sent to the developers." And you use something like Flurry to actually keep track of the ratings so you're not lying and can see what people think of the app. Yes, I know it's kind of sneaky but I'm pretty sure it's not ethically wrong. Jay
Sorry if this is a little off topic, but i honestly can not stand the "Would you like to rate" screens that pop up in almost every app made now days. And there are two reasons for that. The first being that its usually at the start up of the app, or in the middle of some action. (For example, i was playing Z3 today and in the middle of fighting, i got the pop up and the monsters just kept attacking me.) The second reason, is the amount of time it takes to open the app store, and then to go through the different screens.
