All Google Play Store ratings are about to be recalculated

The Google Play Store has built up an extensive catalog of app reviews and ratings ever since it was launched under the Android Market name way back in 2008. These scores are currently treated equally regardless of how old or how new they are. But soon, this entire system will change.

Although treating scores equally may seem like the fairest ratings system on paper, it fails to take into account the fact that, in most cases, older reviews are no longer representative of an app’s current state. Certain ratings, for example, may be lower due to bugs that have since been fixed. Alternatively, people’s scores may have been negatively impacted by a lack of features, something that may have been rectified shortly after. On the opposite end of the spectrum, recent reviews of an app could be extremely negative due to bugs and dated features, while older ratings may be much more positive because, at the time, the app was one of the best offerings around.