It's a suggestion to rate the shown app, to get better app recommendations.
It only shows apps you have downloaded.
I'm a developer, and I have the same rating fall in my apps too.
Re-scaling is good, as long as it is fair.
I have no problem with making it easier for unhappy users to vote, but I do have problem with a suggestion box which misleads at least some users to rate by mistake.
And I also have problem with Google surfacing apps deleted so long ago that the user has no chance to remember what it was. And once the user taps on any star, the rating is registered - no way for the user to correct a mistake or to explain a negative vote, so the dev could do something about it.
It's just Google being careless about the devs. And it was a surprize for me to realize that. I thought better on Google before it started.
Re:Google Play Store Ratings Drop
by ZeroGravitas on Friday January 24, 2014 @04:34AM
(#7114095)
Also, if the dip affects everyone equally, then its more like a rescaling (presumably on average these reviews are lower than before, I'd guess because no-one bothers to review a 2-3 star item, only if they love it or really hate it)
If the dip affected everyone equally it wouldn't be that bad, as most of the saturation found above the 4.8 would be leveraged... However these suggestions will be rated, in average, as greater as the overall empathy and knowledge users have regarding the kind of app in question. For instance, regarding my app Tabata Trainer (which went from solid 4.57 in December 9th to 4.21 at the time of this post), how many persons identify with the word "Tabata"? Most of them will never give a 5. If someone creates a game with a very similar name to a widely known and adorable game, then people will probably rate the suggestion highly. This kind of stuff will just lead apps to be rated unequally... and bad (really bad) apps will raise their ratings, which is shameful.
Not until the users view of those ratings rescale too.
Right now my Play store app is asking me to rate apps I have neither bought nor installed. If I dismiss one, it shows me another such "not purchased" app. I've seen 3 already. Is this happening to anybody else?
Coming from the iOS side, I just don't get it. How can you rate an app that you haven't downloaded? And then if you did download it, why is it being quick-suggested to you again?
Furthermore, if you did in fact download it, removed it and then reacted negatively to a suggestion to download it again - how's your low-star reaction is NOT really a rating for an app itself?
Also, if you look closely at the graphs, the "crashing" involves rating slide from 4.67 to 4.38 and from 4.79 to 4.74. It's still an unpleasant development for sure, but that's not a "crash" or a "drop", that's a dip. The matter appears to be completely blown out of its proportions.