Are all the short, especially unhelpful, 5-star game/app/product reviews that read something to the effect of: “Great game! So much fun! Can’t put it down!” just shills? Or are they just written by 13-year-olds and/or idiots?
Well, there’s the Tiny Tower/Dream Heights scandal.
The gist of it is, a sim game named Tiny Tower was released by a small team. It was a huge success, making Apples game of the year. Enter large evil iOS developer Zygna, who developed an almost exact clone of Tiny Tower called Dream Heights. DH has better graphics than TT, and pretty much requires IAP (In App Puchases) to keep going. Otherwise the games are identical.
Outrage ensues from TT fans, and many of them download Dream Heights from the app store for the purpose of rating it 1 star (you have to download an app to rate it). Zygna counters this by releasing extremely minor updates (which erase all reviews) then having employees leave their own 5 star reviews (they used their real names when leaving reviews).
So, while some 5 star reviews are legit - I’ve left a few - it’s certainly not unheard of for company employees to review their own games with 5 stars and one star competitors.
Wow, really? I got it for my Android phone and I find that game to be a real sleeper. Surprised it has that much of a following!