11/23/2014
VentureBeat recently wrote about the Apple App Store being broken. I'm glad they did this but Apple has known about the issue for 2 months and they've done nothing.
VB also didn't really explain in detail why this issue is so damaging to independent game developers. To fully understand how this bug is crippling new games in the store you'll need to understand how Organic growth works for games in the App Store. You have two ways to be discovered. First, text search is the biggest. Second, get listed in one of the many Featured sections in the App Store. There are other ways to be discovered such as paid advertising but these are the top two Organic ways.
How 'Text Search' Works - Your app or game has a list of keywords and it's app name that get used in Apple's search engine. However, Apple ranks search results based on the downloads your app is getting. If your game isn't getting any downloads it will never be found by Text Search.
How 'Featured' Sections Work - On the first day your game is live your game is Featured in the Free/Paid section of its sub-category. So if you publish a Racing game you'll see your game Featured in the Racing sub-category under the Free/Paid section. This is your first day in the store and it's your chance to show Apple that your game is good enough to be displayed in the "New/What's Hot" section over the following weeks. (if those sections weren't broken) Being list in the "New/What's Hot" provides enough downloads to be discovered by Text Search.
With the "New/What's Hot" sections broken your game will be Featured the first day it's Live and then your game will be lost in the App Store forever. Without the opportunity to get exposure in the "New/What's Hot" sections you can't get downloads. Without downloads you'll never be found via Text Search.
The system Apple built is actually great when it's working. On day one your game gets a chance to prove itself. If the game is good enough it gets bumped into the "New/What's Hot" for even more exposure. Then, it can finally be discovered via Text Search and live a nice normal life in the store.
So what does this mean? It means that unless you are paying for advertising to get downloads your new game is going to have no chance of Organic discovery in the Apple App Store. Some have even suggested that Apple is slow to fix this issue because they want people to promote their games using Apple iAds. I'm not sure this is really the case but it makes you think. Surely the engineers at Apple can fix this issue within a day or two. After two months you start to wonder if those rumors have any merit.
Indie Game Developers typically don't have the money for advertising and they rely on the App Store to work correctly for exposure. Let's hope Apple will resolve this issue soon.
http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/18/apples-gaming-app-store-is-broken-promoting-games-like-119-and-1111/
It seems the bug, which is present in all App Stores we tested — U.S., Canada, France, Germany, U.K., Brazil, Australia, South Africa, and Finland — is only present when the App Store spotlights subcategory games under the “What’s Hot” and “New” banners.
