I would like to ask experienced people who has published games on Google Play how likely for games such as this one to have several million installations, get on top of search results and have such positive reviews. I don't want to sound rude, but mobile game market is very competitive, and there are games much much better than the one I provided as an example. I read few reviews under the game and several other games and noticed some sketchy things:

• Some of the reviews don't make any sense, or obviously don't relate to the game, such as this one:

I love the book im reading but it sucks that I need coins to unlock chapters it would be nice if I didn't have to. Also there is one thing I can do to earn coins but I don't know how to download an episode to get the coins. I just wish I didn't need coins or anything to read the it each chapter.

• Most of the people who provide such positive reviews are adults from least developed countries:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a-/AOh14GhMd62jqRqgYFat3JaqcdRExm8_awCadDknx0oZ​

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a-/AOh14GgFQh_WMrTa1hPfLmWuiDwxr3fujYiWWWXRKXFtHA​

• Some of the reviews repeat several times from different users.

All of this leads me to the conclusion that those people were paid to leave those reviews and Google doesn't put any effort to get rid of the fake reviews on the store.

I haven't publish any games on Google Play yet, but just looking at a single number doesn't really give an indication of reality is some sense. If you had a n million installation of the game and half or more of those user uninstalled the game afterwards then you don't actually have n million active users. I don't know how Google tracks those stats ( as in, does an uninstall decrement your installation count). Another thing to add is how the game is marketed, as that makes a huge difference in pulling in an audience. There are tricks you can play with search engine optimization so again wouldn't even pay much attention to that. Also keep in mind that people have different taste, as just because one thinks a game is ‘not good’ doesn't mean all think the same. In regards to you last comment, I'm sure that happens a lot, but I don't think there is alot any app store can do about that.

@cgrant I have published a game on Google Play and several points I can make:

• Uninstalls don't decrement installations count.
• Without proper marketing a newly published game is at the end of search results and doesn't get any attention.
• People expect much higher quality games.

So obviously this game's publisher spent some money on marketing and buying those reviews. I'm wondering if it did pay off for him, because there are much higher quality F2P games on the store and I don't expect someone to play the game for a long time or keep it on the phone.

blablaalb said:
there are games much much better than the one I provided as an example.

You must have extremely high standards. From a user review…

this is one if the most jaw dropping games released ever, let alone one I have played. The action, the graphics, and most importantly the story line blend together in such a way that makes this game perfect. This is the epitome of us as beings, working for millions of years to create such a technological masterpiece.

This is not a Career question, so the thread has been moved to the Lounge. The Careers forum is for “what degree should I get,” or “what kind of interview questions can I expect,” stuff like that.

blablaalb said:
Some of the reviews don't make any sense, or obviously don't relate to the game, … Most of the people who provide such positive reviews are adults from least developed countries:

You seem to have a hard time accepting that a lot of reviews and ads are full of marketing puffery and false endorsements etc. We get a lot of fakery here in our forums, too. Lot of SEO and SMM happening all the time.

blablaalb said:
All of this leads me to the conclusion that those people were paid to leave those reviews and Google doesn't put any effort to get rid of the fake reviews on the store.

That is not an unwarranted conclusion. So what is your purpose in posting here? Wondering how to get some of that marketing for your game(s)? Do you have a connection with Shoot Hunter-Gun Killer? We haven't seen you around here before.

@Tom Sloper

Tom Sloper said:
You seem to have a hard time accepting that a lot of reviews and ads are full of marketing puffery and false endorsements etc. We get a lot of fakery here in our forums, too. Lot of SEO and SMM happening all the time.

That's true. When I started learning how to make games I looked at the low quality games on the store and on all of the reviews and ratings those games have and thought to myself, “Those games would be easy to make on the Unity engine. I can make a passive income!". Well, I made a game similar to the game I provided as an example, I published it on the store, but the only legitimate reviews my game has got are the negative ones.

Tom Sloper said:
Do you have a connection with Shoot Hunter-Gun Killer?

I provided the game only as an example, there are many similar games on the store and the post above applies almost to all of them. I don't have any connection to the game.

Tom Sloper said:
We haven't seen you around here before.

Well, that's true. I'm not that good at English and don't really love to talk much so I probably wouldn't be able very active here.

Tom Sloper said:
So what is your purpose in posting here? Wondering how to get some of that marketing for your game(s)?

I'm wondering if it's possible to get any income from such low quality games. I'd also like to know if it's worth to invest money on marketing such game, because I'm not expecting anyone to really enjoy playing those games or keeping them on his phone. Why would someone play low quality games when there are plenty of F2P high quality games on the store?

blablaalb said:
Why would someone play low quality games when there are plenty of F2P high quality games on the store?

Different people draw the “low quality” line in different places. Because of the huge number of games on the market, people often can't tell where a particular game fits on the quality spectrum until they see it for themselves. Care to tell us the title of your game?

Tom Sloper said:
Care to tell us the title of your game?

Some people had troubles figuring out how to equip a gun in my game and some encountered a bug that slip through my attention. I'm currently working on fixing bugs, adding new weapons and characters, polishing UI and adding tutorial in order to teach player how to do things in the game. The game is called Bad Zombies: Offline Zombie Shooter Game and i'm still working on it, I wanted to make an endless wave based shooter game, but I don't like what came out.

I think part of it is that you've got an unrealistic expectation. In regards to the specific question, “How possible it is for a simple shooter game on Google Play to compete with AAA shooters?”, in most ways the answer is “they cannot”.

The games are in a completely different space. If you're a hobby developer and you're trying to compete with AAA games, something is badly broken and you will not win in that competition. The marketing for a multi-million-dollar franchise is radically different from marketing for a hundred-thousand-dollar budget, which are different from a hobby project. But fortunately the costs are also different, the sales requirements are different, and the profit margins are different, so you don't need to worry about that so much.

Small games are marketed through friends and family and social networks, they are marketed by approaching popular people who explicitly focus on small games, and paying them money; you sponsor them, they promote you.

If your goal is to turn a profit rather than make a hobby project, there are plenty of empowering actions available. Look at your market research to ensure you still have a viable opportunity. (This assumes you actually did market research, instead of just feeling inspired to create a game.) Ensure you have a viable marketing plan, and continue your game development in conjunction with your marketing plan. (This assumes you have a marketing plan.) Get measurements and feedback about what is preventing success; it sounds like you already have some of that with problems equipping a gun, and another bug that you didn't notice; those sound like you need better QA control and testing. Make sure you are creating something of value, not another duplicate of something that has little value. Identify the causes of the issues you are facing, learn from them, and correct them. For example, if nobody has heard about your game, understand it and fix it through marketing. If people download your game but don't play it, figure out why. If people start the game but cannot progress through it, understand it and fix it. If your game is paid by ads, see if those are getting through and fix if necessary. If your game is paid by DLC, figure out if people are interested in buying it, understand why or why not, and take steps to fix it. Look for specific ways to increase your game by large increments, say 20% at a time, rather than small 1% or 0.01% improvements.

Most of those are business development questions. Business development is a different field from game development.

blablaalb said:
I made a game similar to the game I provided as an example, I published it on the store, but the only legitimate reviews my game has got are the negative ones.

Figure out why. Fix it. Iterate. Make processes to ensure it never happens again. Talk to the reviewer and show them you have changed the game.

blablaalb said:
I'm wondering if it's possible to get any income from such low quality games.

Yes. You probably won't be winning the lottery with it, but it is possible to get income.

blablaalb said:
Why would someone play low quality games when there are plenty of F2P high quality games on the store?

Small and lone developer does not mean low quality. There are many extremely small, yet high quality, games made by individuals. They usually aren't mass marketed, as described above. They don't try to compete with AAA, they try to grow their own markets.