Android Market - anyone else had these issues?

Monkey Archive Forums/Digital Discussion/Android Market - anyone else had these issues?

matty(Posted 2011) [#1]
Hello all,

I've released a number of games on the Android market. The most recent one is Lockdown Necrosis ( https://market.android.com/details?id=com.soniq.lockdownnecrosis1 ).

There is a rating system, and a space for comments however they don't seem to function correctly. Unfortunately it looks like a common problem according to other developers. The issue is that comments and ratings do not always show up (which is a real pain when it is a comment singing the praises of your app!).

For example - a number of colleagues of mine have added their rating/comments, as well as myself. Each of these person's ratings appear in their own phone but for some reason they do not appear on the market or in the developer console. In the developer console some of these ratings did initially appear but they have since disappeared which is a little unnerving. Strangely I do see ratings and comments from other languages in the developer console as well as those in English but some comments don't appear and some seem to disappear (including my own!) without reason.

I have written to google, (as have a number of others with the same problem it seems going by the various forum posts I've seen) and hopefully will hear something.

I'm wondering if anyone else here who has created an android app has had this experience on the market?


benmc(Posted 2011) [#2]
Yes, I've had several apps in the Android Market for a year and a half, and have seen this often. For example, someone I gave great customer support to told me they had just left my a great review... sure enough, nobody could see the review except the person who made it.

I've written to Google myself. I just get the same canned response back every time, about 2 weeks after I write in:

..."We've made some changes recently that may have resolved the problem."...

Same response. Every time. Now my favorite thing to do is to reply with "what were the changes you made?"

No reply yet :)

Once or twice I've replied to them enough that someone finally wrote back, but even then, I couldn't tell if it was another canned response, because my reply back is never replied to again.

The only thing I've learned as a long-time Android developer is that you just have to take a deep breath and go with the flow. Usually the bad problems work themselves out. The little stuff lives on the "known issues" page for who-knows how long.

One thing that has worked for me however, is if someone leaves a comment that goes against their comment policy, I will write in and ask that it be removed, and if they deem it is against the policy, they will sometimes remove it.


matty(Posted 2011) [#3]
Thanks, I've done a bit of a search and noticed there are a lot of other people with the same issue. It is frustrating though.


GfK(Posted 2011) [#4]
The Android market, frankly, is a bit of a cesspit anyway.

I initially bought Monkey to target the Android market but after seeing numerous dubious-looking apps on there (drug-growing games, borderline porn etc), together with a comments system that appears to be completely unmoderated and full of gutter language, I think I'll be giving it a wide berth.