From all accounts I’ve read, Apple sales represent a significant percentage of revenue for our gamebooks. But many HGs have only a dozen or so ratings, and even fewer actual reviews on Apple, but then they’ll have 5 or 10 times the number of reviews/ratings on Google Play.
An example with a strong-selling recent HG, Samurai of Hyuga (@MultipleChoice, I’m just using this as a random example)…
166 ratings on App Store
1,056 ratings on Google Play
I used the “all reviews” Apple number for my example.
Yeah I know it sucks that when you update on Apple, the customer has to dig to see the prior reviews. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me unless the update REALLY changes the app.
How so? I don’t have an Android device so I’m totally ignorant about it.
I just did a review for Felicity’s new release on Apple, and it involved me: 1) tapping “write a review,” 2) entering my password, 3) and writing the review. How much easier can it get?
I used to own an iphone and now have an android, and @Samuel_H_Young is right; rating apps on Android is easier. Also, Google Play lets you download things onto your PC, not just your phone. People who use their computers more often are more likely to read and provide reviews.
For google play to make review just click and write no passwords required. Easy as pie and I think majority of people are using android devices more than apple devices. That could be reason why apple has few reviews than google play.
See, I thought Apple sales were like 60-70% of total sales for our games. But maybe I’m imagining things or maybe that’s an old number. If more people are buying on Android, that would obviously somewhat explain differential, although regardless of the sales breakdown between the two, it looks like a much higher % of Google Play folks leave reviews.
Wow…so using my (admittedly) rudimentary math skills…
If 60% of sales come from Apple, and perhaps 30% come from Google Play/Android, and on average our gamebooks have 10 times more reviews on Google Play than on Apple, that would lead to the conclusion that Google Play/Android users are 20 times more likely to leave a review.
20 times more likely??? Hell that’s a big enough difference that you’d think Apple would want to change its system, because I’d assume that more reviews = more assurance for potential customers that an given app is worth buying = higher chances of them buying it = more revenue for Apple.
Then again, maybe I am thinking like an attorney and not a developer.
Hmmm or it could be that leaving review using google play is easier than apple? That be one of the reasons and not just sales. I have iphone and an android phone. I never review anything from Apple, I just never liked the set up for leaving reviews there unlike for google play it fine and I like leaving review there more.
I think so. At least, whenever I look at the reviews at google play most tend to be in my native language, which isn’t really spoken outside the country.
I am Australian, btw, and living in Australia. My first HG has been out about two weeks.
More than one Australian person has told me they left a review on apple and it didn’t appear. I also had 2 reviews vanish with an incredibly minor update, although their ratings stay (until there are enough ratings to separate by version). I’m also not logged into anything apple. (My husband, an apple user, can see his review on his system, plus three others I can’t see - one is “BeijingBreather” - but he doesn’t see the review I can see.)
I have 10 ratings on apple, but only one review (by Smilysel).
I have about 100 ratings on google play, and over 1000 downloads (which does NOT mean 1000 purchases, but still awesome!)
On android four reviews.
On chrome, not a single review or rating, but 50 “users” which I think means 50 people bought it there.
Entering passwords makes a BIG difference to me. I always forget the things
By far google play would be the easiest to use. I wont use apple any more because those updates annoy me. It’s also super easy to leave a review on google. I just click in the space it says to write a review after leaving a rating and boom. it’s done. I’m a little sad there aren’t more cog on the microsoft store.
The “users” on Chrome are the people who currently have the game downloaded on their device. I wish it displayed the total amount of purchases, but it doesn’t.
Well I don’t think anyone gets the offered although I guess it’s the consensus that the “enter password” step apparently constitutes some huge obstacle to Apple users entering reviews…damn people are lazy these days.
I noticed Steam users enter quite a few ratings/reviews as well, perhaps second only to Android folks? Ah, well I guess the lesson is that the number of ratings/reviews isn’t necessarily indicative of sales on a given platform.
I just wish that more people would leave ratings in general. It seems like the majority of the people who enjoyed a product don’t leave a rating, whereas the majority of the people who DON’T like a product DO leave a rating.
Steam also seems to be a particularly ‘noisy’ platform. Perhaps it’s partly because it is/was a sort of community as well? There are a lot of comments, ratings, reviews, and discussions, possibly collectively more than the input in most other major game-selling platforms and sites like GOG.
