Fortunately, iTunes allows you to see other reviews posted by the same reviewer. So, we clicked on the reviewer “Vegas Bound” (iTunes link)
and started to look at his reviews. He reviewed 7 applications, and
gave each one of them 5 stars. Each review was short and sweet, and
extremely positive. These reviews represented 6 different developers. A
quick Google search revealed an infuriating truth: every
single one of these developerswas a client of one PR firm: Reverb Communications. The trail of bread
crumbs slowly led us to a stark conclusion: the evidence undeniably
confirmed the document that Developer Y had sent us. As we continued
through each of the first 5 reviewers of HydroTilt XL, we noticed that
the problem had plagued as many as 15 iPhone applications (and probably
more).
Below is a table so you can see what we noticed. Each developer on
this chart was represented by Reverb Communications for the title that
was reviewed. The left-hand column is a reviewer and blank squares
indicate apps that were not reviewed. None of the reviewers wrote
reviews for non-Reverb clients. None of the reviewers gave an app less
than 5 stars.
Yeah, that pretty much says it all. These guys are running amok in the
App Store. Some of Reverb Communications’ clients (*ahem* Publisher X
*ahem*) had reviewers who exclusively reviewed one client’s apps. That
doesn’t necessarily imply foul play, of course, as users often buy
multiple apps from the same developer. Furthermore, there were many
5-star reviews written by users who didn’t write any additional
reviews, but that doesn’t hold a whole lot of water either. The real
compelling proof of wrongdoing was that many of their client’s titles
had multiple 5 star reviews written by reviewers who exclusively
covered Reverb Communications games. I understand loyalty to a specific
company. I understand being lazy and just writing one review, but
loyalty to a PR firm is unheard of. Especially when the name of the PR
firm isn’t anywhere near the iTunes store description.
It’s important to note that the reviews mentioned above are just a
subset of the reviews that we believe Reverb has published on behalf of
its clients. Due to space and time considerations, we did not want to
belabor the point by adding more reviewers and reviews to the list.
Ultimately, this is fraud. Plain and simple. Reverb Communications
is using anonymized reviews as a way to boost sales, while lying to
iTunes users. The worst part is many of these games stand by
themselves. They have dozens of positive reviews from users (which we
are assuming are not employees of Reverb). The developers are culprits
as well. We don’t have proof of whether they know about the wrongdoing
- we do not know whether the document sent to Developer Y was the same
as the one sent to all of Reverb Communications’ other clients. That
doesn’t exonerate the developers who are clients of Reverb; some of
them have been repeat customers (Pangea Software comes to mind) for
almost a year. We find it hard to believe they weren’t privy to
Reverb’s actions.
Furthermore, this story only dives into the
iTunesfraud. Frankly, this was enough for us, and it was also the best place
to catch Reverb in the act. However, the document sent to us by
Developer Y indicates that they don’t just mislead folks on iTunes,
they also use “online message boards” and other ways to communicate
with potential customers. We also only talked about their iPhone app
delinquence. To me, the actions on the iPhone app store, Reverb’s
willingness to talk to prospective clients about these actions and the
pervasiveness of the problem across all of Reverb’s iPhone app
developers, mean only one thing: they are shady people. And I wouldn’t
be surprised if they had similar ethics-be-damned practices in other
parts of their PR approach. But we don’t know, and don’t care. The
miscreant behavior on the App Store is enough that I know I won’t ever
deal with someone from Reverb again.
Another interesting side-story here is about Reverb’s relationship
with Apple. Now, we don’t expect Apple to have caught the bad behavior
of one PR firm on the App Store’s reviews. That would just be
ridiculous. But we were surprised to know that Reverb had worked with
Apple so much. As such, I can’t imagine anybody will be more furious
about this news than Apple itself. They’ve done TV commercials for these guys,
for pete’s sake. We don’t know a whole lot about the relationship,
however. All we know is that one client of Reverb’s told us that he was
referred to Reverb Communications by an Apple employee. That employee,
from what we know, was part of a team that manages Apple’s
relationships with 3rd party developers. The referral was likely an
innocent mistake: I doubt the employee knew of Reverb’s questionable
ethics. But it just makes the story that much more interesting - this
isn’t your mom and pop PR shop. Reverb has a staff of 15 professionals
(presumably full-time employees) and 10 interns.
Needless to say, we’re interested in your thoughts. The comments
section is below and I look forward to seeing what you think. Please
keep your comments rated PG, if possible.
We asked Reverb for a statement, and this is what they have sent us. (My response is below it).
Hi Gagan –
I’m sure you are speaking with one of our former employees that has
been contacting media outlets about Reverb. I’m not sure what
“unethical practices” you are referring to so it would be hard for me
to comment, but I am hoping that you will do the proper research to
ensure that the facts you are reporting are accurate and nit written
based on information provided by a disgruntled former employee who is
violating his confidentiality agreement.
My office did mention that you had issues with our staff and interns
writing reviews for some of our clients games, I’m sure you are aware
that in order to write a review on iTunes an individual needs to
purchase the game or app and can only write one review. Our interns and
employees write their reviews based on their own game play experience,
after having purchased the game by themselves, a practice not uncommon
by anyone selling games or apps and hardly unethical.
I am in Europe until Tuesday, I’ll keep my eyes out for the story,
once again I do hope you do some homework before posting erroneous or
incorrect information about Reverb communications.
Doug Kennedy
No, we didn’t speak with a former employee, and no such former
employee is mentioned in this story. I did in fact inform Reverb via
phone (I spoke with their VP of Public Relations, Tracie Snitker) last
night that the story was about writing reviews on behalf of clients. I
don’t buy the argument that the interns and employees write reviews
based on their own experiences: it’s a nice story, but at the end of
the day, probably not true. Flipping through the reviews on iTunes and
examining the text and messaging will give you a clear indication that
it corroborates the story Developer Y told us. Furthermore, taking just
one of many examples, the reviews for Publisher X’s HydroTilt XL came
out within 2 days of the game’s release. I find it hard to believe that
5 positive reviews from Reverb (which owns Publisher X) were not
planned or coordinated. Not to mention the fact that we’ve got a
document from Reverb explicitly laying out their policy on this matter.
por FILIP_FB Qua Dez 05, 2012 11:20 am
Reverb