Help us counter fake ratings & reviews

What is going on? Fake one-star ratings and reviews are being posted on iGP. A lower rating decreases search ranking and deters people, so it's obvious why others might use such dirty tactics to further their own aims.

How can you help? Report fake reviews, flag them as spam and post a 5-star review if you think we deserve one, to balance it out.

Rate iGP on Google Play
Rate iGP on iOS

Can it be proven that these ratings are fake? Yes. Around 75% are automatically deleted by Apple and Google, proving that their own detection systems see them as fake. But many remain having bypassed their filters. They have been coming in since the beginning of April, particularly in the last week, and account for at least 1/4 of all 1-star ratings on iGP Manager.

The ratings themselves appear to mostly be coming from a "review farm" in Bangladesh. It's clear-cut, since over the last 30 days every single account in Bangladesh gave a 1.0 rating, which is essentially impossible.



Above is a screenshot from our Google Play Developer Console showing the discrepancy between our real "lowest rating" in any country (3.14) and the 1.0 from Bangladesh.They are dragging down the app and 'English speaking' rating too.

So report fakes and give us a positive review if you're enjoying the game. We'll continue flagging the situation to the stores. We're working hard on an update for the apps which we hope to release soon. We've been held up getting translations finished, but then it will be ready to launch. If you've read this far, thanks!

The tactics seem to have changed, since fake reviews are being removed quite quickly now. The new approach is voting on reviews to skew the way they are displayed in "most recommended".

For example, going through the reviews there are 0 votes either way on the vast majority. But then one appeared promoting another game in Spanish. That received 10 upvotes immediately, pushing it to the front page of recommended reviews.

There are clearly companies or individuals with a lot of time and money on their hands who are willing to go to any lengths to promote their apps. I suppose we're the easy target, being a small indie team. It's quite sad.