When you’re a new game on Google Play Store, you know that visibility is one of the major challenges that you’ll face. You need all the positive reviews and ratings that you can get. Game Dev Tycoon by Greenheart Games enjoyed a successful launch as just six days after they went live, over two thousand players rated them at 5.0. But it looks like Google’s algorithm flagged them as fake reviews and have now removed 77% of those reviews, which of course affects their overall score and visibility.
According to Patrick Klug, one of the developers of the game, all of these really good reviews of their game was unsolicited. There were no incentives, no buying of reviews, not even asking friends or followers to write reviews. And yet, despite not having any dubious practices, Google still flagged those reviews as fake and automatically removed them because they don’t align with the Comments and Ratings policy that they are implementing.
The trouble though according to Klug is that they are using the same algorithm for fake reviews for both the free-to-play games and the paid ones like Game Dev Tycoon. To be able to rate it and leave a review, you will have to buy the game of course which will cost you $4.99. No one will probably spend that much just to leave a fake review (unless they were promised cash or Google Play credits or something).
Klug says that removing the reviews is disrespectful to the game’s players. He also complained that Google is so quick to remove what it perceives to be fake reviews and yet is not diligent in removing pirate sites, as evidenced by the results if you search “download Game Dev Tycoon APK for free”.
VIA: Gamasutra
