<story><title>Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews</title><url>http://blog.kevmod.com/2020/12/amazon-disallows-pointing-out-paid-reviews/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jdmichal</author><text>If you&amp;#x27;ve never read it before, I highly recommend reading David Sirlin&amp;#x27;s Playing to Win.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sirlin.net&amp;#x2F;ptw&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sirlin.net&amp;#x2F;ptw&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Specifically the chapter &amp;quot;Introducing... the Scrub&amp;quot; discusses exactly this sentiment.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sirlin.net&amp;#x2F;ptw-book&amp;#x2F;introducingthe-scrub&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sirlin.net&amp;#x2F;ptw-book&amp;#x2F;introducingthe-scrub&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; In Street Fighter, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations “cheap.” This “cheapness” is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone is often called cheap. A throw is a special kind of move that grabs an opponent and damages him, even when the opponent is defending against all other kinds of attacks. The entire purpose of the throw is to be able to damage an opponent who sits and blocks and doesn’t attack. As far as the game is concerned, throwing is an integral part of the design—it’s meant to be there—yet the scrub has constructed his own set of principles in his mind that state he should be totally impervious to all attacks while blocking. The scrub thinks of blocking as a kind of magic shield that will protect him indefinitely.</text></item><item><author>jrockway</author><text>There is something about how the human brain works that makes us hate this.  It happens in games a lot; the community will complain that a certain character is broken and that they hate playing against it... but won&amp;#x27;t actually go play the character themselves to exploit the brokenness for their own gain.  Seems silly to me.&lt;p&gt;(Buying reviews might actually be illegal though, so that&amp;#x27;s a strong argument to not do it.)</text></item><item><author>toxik</author><text>... and give away $20 gift cards to people who leave 5-star reviews!</text></item><item><author>pc86</author><text>Write an ebook on how to make money on Amazon, sell it for $297, and post a Show HN about it.</text></item><item><author>Buttons840</author><text>Leave a 5-star review, get your $20. Resell the item on Amazon for $10 less than what the original seller was selling for. Earn $10 dollars profit. Repeat for other such products. Earn more profit. Make a blog about your antics; earn more profit, and help others profit the same way. Exploit the system until Amazon has to fix it.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I guess at no point is Amazon actually harmed by this scheme. However, the companies trying to buy 5-star reviews are themselves exploited to the extent that people do this.&lt;p&gt;The cost to the original company is a lost sale, a lost product, and $20 [lost] in exchange for a legitimate looking 5-star review (from someone who is not a bot). That may well be worth it for the company, so I&amp;#x27;m not sure this scheme would actually stop dishonest reviews, only make it worse.</text></item><item><author>ilamont</author><text>I purchased the same webcam for my high school sophomore in September 2020, as school restarted (all online for him). The box contained a $20 &amp;quot;gift card&amp;quot; if I emailed proof of my 5-star review. It looks identical to the one I received (including the email address). Only the reward is different.&lt;p&gt;I didn&amp;#x27;t try to write a review, I notified customer service in an attempt to report the seller.&lt;p&gt;I documented everything including photos, my exchange with Amazon customer service, and the confirmation from the seller that they would pay me $20 for a 5-star review. I did not take the money offered ... I was appalled at the situation and more than a little angry that I had been tricked by bogus reviews.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s what happened when I reported the seller:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Me: Hi. The box for this product contained a card that says “Amazon $20 gift card” and looks like a gift card, but the back says I have to give a 5 star review and send my order information to an outlook email address. Is this legitimate? Is it really a $20 Amazon gift card?&lt;p&gt;Amazon: Thank you so much for your information on this, I will certainly pass it along here so that we can check this promotion or offer directly with the seller. Because I am not seeing that advertised on the item at all And would not be capable of confirming if that is a legit Amazon gift card because, I do not see that offer on the item&lt;p&gt;Me: So what should I do?&lt;p&gt;Amazon: My best suggestion would be to contact the seller directly for this through this link [redacted] So that you can confirm directly with them if this is legit or not Certainly giving away gift cards for good reviews is not professional And I have to report the seller for that&lt;p&gt;Me: I thought this type of offer was forbidden by Amazon’s own policies for sellers. But I will contact them using the link you sent to ask them if that’s what you recommend.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even though the CSR reported the seller, and I confirmed with the seller through Amazon&amp;#x27;s own communication system that they were paying $20 per 5 star review, nothing happened to the seller. The item (a webcam) is still for sale on Amazon, with thousands of additional 5-star reviews - more than 12,000 now, compared to 3,266 when I let Amazon know how they were gaming the reviews in September.&lt;p&gt;Once again, the good guys (in the case, customers and honest sellers) lose out while the bad guys win, with no repercussions.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chowells</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m afraid you&amp;#x27;ve &lt;i&gt;deeply&lt;/i&gt; misunderstood Playing to Win. This is quite common. Sirlin assumed a sort of community knowledge as to the context that people who came across the series later tend to lack.&lt;p&gt;Playing To Win is about people who refuse to learn the rules of a game. That&amp;#x27;s not what&amp;#x27;s happening here. What&amp;#x27;s happening here is that people who understand the rules very well are pointing out that they have holes in them.&lt;p&gt;Scrub statement: &amp;quot;throws are cheap&amp;quot;. Informed statement: &amp;quot;the way SF2 tick throw setups work biases the gameplay too far in favor of the player with offensive agency.&amp;quot; You&amp;#x27;ll note that the latter makes no mistake about the purpose of the rules and makes no judgments about players using the tools provided. Instead it focuses on system interactions and their net result. You&amp;#x27;ll note that almost every big fighting game in the 20 years since the end of the SF2 series has reduced the power of tick throws by means of frame data or broader system changes. Players generally decided that getting the first knockdown should not have &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; much influence over a match.&lt;p&gt;Scrub statement: &amp;quot;I hate people who get upset at review purchasing.&amp;quot; Informed statement: &amp;quot;Review purchasing makes the buying process worse for everyone by creating incentives to deceive buyers, increasing costs for sellers that purchase reviews and reducing sales to sellers who do not. It shifts the Nash equilibrium towards paying more for lower-quality products.&amp;quot; Again, the latter examines the system interactions and emergent behavior rather than making moral judgments about the participants.</text></comment>
<story><title>Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews</title><url>http://blog.kevmod.com/2020/12/amazon-disallows-pointing-out-paid-reviews/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jdmichal</author><text>If you&amp;#x27;ve never read it before, I highly recommend reading David Sirlin&amp;#x27;s Playing to Win.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sirlin.net&amp;#x2F;ptw&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sirlin.net&amp;#x2F;ptw&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Specifically the chapter &amp;quot;Introducing... the Scrub&amp;quot; discusses exactly this sentiment.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sirlin.net&amp;#x2F;ptw-book&amp;#x2F;introducingthe-scrub&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sirlin.net&amp;#x2F;ptw-book&amp;#x2F;introducingthe-scrub&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; In Street Fighter, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations “cheap.” This “cheapness” is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone is often called cheap. A throw is a special kind of move that grabs an opponent and damages him, even when the opponent is defending against all other kinds of attacks. The entire purpose of the throw is to be able to damage an opponent who sits and blocks and doesn’t attack. As far as the game is concerned, throwing is an integral part of the design—it’s meant to be there—yet the scrub has constructed his own set of principles in his mind that state he should be totally impervious to all attacks while blocking. The scrub thinks of blocking as a kind of magic shield that will protect him indefinitely.</text></item><item><author>jrockway</author><text>There is something about how the human brain works that makes us hate this.  It happens in games a lot; the community will complain that a certain character is broken and that they hate playing against it... but won&amp;#x27;t actually go play the character themselves to exploit the brokenness for their own gain.  Seems silly to me.&lt;p&gt;(Buying reviews might actually be illegal though, so that&amp;#x27;s a strong argument to not do it.)</text></item><item><author>toxik</author><text>... and give away $20 gift cards to people who leave 5-star reviews!</text></item><item><author>pc86</author><text>Write an ebook on how to make money on Amazon, sell it for $297, and post a Show HN about it.</text></item><item><author>Buttons840</author><text>Leave a 5-star review, get your $20. Resell the item on Amazon for $10 less than what the original seller was selling for. Earn $10 dollars profit. Repeat for other such products. Earn more profit. Make a blog about your antics; earn more profit, and help others profit the same way. Exploit the system until Amazon has to fix it.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I guess at no point is Amazon actually harmed by this scheme. However, the companies trying to buy 5-star reviews are themselves exploited to the extent that people do this.&lt;p&gt;The cost to the original company is a lost sale, a lost product, and $20 [lost] in exchange for a legitimate looking 5-star review (from someone who is not a bot). That may well be worth it for the company, so I&amp;#x27;m not sure this scheme would actually stop dishonest reviews, only make it worse.</text></item><item><author>ilamont</author><text>I purchased the same webcam for my high school sophomore in September 2020, as school restarted (all online for him). The box contained a $20 &amp;quot;gift card&amp;quot; if I emailed proof of my 5-star review. It looks identical to the one I received (including the email address). Only the reward is different.&lt;p&gt;I didn&amp;#x27;t try to write a review, I notified customer service in an attempt to report the seller.&lt;p&gt;I documented everything including photos, my exchange with Amazon customer service, and the confirmation from the seller that they would pay me $20 for a 5-star review. I did not take the money offered ... I was appalled at the situation and more than a little angry that I had been tricked by bogus reviews.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s what happened when I reported the seller:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Me: Hi. The box for this product contained a card that says “Amazon $20 gift card” and looks like a gift card, but the back says I have to give a 5 star review and send my order information to an outlook email address. Is this legitimate? Is it really a $20 Amazon gift card?&lt;p&gt;Amazon: Thank you so much for your information on this, I will certainly pass it along here so that we can check this promotion or offer directly with the seller. Because I am not seeing that advertised on the item at all And would not be capable of confirming if that is a legit Amazon gift card because, I do not see that offer on the item&lt;p&gt;Me: So what should I do?&lt;p&gt;Amazon: My best suggestion would be to contact the seller directly for this through this link [redacted] So that you can confirm directly with them if this is legit or not Certainly giving away gift cards for good reviews is not professional And I have to report the seller for that&lt;p&gt;Me: I thought this type of offer was forbidden by Amazon’s own policies for sellers. But I will contact them using the link you sent to ask them if that’s what you recommend.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even though the CSR reported the seller, and I confirmed with the seller through Amazon&amp;#x27;s own communication system that they were paying $20 per 5 star review, nothing happened to the seller. The item (a webcam) is still for sale on Amazon, with thousands of additional 5-star reviews - more than 12,000 now, compared to 3,266 when I let Amazon know how they were gaming the reviews in September.&lt;p&gt;Once again, the good guys (in the case, customers and honest sellers) lose out while the bad guys win, with no repercussions.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kbenson</author><text>And this is more akin to a situation where someone finds a glitch that allows them to throw someone from across the screen, never having to actually get close and risk attack.  At that point, there&amp;#x27;s two options from the game designers.&lt;p&gt;They can patch the glitch to restore what people considered the normal, designed, and balanced gameplay, or they can state that&amp;#x27;s just how the system works now and people need to choose whether to accept that or not and play something else.&lt;p&gt;Amazon can fix (or attempt to at least) the problem and make it harder for sellers to get 5 star reviews and lower reviews averages for some big selling items, or they can choose to do nothing, and some people will decide to leave and shop elsewhere because they can&amp;#x27;t trust the site and reviews.&lt;p&gt;Actually, there&amp;#x27;s a third option, which is that they can say they are doing everything they can to fix the problem while not doing much, therefore maximizing both reviews&amp;#x2F;profit as well as customer satisfaction in the short term.  If they &lt;i&gt;actually&lt;/i&gt; start fixing the problem before too long, it might be the maximal solution for them, but if they take too long their reputation will suffer even more (and it may give competitors a toe-hold).  I suspect Amazon is doing this.  I have no idea if they can go longer, are at the point they need to change, or are too late, but as a customer it sucks right now.</text></comment>