Interesting update notes today, so I assume the devs are considering that the previous notes could have been misleading.
Well the previous one said 'new chapters available' so perhaps people hadnt been on the internet for months and hadnt read that the new chapters would be an IAP ! I can only imagine their reaction and horror - 'What what what ! My $3 dollar game wont have free updates for the next 100 years !!!'
When you're doing UX you don't make fun of test subjects just because they don't interpret things the same way as your designers. A lot of seemingly obvious stuff can be completely counter intuitive to many people and it's not because they're stupid, it's just because they see things differently. It's pretty telling that the comments over at Gamasutra (which is a more dev orientated site) are polite and often try to see the consumers' viewpoint, whereas in places like this Disqus thread on TA we pretty much only have a bunch of angry (hardcore) gamers insulting other (casual) gamers for being stupid, spoilt, etc.
I don't believe many people were honestly confused by the release notes, nor that that's a significant reason for why people were mad about having to pay for the update. However the ambiguity in the release notes did give some of the entitled cheapskates a convenient excuse to try to justify their cheapness and sense of entitlement, so the devs just removed the excuse by making it crystal clear. For anyone who honestly didn't have a problem with paying for the update, even if they did initially think that the release notes indicated the updates were free, once they saw that the updates actually cost $2, they would just think "Oh, that makes perfect sense that they'd charge something for the new content, and now that I re-read the notes, it doesn't actually say they're free. Okay, let me pay my $2 and get the new levels". Or maybe they'd even think "I don't feel like spending $2 for the new levels. The update didn't remove any of the previous content I already did pay for, so all's good". Only someone who actually felt entitled to the new content for free would use their momentary misunderstanding of the release notes as a reason to give the game a one-star rating.
Quoted for truth The hypocrisy is astounding. Apparently if you're a fan of MV it's ok to verbally abuse the critics and abuse the rating system to drown them out while complaining about people using said rating system to express their dissatisfaction. Holy crap, do these people have any self awareness at all? It's mindblowing to watch
As all of our launch communications like website articles and interviews had stated that it was paid, we thought it would be ok to leave a simple "New chapters available" message in the update notes. I guess it was a kind of funny and understated way of announcing something that was so anticipated. In hindsight though it probably should have been said how it now is in 2.0.1: "New chapters available to purchase"
I don't see any evidence that the rating system was abused by the people leaving positive feedback. No one was bribed into leaving a positive rating, so I see no reason to doubt that the vast majority of the positive ratings are from people who actually do like the game. It's true that many people may have been motivated to go leave a rating because they heard about the "paid update protesters" leaving one star ratings, but as long as their opinions are really their opinions of the game, then it's all above board. I think the fact that there is now a 30 to 1 ratio of positive to negative feedback most likely accurately reflects the opinions of people who have bought the game. It's only ratings abuse if people's review scores don't actually reflect what they think about the quality of the game, but are instead given for other reasons. For example, leaving a one-star review to protest new content not being free, even though you think the actual game is a very good game, is an abuse of the ratings system IMO. A lot of the one-star comments I read even explicitly stated that they think MV is one of the best games on the app-store.
Actually it's no more abuse to leave a 1 star rating because you're unhappy with how the expansion was handled than it is to leave a 5 star rating based on an article which in turn was based on a tweet by the devs Go look through the toxic disqus thread that prompted all these 5 star reviews and you'll see plenty of people who haven't played the game or didn't intent to get the expansion stating they left 5 star reviews simply because of that article. If that is not abuse of the rating system i don't know what is but what's worse is the hypocrisy - You can't state that the people leaving 1 star reviews are abusing the system and then leave a 5 star review just to offset them and still have any credibility left And why exactly aren't people allowed to leave 1 star reviews? If they feel they were victims of a bait and switch are they not entitled to rate it accordingly? Now personally i have no horse in this race, i just can't stand the hypocrisy and self righteousness i've seen from the majority of posters in the disqus thread
You need to read up on why brigading is banned on sites like Reddit that allow voting. It's not that the opinions of the voters may be disingenuous, but that you're bringing outsiders into the conversation in order to drown out the opposition. Sailor's Dream has been out for about a week and has 44 ratings. Before the last update Monument Valley 2.0 had something like 570 ratings in <48 hours. That certainly looks like brigading to me.
People are allowed to leave one star reviews. None of the one star reviews were removed from iTunes, so there's no censoring going on. Just go into iTunes and sort the reviews by least favorable, and there they are. Regarding this idea that some bait and switch occurred, that's just ludicrous. All that happened is a free app update was downloaded, which now includes the option to buy some new levels. Anyone who doesn't want to buy the new levels doesn't have to, and the original levels that you already bought are all still there. What exactly are you saying people were baited into, and what was switched out from under them? Maybe you need to read up on what bait and switch means. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch
No, the wording in the update was definitely not clear cut which is why people probably FELT (notice the keyword here, i never said there was an actual bait and switch) like they were victims of a bait and switch and incidentally is why the wording was changed And please respond to the rest of my post. Why is it it's ok for people to vote brigade with 5 star reviews while verbally abusing people legitimately unhappy with the game? Look past your personal feelings for the game here and see it for what it is - massive hypocrisy
But the people leaving ratings aren't outsiders, they're all people who bought the game, or they wouldn't be able to leave ratings. The only way I can see what you're saying as being valid is if you think a large percentage of the people who left ratings only bought the game so they could leave a rating, but unless you have some evidence of that, I seriously doubt that's the case. To make a voting analogy, brigading would be like bringing in people from another town to vote in a town election, whereas what happened here is more like residents of a town voting in larger numbers than usual because some issue on the ballot caught their attention. As long as they're all actually residents of the town they're voting in, and they really do believe in the issue that they're voting for, then it's legitimate, even if part of the reason for the larger than usual turnout was because someone brought an issue to people's attention.
The evidence is right in the disqus thread. People stating they bought the game and left a 5 star review because of the article
I said only if a large percentage of the ratings are from people who only bought the game to leave a rating would I think his point is valid. The comments just show me that a few people did that, but without some evidence I don't believe that that accounts for a large percentage of the positive reviews. This game was well loved by a lot of people. Even non-gamers like my mom played through it multiple times. So it's not at all hard for me to believe that a few thousand people chose to take a minute to go leave a positive rating when they heard about this story.
Only a tiny fraction of people ever leave feedback, so when you encourage others to vote en masse you are disrupting the sample group. To make a voting analogy, brigading would be like the Lover party calling an election and not informing the Whatever or Hater parties. So the Lover party ends up with high turnout while all the other two parties don't even know what's going on.
But even if that's true, those people didn't intent to leave a rating before reading the story so they're skewing the ratings That's fine, you have the right to rate any game you purchased but then don't lament the people rating it 1 star because of what they feel is a legitimate complaint
