Google is changing the way that Android apps ratings are calculated to emphasize more recent reviews over older ones.

This is big news for Warzone! We've been stuck at a low 3.9 rating due to a lot of bad reviews on the old WarLight app. Warzone is reviewed very highly, but it's only brought our rating from 3.8 at launch to 3.9 now, and it would take years at our current rate just to reach 4.0.

But with this change, that's all a thing of the past, and Google says our rating will jump from 3.9 to 4.3 when the change goes live in August. Thanks Google!

And a big thank-you to everyone who has given the Warzone app a 5-star rating. It makes a huge difference!

Edited 5/12/2019 03:38:44

Well deserved!

Google learning from Steam? This is great news! :D

I'll probably check some of my old haunts just to see where they are at. I'm curious how time has shifted them too.

I don't know much how Play store works, so it may be a stupid question, but couldn't you just release new app at some point (with Warzone rebranding for example) ?

couldn't you just release new app at some point

You could, but then you'd have two apps on the app store, which creates a whole slew of other issues.

Maybe name the new app Warlight, problem solved.

So a new app with the old name and an old app with the new name? That might get hairy. :P

If this was a hypothetical rebrand, then naming it as the old app is silly. If we just wanted to avoid the old ratings, thats plausible. Google is usually fairly lax about apps, but this seems like the kind of behavior they would monitor to avoid abuse. I'm not sure how they would view a "major" update getting a separate app. Putting in a rolling weight on reviews seems like a much better solution for everyone. As a user I'd like to see arrows indicating relative rating stability/rise/fall but i suspect that would gain little traction among developers.

You could throw up links in the old app to the new app. Imo that would look sketchy or a bit unprofessional. As a user I'd wonder why you couldn't just use the original app with the same name. Some other issues can come to mind, but this would theoretically be a one time thing and I'm assuming the duration would mitigate these.

I know Fizzer will have a different perspective on this. I personally don't care that much about ratings, as long as the app is significantly above a 3. I've been disappointed by many highly rated apps, and had a few surprises down lower. Many apps clamored for a 5 star review after "feel good" moments. Understandable, but cheap. On an old favorite, a bunch of players left 1 star reviews to extort the devs into making specific changes. Said players never changed their reviews after their little campaign. So I probably won't comprise a majority opinion, but I genuinely didn't care about the sub-4 rating.

So many multi-word reviews are based on superficial points - specific bugs, "unbalanced" game elements, graphics, salt, etc.... Most of the 4.4-4.5 star games I tried did a good job of pretending to not spoonfeed you. Warlight can sort of mimic the easy achievement feeling with the single player mode, but its really a competitive game from the getgo. Maybe Fizzer should insert the 5 star begging when players defeat their first level 50+. ;)

(I'm being nosy and curious now.) I wonder what proportion of new players come through the app store vs the website, and whether this changes moving forward. The ratings shift would definitely help. I don't think its physically possible to add all the bells and whistles that grab eyeballs though. More like a cult classic imo. I guess you just have to beat up the other games. Rip Polytopia. :(

I'll rate rn

So a new app with the old name and an old app with the new name? That might get hairy. :P

If this was a hypothetical rebrand, then naming it as the old app is silly. If we just wanted to avoid the old ratings, thats plausible. Google is usually fairly lax about apps, but this seems like the kind of behavior they would monitor to avoid abuse. I'm not sure how they would view a "major" update getting a separate app. Putting in a rolling weight on reviews seems like a much better solution for everyone. As a user I'd like to see arrows indicating relative rating stability/rise/fall but i suspect that would gain little traction among developers.

You could throw up links in the old app to the new app. Imo that would look sketchy or a bit unprofessional. As a user I'd wonder why you couldn't just use the original app with the same name. Some other issues can come to mind, but this would theoretically be a one time thing and I'm assuming the duration would mitigate these.

It was only a joke =/

Oh, my bad. I'm bad at reading internet sarcasm D:

getting dressed can be rough on sensitive skin


What?

Edited 5/15/2019 17:23:02

Saw the rating was low too and read to all these old comment from the start of the warlight release. Im happy to see that it makes newer rating higher, as other have said; it should have been obvious to do so from the start. After i read trought all the comment i did rate it myself rating it for what its really worth 5 stars! (tried to include some short info on pros in the game in order to get more interest). Will check how it becomes after the update is done :-)