Rip-off apps flooding the store

[RumoredNow]

Mike9k, truly I applaud what you are doing here. This is great info.

But also, let us not forget that consumers bring a lot of this onto themselves. They do not educate themselves as they should and they get so CRAZED to have Apps out the wazoo for FREE and exhibit such a gimme, gimme, gimme attitude that it is no wonder there are some who will exploit that.

Most don't care about piracy, they view it as good and their God given right as a human being to get everything free... P.T. Barnum would be so proud of the mobile industry today he would shed tears of happiness.

 

[rhapdog]

Nice to see Windows Central has acknowledged this with an article and that Microsoft is addressing it as well now.

See? Starting this thread did get someone's attention. Thank you, OP, for helping to watch out for the WP ecosystem.

 

[RumoredNow]

Microsoft wants you to stop seeing double, promises to crack down on phony app submissions | Windows Central

 

[MonkeyDance]

The timing of the MS blog post and the article do suggest that it might be a reaction to this thread, but neither mention the huge problems that Mike9k uncovered here: you can decompile other people's hard work, then resubmit it to the store as your own, and then cheat the ratings system.

The fact that these three separate major issues are not even mentioned is pretty disappointing to me. I can understand that from MS, but it makes WinCentral look biased in my eyes. Well, biased or clueless, can't tell which. No disrespect!

True but sometimes its best not to publicise these things too much because it could make the problem more widespread, if its all over the internet then more hackers might find out and start joining in.

Acknowledgement and a more stringent review process is a good start, I've the passed the info on to the MS Evangelist I emailed anyway, not sure if he'll be able to help but at least we know people at MS are aware there is an issue.

 

[Mike9k]

Microsoft is addressing it as well now.

The blogpost states its not related to intellectual property compliance:

While these guidelines will be implemented to ensure compliance with Policy 10.1, they are not related to intellectual property compliance (more information on intellectual property protection is available here). As always, we invite anyone that is concerned about misuse of their intellectual property to submit notices of infringement to our reporting tool here.

How we are improving Windows Store app catalog

 

[Mike9k]

Well lets move to the next problem concerning the rip-off apps I'm talking here: fake ratings
This is something in the hands of microsoft and it would help if this gets fixed while they work on the store.

Here is how the top 47 in a store with fake ratings looks like (its the UK store as the US had a small hickup while I was collecting this):



30 out of 47 games in the top list have fake ratings.
Here are some examples how such fake ratings look like:
(All of the following screens are again from the US store)











The fake rating creates also an interesting effect as the ones behind this don't seem to care if they break the stolen game so there are some with issues like unpassable sections or ads hiding areas needed to play. As they don't generate fake ratings all the time and will usually stop at one point it produces the interesting effect of seeing nearly perfectly rated games with over 1000 ratings but the rating details visible (now from real users) complain only about problems.
Here are two examples for this:

 

[noersetiawan]

Wow finally found this thread.

 

[920Walker]

What are the numbers posted in fake ratings? Are those the call in numbers for voting during the last season of American Idol? In all seriousness, this issue needs an immediate fix. The fake ratings are what appear to have these garbage games listed at the top of new + rising. They may be new, but its only their stench that's rising, and it doesn't smell pleasant, it's making me nauseous.

 

[neo158]

I've just found another developer ripping off Android apps called Small reptile.

 

[Mike9k]

I've just found another developer ripping off Android apps called Small reptile.

Yes I have seen a couple like him. They use the exact same name(if free), icon, graphics and gameplay but in my opinion they are still a smaller problem in relation to what is going on currently. The reason: it doesn't look like they have fake ratings, they usually have a couple apps per account and their release cycle is slower.
Small reptile as an example has close to half of his games from Ketchapp (majority is from apple) so the route Microsoft offers should work for him. If Ketchapp contacts Microsoft concerning a handful of their games with graphic, icons and name stolen chances are Microsoft would lock the complete account.

 

[runesel]

Good to see a thread on this problem. I tweeted this on the 19. may:

<tweet>
@wpdev @dvlup Am I the only one noticing all the apps with lots of fake 5 star reviews in the wp store? New + Rising list is infested #wpdev
</tweet>

Thank you Mike9K for collecting all the information! Hope this gets fixed soon, it's really destructive for honest devs. I have a new game ready, but waiting with release until this is sorted out.

Rune

 

[noersetiawan]

This thread needs to get the attention. Even a non WP user pointed this out to me as he browse the Store.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

 

[runesel]

I can't understand why nothing is being done with this. Just look at:
https://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/top-rated-games/action-adventure/actionandadventure

Farm Splash Juice, Deluxe Fruit, Deluxe Diamond Rush, Ski Racer, Free Kodly Fruit, Slice Fruit Blast etc.... all with fake reviews.

 

[Mike9k]

I can't understand why nothing is being done with this. Just look at:
https://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/top-rated-games/action-adventure/actionandadventure

Farm Splash Juice, Deluxe Fruit, Deluxe Diamond Rush, Ski Racer, Free Kodly Fruit, Slice Fruit Blast etc.... all with fake reviews.

Yes if you sort by rating its really bad.

I have seen some disappear and reappear as new release but I'm not sure if microsoft is removing the old ones or if they remove them on their own to re-release with a new publisher name.

Some examples from the current new+rising US top ranks of this type (the images are for games who got removed and where I had a screenshot):

new: Virtual Ping Pong Free (7/1/2015)
https://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/...ong-free/1038960a-9a9d-470c-9041-1daaf9abffbf
old: Ping Pong Master (removed)


new: Crisis Train (7/5/2015)
https://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/crisis-train/0b620eba-3dc3-4ff6-808d-33fb5fa0bbf0
old: Happy Train Town (5/30/2015)
https://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/happy-train-town/9c415348-01ca-4506-b0e6-0bbd463bb6be

new: Konsion Monster Car (6/30/2015)
https://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/...ster-car/f20794fd-f757-47f9-aec1-ae11bf2fb3f0
old: Big Foot Go Home (removed)


new: Peaors Bubble Shooter (6/29/2015)
https://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/...-shooter/3c02b0eb-f70f-435e-b704-9f6e2a57df98
old: Fruit Shooter Bubble (removed)


new: Mountain Car Racing (7/2/2015)
https://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/...-racings/d0670ee2-4fb0-4c97-acb8-86be69953702
old: Jam Dangerous Climbing Hill (removed)

 

[runesel]

Nice, good to see an article about it! Lets hope the store cleaning speeds up.