Google Play - Reviews now powered by Google+

They need to do what they can to push Google+ to be honest.  It's very good but just lacks the general uptake so this could work from two angles.  It'll hopefully reduce the inane and/or hateful reviews and also increase usage of G+

This is a move for the better in my opinion. Anything to deter people from leaving ridiculous reviews.

I'm sad because I can't use Google+. My online identity account violates rule "use your own real name".

I'm less likely to review anything now.

I for one am generally all for on things like this requiring people to stand by what they say.

Look a forum like MoDaCo is a place where we come by choice, for functionality and for fun. In that kind of an environment I have no issue with people having anonymous identities. It is fair and reasonable. I'd also make the point that MoDaCo-ites (that what we are called? ;-) !) are a generally civil bunch.

But "below the line" on Teh Interwebs is generally a sewer, driven in no small part by the anonymity offered to keyboard warriors. For many small indie developer the Play store represents their livelihood and it really isnt fair that people can just anonymously slate them. A better feedback system benefits users too.

Also I like G+, but not enough of my pals are there so anything that pushes it is grand!

Eh, as someone who has been threatened with the rape and murder of myself and my family on the Internet I shan't be taking part in anything that forces me to use my real name. The Internet is a sewer, agreed. But this won't disinfect it.

Im in agreement with theMungKey, its a bad idea to use your real identity online as aside from identity theft, there are a lot of strange people out there that might take umbridge to something you say and track you down.  Facebooks the same, huge risk.
G+ is really bad because of that lattitude location stuff, I dont like the idea that a pissed off dev of a terrible app can track me down for giving an honest bad review.
I for one will just create a dummy g+ account with a pack of lies in the `about me` bit and all the location stuff switched off.

So yous don't reckon there is *any* connection between the disgraceful behaviour some exhibit on teh interwebz, the kind of behaviour that many (most?) of said folk would never exhibit in real life, and the anonymity that almost all nasty internet trolls maintain?

None whatsoever?

In fact I'll just say it, I have never encountered a real slime ball, full on, troll who went by their real name on the internet. Not one. On any forum I have ever been on.

Every single scum sucking, awful excuse for humanity troll I have ever encountered has been behind a carefully constructed anonymous profile. Every single one.

I think this is a stupid idea. The idiots will just have fake G+ credentials and carry on as normal anyway.

@rferrett While what you say is true, it doesnt change the fact that using your real name/address etc puts you at real risk of becoming a victim of said scumsuckers.  I refuse to put any details of my offline life and identity online not because i want to troll and insult people, but because i dont want some random weirdo to track me down and ruin my life.  You see it happening all the time with stuff like facebook stalkers.  sometimes the perpetuator just does it for the lolz, its not even personal, they just want to badword someones life up for a laugh.  Making people use their real identities will just make the trolls and griefers lives easier (and the trolls will still be using fake id`s anyway, making the whole thing pointless).
And thats before we get into identity theft, sites like g+ and facebook are a treasure trove for that particular crime.
I really dont know what the answer to the problem is, but real id`s are certainly not it.

Does anyone know if you can still just use an older version of the store and kill updates. (I really don't want this).

(Only version I can find has Google license verification broken also and god knows what else done to it)

This only seems to be live on the play website, I can still post comments on my phone, they appear as `google user` in the reviews.  Heres hoping that its play store apk specific and we can just not update to the new version.
@unrandomsam, have a look here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1580827 for a workaround and loads of play store versions with updating stripped out.

using an older play store version you can leave reviews as a google user