Microsoft Investigating Claims Of Ratings Manipulation In Xbox Live Indie Games
March 30, 2011 9:52 AM | Michael Rose
Microsoft is investigating charges of manipulation of the user ratings for Xbox Live's Indie Games Section in the wake of allegations that a group of Xbox.com users have been spamming the service with false ratings.
"We are investigating a possible misuse of ratings on XBLIG titles. We'll announce more information here as it develops," reads a recent tweet from the official XNACommunity twitter account.
Robert Boyd of Zeboyd Games -- makers of Xbox Live indie RPG titles including Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World -- first noted the alleged manipulation last week, tying a surge of low ratings for many popular XBLIG titles to a March 24 post on the Facebook page for XBLIG game College Lacrosse: The Video Game.
The post urged fans to provide a 5-star rating to the recently released 2011 version of the title, and provided a link to the game's Xbox.com page, where anyone with a free Xbox.com account can provide a rating.
But Boyd alleges many of those fans went farther than that, providing the minimum 1-star rating to competing XBLIG titles to help improve the Lacrosse games' positions.
The Facebook post now includes a note for lacrosse fans to "please remember to not rate other games low to help CL11," which appears to have been added after the initial post was made.
Boyd says the influx of negative reviews immediately resulted in a four or five-position drop in the ratings chart position of Chtulhu Saves the World, with a further nine position drop coming with over 300 new rankings in the following days. The lower ranking makes the title less visible to potential consumers and has a direct effect on revenues, Boyd says.
While neither College Lacrosse's developer nor its fans seem to have broken any current Microsoft policies, the alleged manipulation raises the issue of whether XBLIG games should be ratable by Xbox.com members who haven't downloaded the title in question -- and may not even own an Xbox 360.
Apple's iOS and Mac App Stores only allows ratings from users who've purchased the app in question. Last April, Apple removed an iOS feature that prompted users to rate apps when they were deleted, saying the process caused overall ratings to skew more negative.
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8 Comments
wait, just anyone can rate XBLIG games right now even if they haven't played the game?
that's ridiculous, especially when there are so many games it's the primary way anybody can tell if a game they haven't heard of is worth checking out.
the fix is so simple, only let people rate who have played, it should have been obvious to MS from the start.
Sophie Houlden | March 30, 2011 10:17 AM
The rating system is poor and I suspect rigging has been going-on for quite some time.
Limiting rating to people who buy games would cripple the service entirely tho - unless they also 'decay' ratings over time.
e.g. the massive disparity in votes for IMaGwZiI and every other game on the service - I find it hard to believe 10s of 1000s of people only ever played that game and nothing else.
John Peat | March 30, 2011 10:32 AM
I've actually seen Facebook games before get spammed with tons of low ratings from fake accounts. Someone somewhere is paying people to churn out fake accounts and try to bring down the competition. Nasty stuff. Facebook are typically very slow to respond of course.
Jake Birkett | March 30, 2011 10:45 AM
That reminds me of those blogs spamming meatboy-related news to raise its popularity :)
Anonymous | March 30, 2011 1:05 PM
And finally the secret behind the success of such titles as "Extreme Baby Maker 1&2", "Don't Fart" and "Avatar Drop" is revealed.
Just kidding
Or am I?
Anonymous | March 30, 2011 1:47 PM
I think that only allowing rate a game to people that have played *at least* the demo of the game would go a long way in fixing it.
I think that's also fairer that only allowing rating the game to people that played it.
Eclipse Games | March 30, 2011 2:23 PM
It's worth noting that whilst you can create 'infinite' Live accounts on a PC, there's a limit to the number which can be created/used on a 360 console (to stop people getting endless Gold trials).
It might, therefore, make sense to only allow rating of XBLIG games from accounts logged-into a console at least - right now I can rate games if I don't even own a 360!!
John Peat | March 30, 2011 3:57 PM
This is the same thing that happens on the Apple iOS App Store (and probably on the OSX App Store). You can vote for an app without having purchased or downloaded it. I know there's been some fallout over this in the past.
Good to see Microsoft taking action, especially since they seem to put XBLIG on the backburner much of the time.
Sarkazein | March 30, 2011 6:52 PM