If someone bought Monument Valley and then left a bad review because they thought it was too short, I agree that would be a valid review criteria. What I don't think is valid is changing your review to a one-star review because a new level pack, which didn't even exist when you bought the game, isn't being given away for free. That's not expressing an opinion about the game they bought, it's expressing an opinion about whether the developer has a right to charge for additional content. The point of game ratings is to help other potential buyers find good games and avoid bad ones. When people use the rating functionality to express some other opinion which isn't about the game itself, they're subverting the usefulness of the ratings. And yes, I maintain that anyone who would lower their rating to one star because a new set of levels which took a whole team of developers several months to develop is being sold for $1.99, is either spoiled or immature or ignorant about what it takes to develop games.
When I checked the UK app store after seeing the initial TouchArcade post there was only two 1 star reviews. One of which looked like it had always rated the game lowly and the other is impossible to tell, but neither mention changing their score. Now it's flooded with ~160 5 star reviews and ~10 1 star reviews. The whole ruckus seems to have been kicked off by 1 or 2 reviews from the US app store.
Well, on on the US appstore there are at least dozens (I stopped counting) of 1-3 star reviews which explicitly mention the non-free new levels as the reason for the low rating. I do agree though that they've now been far outnumbered by the positive reviews. I'll give you this much: you're probably right that at least a few of the 5 star ratings were given by people who might have rated it lower, but are giving the highest rating to counteract the one-star ratings from the paid-update protesters. In an ideal world all the ratings would be completely spontaneously given and would just be based on the quality of the game itself, which would keep the scores more pure. However the fact is that until this backlash started, the ratings for the new version were dominated by the one-star ratings, which judging by the ratings which had accompanying review text were not about the quality of the game itself, but just in protest to the new levels costing money. It's hard to get too upset that fans of the game set out to correct that, especially since for the most part I suspect the people rating it highly really do like the game. The only way things differ from how they would have developed spontaneously is that perhaps more people bothered to post a rating than otherwise would have.
The first two reviews in this screenshot were the only 1 star reviews on the UK app store when this drama kicked off (you can tell because so many people have rated them unhelpful but nobody has rated any of the other 1 star reviews). At the time there was also a 3 star review and a 5 star review. I don't know what the US app store looks like, but these two reviews hardly warrant 300 Disqus comments, Twitter trends, news articles, etc.
There's about 14 one star reviews on the UK app store like that. but only two of them were posted/visible when the drama started. Funny thing is, there's probably twice as many 4-5 star ratings complaining about the price of the DLC too.
Well, maybe people in the UK are more mature. Here's a screenshot of the US app store, with a few of the one star comments. Almost all of them, as well as many of the 2 and 3 star reviews, explicitly mention the paid update as the main complaint.
I have to say, it seems like a good chunk of the 1 star reviews on the UK app store are probably caused by the misleading update notes. For example:
What is misleading about the update notes? It doesn't say free chapters available. Again, just people expecting everything for nothing.
Those quotes you're showing just reinforce my opinion that the people posting these reviews are very immature. All three of the reviews in this screenshot state how great they think the game is, yet they all seem to think there's something unfair about being asked to pay $2 for a bunch of new hand-created levels.
It seems to me that they all feel victims of a bait and switch. The update notes promised new chapters, they got excited, but when they started the game they found out that the new chapters are actually IAP. Quite a few reviews speak of being "excited to see the update" but it's not like these people follow games sites like us so I think it was the update notes that got them excited. They're giving 1 star because they feel tricked, whereas if the notes specifically said it was an IAP they'd have just ignored it and not complained. When apps add IAPs they usually say that they're IAPs.
In all fairness, the wording there implied IAP because the notes say, "available". I can't name one time I saw that keyword that the content wasn't gated as IAP. Regardless, any time there is new content it is not reasonable to assume anything unless the wording spells out whether it's free, IAP, or a mixture of both because notes do not, as you imply, usually say they're IAPs, they usually say they're available, which is what this app's note's said. These people were neither tricked nor mislead, they're just fools who assume what they want to about the world irrespective of the norms.
I can see that. I looked through the update notes earlier today, and there was no way to tell if they were going to be free updates or not. I knew they were going to be paid, but, like you said, I'm a dedicated TA lurker. With the way the rest of the App Store works, it's not really wrong to expect that added content will be free. So, to summarize for all devs out there, when you are planning on adding new paid content, and you tease the content coming in your update notes, explicitly state in those notes if the added content will free or paid. Because I think you are right. From the reviews, I really do think most of the people have no issue with paying for more levels, they just felt tricked. I felt the same way playing the original release of Folt, and that was a free game (check out how much of a jerk I was in that thread; not my finest moment). Wording is really important, so the more clear you can make things, the better. BTW, I'm not defending 1 star reviews for this. I find that dumb. But I do get the point and think there may be a lesson to be learned through all this.
[sarcasm]Come on dude, I don't think that people here realize there are more people outside of the iOS community than those of us here[/sarcasm] I do agree that the app update notes were quite vague and ignorant of the fact that the new content was paid. If they did say that you had to pay, then of course there would have still been people complaining about paid updates, but perhaps not on the scale that it was. More people would have properly known what they were getting themselves into when downloading the app. Ustwo definitely could have made the fact that the new content was paid clearer inside of the app description. The bait and switch idea is actually quite a ironic thing to put up though. Many of the people who went around telling people to 5-star the game are also people who hate it when developers decide to make paid games freemium. I understand that people don't want to see games they put money into go freemium, I'm on that side as well and I've been burnt by those flames too. But apparently, when people decide to complain about something like this, they're bullys, they don't care about the developers. When their bait and switch occurs, the devs are horrible. When other peoples bait and switch occurs, they're horrible.
Here's the problem I have with this though. There are a couple of people going around saying the devs are bad for making this new content paid. What is the response by this side of the iOS community though? Mass brigading of the App Store to make sure their views are worthless. Talking abuse about them without them knowing. Propping up the developers on this massive platform to make sure they don't hear anything like that. Am I one of the few who sees anything wrong with that?
1. The developers clearly did hear it, as that's how most of us found out about the reviews in the first place. 2. I think it's disingenuous to use loaded words like "mass brigading" to describe what happened yesterday. Paying customers were made aware of a situation and could update their reviews as they saw fit. Many chose to. Monument Valley is a very well-liked game, even outside the typical mobile crowd, so it's not surprising to see most of those reviews are positive. 3. People are entitled to their opinions, and it's fine if you don't think MV is worth $4 or the expansion is worth $2. That said, I don't think giving a game the worst possible score as a reaction to substantial new content not being free is a viewpoint that I particularly care about getting fair acknowledgement.
Flawed logic. Effort spent developing idea from scratch does NOT equal effort spent making additional levels. I'm pretty sure it didn't take you the same amount of time making level 2-10 than it did with level 1, or whichever level you made first? Saying that additional levels should cost proportionally doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Economically speaking, it's diminishing marginal cost. Once you've got all the ideas (capital and technology) your additional output does NOT cost the same as the 1st unit you made. If your logic was true then how come games with tons of levels (eg Cut the Rope, PvZ1, both of which are truly unique games like MV) don't have ridiculous price tags like $30 or something? People are not complaining about your high INITIAL price tag, they're complaining that with so little content in the initial package, you still charge relatively the same amount for additional levels. People won't complain if you just included more levels in the initial package and charged a higher price for the whole thing.
This is pretty close to the dumbest thing I've ever read. Who are you to be able to judge how much effort goes into making levels for Monument Valley? You literally have no knowledge whatsoever of the situation. But based on your logic, should your employer pay you less as you become more skilled at your job? Should iPhones cost less each year because hey, they figured out all that hard expensive stuff with the first iPhone, they crank them out like hotcakes now. So they should be cheap, right? Or what about Ferraris? Or pizzas? Or literally anything else in the world? Talk about flawed logic.
1. I was referring more to the reaction after they had acknowledged the 1-star reviews and the front page article was published. They did know that people were giving 1-star reviews, and then people were saying that those views were nonsense and they weren't worth much. It was building up that metaphorical platform afterwards. 2. I'd say mass brigading in comparison to how many 1-star reviews had been given in comparison. Mass may have been an exaggeration, I will agree. It was quite jarring to see though. I don't really hear about most people who went and gave the 5-star reviews for the game as giving them for many different games. I'm not denying that they could be doing it and I don't see them (or they don't really acknowledge it). Normal App Store reviews would have definitely occured naturally to balance them out, yes. It was disjarring though to see the majority of developers I follow on Twitter to go around saying "Everyone give Monument Valley 5 stars" and stuff like that though, considering I can't remember some of them doing the same for when their stuff releases. I know where they were coming from when making those tweets, standing up for fellow developers and all that, but the response seemed a bit too...overdone for what it was. 3. I do agree that giving 1-star to a game just because it offered paid DLC is a bad thing. I don't think that immediatly denying their voices though is a good idea. What should have been done instead is to take the opportunity to properly explain why these levels are paid, to try and change those opinions to make more positive. Maybe it's me thinking too optimistically, but I feel that if the people could know what the impact spending the $1.99 for the DLC would have on the developers and why it was necessary, then maybe their opinion could have changed (or at least be redacted). Humans can be selfish though. I feel that should have been given a proper voice though. I mean, instead of Eli saying that these opinions are complete nonsense and we should do our best to counteract them, he could have maybe gotten a comment from ustwo games describing the work put into the level and why they would require a price tag.
I agree, but only to a certain extent. After all, when you go and look at a new pair of shoes, or some dishes, do people say "Oh, that is only 3 cups of Starbucks coffee?" People compare like with like, and making a value judgement on what your time is worth is difficult to compare to the price of a cup of coffee - unless you really consider that the time spent drinking the coffee entertainment time. Anyways, I don't ever see anyone agreeing with the coffee argument, and it is likely because people inherently recognize the comparison is not a reasonable one. I think that you will like the addition, should you chose to purchase it. Cheers!
