Updated on February 7th, at 09:20: EA has responded to the criticism aimed at it after what certain sections of the media are calling 'Rate Gate-gate'.

Speaking to Eurogamer, an EA spokesperson explained the company's reasoning for directing gamers wanting to rate Dungeon Keeper less than 5/5 on the Google Play Store to an email form.

"We're always looking at new ways to gather player feedback so that we can continue to improve our games.

"The 'rate this app' feature in the Google Play version of Dungeon Keeper was designed to help us collect valuable feedback from players who don't feel the game is worth a top rating.

"We wanted to make it easier for more players to send us feedback directly from the game if they weren't having the best experience. Players can always continue to leave any rating they want on the Google Play Store."

So, there you go.

Original story follows...





How much do you hate Dungeon Keeper

It's probably a lot. Because apparently everyone in the world hates it.

Well, the following, which was spotted by Twitterer @mike_robbo, might just make you hate it a wee bit more.

Rate this

You see, there's a slight difference between the rating process of Dungeon Keeper for iOS and Android.

While playing the iOS version, you're presented with a pretty familiar 'Rate Me' screen. At this point, you can rate the app, ask to be reminded later, or tell EA to stop bugging you.

It's a standard F2P "Love me, please!" screen, and you can check it out in the screenshot below. Look at it closely - there's going to be a test soon.

Okay? Good.

I've embedded the Google Play Store version of the rating screen below. Both of these are screengrabs taken after the first raid in the game, when you'll have been playing for maybe 20 minutes.

Can you spot the difference? Can you?

After tapping on the "1-4 Stars" button on the Android rating screen, you are invited to email EA with some advice on what it could do to get your 5 stars.

If you tap on the "5 Stars" button, meanwhile, you're taken to the game's Google Play Store product page to rate it.

Of course, once you're on the official product page, you can attach whatever numerical star-based score you want to your customer review. Still, the whole thing certainly looks a little shady.

Especially after EA Mythic's Jeff Skalski spoke to TabTimes, defending the game against a lot of the accusations that have been hurled at it in the week since its release.

"One of the important data points we're looking at is our store ratings and downloads. At the time of this interview, App Store ratings currently sit at 4 out of 5 stars and Google Play ratings sit at 4.5 out of 5 stars."

Well, yeah...