Our now-dead app got absolutely slaughtered in the ratings (IMHO rightly) simply over our use of Facebook auth. Took forever for our ratings to rebound to this[0]
Makes sense, I would probably rate an app 1-star also if I had to use Facebook auth to use it - as I don't even have a Facebook account. I've noticed apps that require a Google login seem to do fine on Android though, probably because you need to have a Google account to use Android (or close to).
Did you re-launch the app under a new name to get new ratings after removing Facebook auth? Seems like the sensible thing to do...
I put up a small visual traceroute app up on Google Play recently - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rc.vtrace2 - and it was selling decently (7 sales within the first few hours), but then someone put a 2 star rating and, of course, nobody has touched it since. It's pretty interesting how much impact the first few reviews actually have on an app.
It seems like about half the people are getting an "internet connection not found" error, and the other half are furious at the idea of a blind dating app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.okcupid.cb...