Today I've seen a game called Submarine,with 51 reviews and all were 5-stars. http://picasaweb.google.com/newreality2009/AppStoreReviewsCheating#5374534573051527874 Out of curiousity I started clicking the reviewers' names and found that they wrote reviews only about that particular company games. Some nicknames even resemble the usernames of popular toucharcade reviewers (by a closer look I've noticed that the spelling is a bit different from the real toucharcade users): 'Big Albie' with two reviews from Brisk Mobile only http://picasaweb.google.com/newreality2009/AppStoreReviewsCheating#5374534217990605170 'Voodoo Vyper' http://picasaweb.google.com/newreality2009/AppStoreReviewsCheating#5374534214464056418 I've found about twenty similar reviews http://picasaweb.google.com/newreality2009/AppStoreReviewsCheating# The system is completely broken. Would not it be better to remove the whole review system and introduce video trailers and/or compulsory demo versions? Or is is a usual thing and nobody pays attention to such cheating?
Good catch. Didn't know that Zincous2, iHodapp, and Mindfield5 were such Brisk Mobile fans. Using fake reviews by fake Touch Arcade members? Unbelievably sleezy! Welcome to the forums!
Ouch! Lots of 5 star reviews for their games only. This is sad. I had Medieval on my snipe list... had...
Oh, OK, now I get it. The dev is a new forum member (aoleynik) who got pretty good feedback on Medieval. I guess he thought he could just "borrow" some of our forum members' names to use as shill reviewers for his new apps--Submarine, Lasers, and D-Star. Nice.
Haha I don't think the first sentence of any of Filthy Canadian's reviews would be "I like submarines."
Appreciate the apology, and it definitely took courage to come here and say it...but honestly....what were you thinking?
In the other thread, it sounds like they are just the developers of the game and all this funny business was orchestrated by the publisher? Unless I'm reading that wrong?
Wow. Not cool at all man. I'm glad you've removed the reviews, but man ... that just ain't the way to do business, especially with TA folks who are savvy enough to catch on, and especially especially when it involves our aliases. Mega bad mojo.
The developer made a post stating that they are the developers and not the publishers. But iTunes has Brisk Mobile listed as the seller. I'm not exactly sure how there can be another publisher in this scenario, but I'm willing to give them another chance since they made a public apology. Everybody makes mistakes What's interesting is this happens right after the Reverb fiasco. I'm glad Sarah was able to come here and clear up IUGOME's name, but there were several devs implicated in that incident. Makes you wonder whose name is gonna come up next. I guess it all comes down to what's considered ethical/moral when dealing with business.
Well this is just yet another example of why you should take iTunes reviews with about this much salt:
Fake endorsements/reviews are never ethical. I think it was Sony Pictures who got bitch slapped with a class action beef for making up a fake reviewer from some small town paper who appeared in quotes praising some of their stinkers some years back. (Mind you, Sony haven't exactly been a bastion of morality over the years anyway.)
What sucks though is that crap like this inevitably and irrevocably tarnishes whatever scraps of credibility there was left in App Store reviews. Given how many shill reviews we've seen lately, it has reached a point where, unless you know the person writing the review is actually a real, impartial person, there's absolutely no way to trust any of the reviews anymore. The piss poor decisions of the few completely screw it up for the many.
