When I went to Google Play to check if our recently published game was in the subcategory Top New Releases of Games category, I entered some random games to see what's good about them.
One that really caught my attention and shocked me is the Calculator: The Game by Simple Machines:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sm.calculateme<p>I'm not advertising them; I'm trying to understand how they got 844 ratings while Installs says: 10-50? Updated on July 13th and today is 16th, I'm sure the installs data and ratings is up to date for that date.<p>But how can they have so many ratings and only 50(max.) installs?
As far as I know Google Play allows you to rate an app only when you have installed it.
I can believe that it's possible to download and rate it without launching, but still looks strange to me to have that many ratings.<p>Are we seeing corruption? Have they agreed with Google somehow? Is this cheating?
Sharing a gif that will serve as a proof in case they do some changes to this app page. <a href="https://twitter.com/vitovalov/status/886563706494218240" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/vitovalov/status/886563706494218240</a><p>Apart from that, I continue monitoring, and the numbers of ratings keep growing. Also I noticed something strange when you refresh a couple of times the play store page. <a href="https://media.giphy.com/media/3ohryBbqtYeAkomS3u/giphy.gif" rel="nofollow">https://media.giphy.com/media/3ohryBbqtYeAkomS3u/giphy.gif</a>
It appears to be two different counts of ratings? Crazy...
Aren't there farms of mobiles on racks in Thai and Chinese houses set up specifically to game those ratings? (Remembering some arrests within the last month or so...)
Looks like the numbers have caught up.<p><a href="https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/2662962/ccd995aa49dc51d0db29d52afc80a9f9" rel="nofollow">https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/2662962/ccd995aa49dc...</a>
I don't think the install number is accurate or maybe based on something else than actual, physical installs? Also if you install / deinstall does that count as install (it should imho) or maybe not?<p>i'm not sure how easy it is to farm Play Store accounts; maybe someone knows? You need gmail which then turns into a Play store account right?<p>Does install count per device and how far does Google go in limiting that?
Is installs the current number as opposed to the total over time? That would allow people to install, rank, then later remove, and so make sense of the statistic.<p>Another option is that people get to rank each device install but only count as being one (person with an) install? That would allow for such "corruption".
download numbers are absolute, independent of any version or uninstalls of the app. the store updates the number with a lag. the ratings can be done only after download and are shown faster.
Also the time will show if this is true. If tomorrow the installs count doesn't grow to 1000-5000 or at least 100-500, it's cheating for sure.