EA: You Can Only Rate Our Dungeon Keeper App If you Give It A Perfect Rating

from the not-how-it's-supposed-to-work dept

Thu, Feb 13th 2014 4:19am — Timothy Geigner

When they write the future tome discussing how to run a video game company in such a way as to piss off as many customers as humanly possible, it seems quite likely that it will be titled The Electronic Arts Guide To Business. Between doing the old customer demand flip-flop when it came to SimCity, attempts to lock their games down from the modding community, and their practice of shutting down games in which real customers have spent real money, the company at times appears to be some kind of macabre performance art piece on how to be as anti-customer as possible. Word of mouth has supplied a reputation for EA that is less than desirable, leading some to wonder how they might be able to turn their PR ship around.

Jeffrey Nonken writes in about one method EA has come up with to combat the perception of their games from customers. It's a delightfully cynical plan to try to convince customers that they can only rate EA games in the marketplace if they agree to give a perfect review.

Dungeon Keeper sure has a high rating on the Google Play Store for a game loathed by many. Its 4.5 star average of over 84K user reviews suggests that people are really liking EA's microtransaction-heavy affair. Only there's one thing this rating system isn't telling you: customers are only given the option to rate the game if they say they'll give it five stars.

See, on Android you're given the option to rate the Dungeon Keeper after a certain period of play. Only instead of tapping the appropriate number of stars you think it deserves, you're asked if you think it should receive "1-4 stars" or "5 stars". As reported by PocketGamer, selecting the latter option takes you to the game's Google Play Store where you can rate it, while the former option simply takes you to a new "feedback" prompt asking "What would it take to make Dungeon Keeper a 5-star game?" Your options: "email us" or "not now."

Ah, it's so simple! If you want to make sure your games are highly rated, attempt to convince customers that they can only rate the game with a perfect rating! More beautifully, while you can still rate the game whatever you like after promising a 5 star review, this method allows for the wonderful practice of forcing your customers to lie in order to do so. It's like an evil multiplication machine!

Oh, and that ability to lie and review at less than five stars? That's what makes this sneaky attempt to garner favorable reviews a-okay, according to EA.

“We're always looking at new ways to gather player feedback so that we can continue to improve our games. The 'rate this app' feature in the Google Play version of Dungeon Keeper was designed to help us collect valuable feedback from players who don't feel the game is worth a top rating. We wanted to make it easier for more players to send us feedback directly from the game if they weren't having the best experience. Players can always continue to leave any rating they want on the Google Play Store.”

Right, except you aren't being upfront about that with your customers, whose feedback you so greatly desire. Unless that feedback is a low rating in the marketplace, in which case your customers can either figure out they have that option on their own, or they can suck it. Meanwhile, of course word about this devious attempt will make the rounds, cementing most folks' opinion of EA as being as consumer un-friendly as possible.

I guess they're still vying for that "Worst Company" three-peat.

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Filed Under: android, dungeon keeper, video games
Companies: ea, electronic arts

47 Comments

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Violynne (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 3:30am

Another EA topic, in less than a week?

Congratulations, EA! That "Worst Company In America" award suits the company well.

Idiots.
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silverscarcat (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 4:03am

So...
When does the voting for the next golden poo happen?
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Sunhawk (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 4:25am

Re:
That's always bugged me. I mean, there's companies that are *really nasty* out there. Insurance, payday loans, banks, patent trolls...

Now, "Most incompetently obnoxious (that still makes money) company in America", perhaps.
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Sunhawk (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 4:26am

Re: Re:
Or maybe "most maliciously petty company in America"?
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2014 @ 4:44am

Still gonna buy TitanFall even if each mech costs $5 and I can only rate 5/5 cos I'm an idiot gamer who willingly allows companies to exploit me.
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Ninja (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 4:54am

I haven kept my distance from EA in ages now. I'm not even pirating their games anymore. This should be worrying them.

This is a nice experience to see how far a big company can do it wrong before it reaches the breaking point where it'll enter an unstoppable downward spiral towards bankruptcy. I wonder if Square is some sort of pioneer?
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Quiet Observer, 13 Feb 2014 @ 5:30am

Well, this comes as no surprise. EA is also notorious for being employee-hostile, too.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2014 @ 5:30am

Re: Re:
it is the *worst company* award, not *most criminal company* award...
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2014 @ 5:33am

Re:
you are not alone. The whole origin/spyware disaster was the final straw for me.

well, not being able to access my Dragon Age origins and Mass effect 2 DLC because they were to stupid to properly merge accounts and unwilling to fix anything helped as well.

They had the gall to tell I should just buy a new copy.
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McGreed (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 5:35am

Not legal according to the rules?
I don't see how they can do this, isn't this in conflict of the rules for getting your apps accepted on the market? This is a seriously underhand way of controlling the ratings, and is almost onpair of just hiring people to leave positive votes.
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cynical (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 5:39am

Re:
You're kinda optimistic putting the mechs at $5, given that mere points cost up to $70 on the Dungeon Keeper game, you can expect to pay that much or more for an in-game mech.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2014 @ 5:40am

cant this be classed as instigating fraudulent behavior? when an 'all or nothing' option is in place, it isn't really an option, is it?
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Ninja (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 5:47am

Re: Re:
They had the gall to tell I should just buy a new copy.

And you had the gall to tell them a big fuck you. As I hope many others will start doing sooner or later. The nice part is that you can download their shit for free anywhere and it will work better than their shitty DRM.
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Arthur Moore (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 6:17am

Google hates SEO
I forget where I heard about this before. It might have been Slashdot. Oh well, there was one important thing mentioned that stuck out to me.

Google hates SEO(Search Engine Optimization), and they like to keep control of their app store. They're not as bad as Apple, but Google has no problems pulling an app for bad behavior. Given those two things I'm half surprised that they haven't just shut down the game.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2014 @ 6:29am

Re: Re:
Origin is less bad than it was, to be fair.

Still won't touch an EA-branded game where possible, though.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2014 @ 6:35am

And it crashes a lot too! They recieved a 1 star review calling the app a scam and a crash bug with a game. Pretty much a clash of clans knockoff but more annoying as younhave to dig through walls to place anything.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2014 @ 6:41am

Installed and 1-starred
This article compelled me to install the app and give it a 1-star rating via the app store. Never opened it and uninstalled as soon as the rating was complete.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2014 @ 6:46am

Re:
Don't worry about it too much, Respawn has already confirmed there will be no microtransactions in Titanfall.
https://twitter.com/Respawn/status/426076356703567872

Hey, you know what though? I think EA is starting to see the light. I might even buy games from them again cause they are such a good company for not having microtransactions in their games. /Stockholm Syndrome
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ltlw0lf (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 6:48am

Re:
I haven kept my distance from EA in ages now.

I still buy stuff from EA on GoG. Can't see buying anything new from them, but before Origin was corrupted, they made some damn fine games (Wing Commander, Ultima.) So did Bullfrog (Dungeon Keeper.)

I just wish that none of that money went to EA.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2014 @ 6:54am

EA has bad priorities
I worked for EA Mobile for a while. I warned them about this precise thing with Dungeon Keeper, long before it was released. It was ignored, obviously.

There's a history with EA of using cheap tricks to try to maximize cutesy things like rating, at the expense of the big picture like fixing the problems that resulted in the bad rating in the first place. For example, their Scrabble apps were rated poorly, so they played around with merging/splitting the iPhone and iPad versions; existing users would update to the merged/split version appropriate for them, but the App Store rating would be reset for the "new" app(s).

One thing I will say is that not all of EA is bad. Most developrers want to make awesome games. It's the business interests, which focus solely on short-term gains, that corrupt the place. You could balance profit-making with making users happy, ensuring long-term growth -- or you could just, y'know, build the game around microtransactions and pay-to-win and have a nice quick cash-grab.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2014 @ 7:27am

This is common practice amongst mobile apps. Still very douchey nonetheless. It's pretty much a given that EA will adopt it.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2014 @ 7:54am

In the litany of EA ills, you forgot to mention "deceitfully paying shills to hype their shit on YT", which was the final straw for me. No more EA games in this allowed in this household.
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John Fenderson (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 7:54am

Re: EA has bad priorities
"Most developrers want to make awesome games."

Of course. The problems with EA are clearly management/business operations, not from the developers themselves for the most part. However, the lead developers who got out in public and lied during the SimCity debacle deserve scorn. And I always wonder about people who continue to work for companies which are obviously terrible.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2014 @ 8:10am

I never ever trust recommendations dealing with games. EA was doing this back when gaming magazines were doing ratings. If the gamer mag couldn't give them a shining report and rating, next game that gamer mag didn't receive at all to rate.

I have no problems with EA because I refuse to buy their products anymore. If you get burnt as a customer I have no sympathy for you. It's not like they've never screwed the public and their customer base before.
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Black Angel, 13 Feb 2014 @ 9:35am

Re:
No one has deserved the "Anonymous Coward" title more than you have.
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 11:00am

More beautifully, while you can still rate the game whatever you like after promising a 5 star review, this method allows for the wonderful practice of forcing your customers to lie in order to do so.

Not really. A lie is something told to another person with the intent to deceive or mislead them. This is nothing more than working around a bad design in a piece of software.
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 11:02am

Re: Google hates SEO
Yes, Google hates SEO, just like everyone who creates a rules-based system in order to accomplish some meaningful purpose hates having the rules gamed by unscrupulous people.
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John Fenderson (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 11:04am

Not that unusual
It's a slimy practice, but not that unusual. It's why I generally ignore the app ratings, and don't bother rating any myself.
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Internet Zen Master (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 11:09am

As much as I loathe EA
Other scummy marketing tactics aside, at least their microtransactions (usually) aren't too outrageous compared to a few other companies I know.

Compare that with the current management social forum site/avatar dress-up site Gaia Online, which ever since the new CEO & COO came in last year, have pretty much been out EA-ing EA in terms of treating their customers like human wallets [granted, they were brought in to generate a profit after the last CEO shit the bed, but their marketing strategy is so short-sighted it's not even funny].

EA charging $5-$70 bucks for microtransactions in actual games? Gaia Online has charged $1000 for rare collectible avatar items (which were never supposed to be re-released in the first place) several times since last July (depressingly, some idiots actually buy them). Gaia Online isn't even a MMORPG and yet it's charging prices for non-animated pixels and making EA look like a fucking saint in comparison.

When you're outdoing EA and Zynga in less than 12 months in terms of treating your consumers like shit, that's Golden Poo quality material right there.

My ranting aside, unless Comcast pulls a bunch of really dickish moves in the next couple weeks (other than trying to merge itself with Time Warner), EA's pretty much got that "Worst Company in America" Award locked up. Again.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2014 @ 12:26pm

EA is definetely run by idiots.
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Alias (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 12:56pm

>>Players can always continue to leave any rating they want on the Google Play Store.

This is the way I always write reviews for apps from the Play Store. Those sheep who are spoon fed a review dialog are the ones that are allowing this behavior. A smart person would say, "well, that's BS" and would just go to the play store to leave their honest opinion.

So, EA here is just taking advantage of the fact that some players are either not savvy enough to know about leaving a review on the play store or are just lazy.

>>Still gonna buy TitanFall even if each mech costs $5 and I can only rate 5/5 cos I'm an idiot gamer who willingly allows companies to exploit me.

This comment is just vitriol. Gamers, for the most part, are not idiots; this is one of their past times. Some people have the interest and disposable income to be attracted to this type of business model.

I, for one, am not. In fact, the last EA game I bought in 2/2012 was THE last EA game I will ever buy because of this type of cash-grab mentality that EA exhibits and their general ineptitude (product-launch failures, Launch-server capacity mishandling, etc.) and uncaring nature for their customers. I don't have enough time or funds for that crap so I am voting with my wallet.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2014 @ 2:58pm

This would be funny if dungeon keeper didn't contain code to sureptiously activate peoples phone cameras, steal contact data (for spam adverts) etc. Data which it directly streams to EA for what is basically illegal marketing purposes.

I have zero doubts EA sells this data onwards to shady third-party spammers for cold hard cash (cash being EA's god and high priest)
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John Fenderson (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 3:24pm

Re:
Those are pretty serious accusations. Do you have any evidence to support them? I couldn't find anything with a quick web search.
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thermoplastics, 13 Feb 2014 @ 3:34pm

This is precisely why I created http://honestandroidgames.com.

It is a site that lists only moral games for android. No wait times, no pay to play and no pay to win. Only honest well made Android games.
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nasch (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 3:41pm

Re: Not legal according to the rules?
I don't see how they can do this, isn't this in conflict of the rules for getting your apps accepted on the market?

This is Android, you can put up anything you want. It could be taken down later if you break the rules, but you don't have to get your app accepted before it can go up.
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nasch (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 3:43pm

Re:
cant this be classed as instigating fraudulent behavior?

I doubt fraud, but maybe a violation of Google's terms of service.
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Alana (profile), 13 Feb 2014 @ 4:05pm

Re:
... What does Square have to do with this?
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2014 @ 4:23pm

Re: Re: Not legal according to the rules?
the ios version has the same crap going.
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Sheogorath (profile), 14 Feb 2014 @ 4:36am

Re: Re:
You know, even though I'm Autistic, the lack of a sarc mark on that AC's comment didn't affect my ability to detect the obvious sarcasm in any way. So what's your excuse for your faulty sarcasm detector?
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Sheogorath (profile), 14 Feb 2014 @ 4:49am

Re: Re:

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Miss Tina Turner!
Sung: What's Square got to do, got to do with it?
What's Square? The company's Square-Enix.
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Sheogorath (profile), 14 Feb 2014 @ 5:00am

File an objection
Right at the bottom of the page for each individual app in Google Play is a little clicky which allows you to file an objection about it and potentially get it pulled. The objection I filed is as follows: Company is maximising star ratings in abuse of Google's terms. Bad game, crashes all the time, can't play without money, and now can't rate less than five stars. Feel free to copy/paste.
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John Fenderson (profile), 14 Feb 2014 @ 9:00am

Re: Re: Not legal according to the rules?
That's not true at all. If you want your app in the Play Store, it does have to go through an approval process. That process isn't as completely insane and arbitrary as Apple's, but it does certainly exist.

Of course, you don't have to put your app in the Play store to distribute it at all. You can use other app stores (each has their own approval process) or simply provide it directly to your customers. This is one of the really huge advantages to Android, both for developers and users.
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nasch (profile), 14 Feb 2014 @ 2:57pm

Re: Re: Re: Not legal according to the rules?
If you want your app in the Play Store, it does have to go through an approval process.

I think that is not correct.

http://developer.android.com/distribute/googleplay/publish/preparing.html

No mention of being reviewed by anybody at Google (that I saw, I skimmed it), and my experience is that both new apps and updates propagate to the play store in 1-3 hours, regardless of time of day, weekday or weekend. I doubt Google has enough people working to approve apps that quickly.

If you have some documentation that there are humans reviewing apps before they are published in the Play Store (which is what I mean by approval process), I would like to see it.
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Ed Kohler (profile), 17 Feb 2014 @ 10:59am

This is a common ratings tactic
It's not surprising that a game company knows how to game their ratings. But, they're far from alone in using this tactic. It's also used for gaming Yelp and other review directories by sending up follow-up surveys where positive responders are asked to publish their comments at sites like Yelp while the others are thanks for their feedback (and hopefully given follow-up about their less than idea experience).
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Feb 2014 @ 11:33am

Relevant

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/02/10
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