There seems to be a new trend going on specially among Turkish users which heavily affects apps on the Google Play store. Apps no matter how good or bad the app is are getting 1 star reviews from users so that their comments “get noticed”, the trend first spotted by Appwared and show us how some reviews actually say the app is great but still give them 1 star rating:
Tülay Sahillioglu: Good, a very good game! I gave 1 star so that my comment gets seen.
Irem Sanli: Super! I gave 1 star so that my comment is shown first but I actually liked the game.
The reason behind this is because Google chooses the Most helpful comment first and not by star rating. This can heavily affect apps ranking and is an issue that can affect developers.
All though this Turkish trend was first spotted on the app Where’s my Water?2 after looking around at more apps it turns out that all popular apps have a 1 star rating, there is how the game
Cut the Rope is rated:
Who is in the wrong here?
Turkish users want their review to be seen by other users and i can’t blame them for that but due to the bad review system provided on the Play store, users are being forced to give 1 star ratings in order for their review to be seen. This issue an be addressed by making some minor changes to the review system.
Editor Note: I wanted to cover this issue to warn developers regarding it and encourage Google to take a look at their review system, all though it is currently only done by Turkish users there is always a chance US and EU users will start doing the same and drastically affect your apps ranking and revenue.
