I just upgraded to iTunes 9 to see how this might improve or worsen the situation for game developers. Installation went without a hitch. Upon visiting the App store you are greeted with a wider, scrolling area showing more featured apps. Very nice. Also note the new "Top Grossing" chart to help out apps that might cost more than 99 cents. Wonderful! Now, where are the categories.... looks around. Not immediately visible... anger rising... Oh, here is the major list, a pull down from the "Apps" header (the black bar across the top). Anger fading... Clicks "Games". Wait a minute, what the heck is going on here???? All types of games are now grouped into ONE top 100 list, no more subcategories? How can you ever hope to find an interesting game with one monster 657 page category??? How can we developers ever hope to be seen to make sales??? *head explodes* Discuss...
Definitely, this is a losing situation for gamers and developers alike. I wonder if anyone's gotten the final firmware update 3.1 installed yet? (I haven't even checked availability of it) Do the game subcategories disappear there as well? I know they still show on the base 3.0 firmware thankfully, so the database isn't simply purged of all knowledge of game subcategories... Maybe this will be a mistake that gets rectified, but I'm not holding my breath!
I'm guessing this is temporary. Keeping fingers crossed. By the way, did everyone notice that top 100 is now top 200 for all those lists? Also, is anyone seeing any big changes on the mobile store? That's where most (>90%) of the purchases come from. All I see is the added Top Grossing list (just for All Apps, not the subcategories), and Genius.
OMFG, this is worst than the Rate-B4-Delete bullshit they pulled last time. Is the appstore really manned by chimps from the SF zoo? I'm beginning to give that hypothesis more and more credibility.
I don't think it's a loss. I would even claim it's an improvement. Yeah, I know, I said improvement. Without subcategories, customers are more or less forced into searching for keywords. And that's what this is all about I believe. It in fact improves findability. Games now aren't lost into oblivion when they're older than 48 hours. When someone searches for a specific type of game, that game is now found, despite being passed its 2-day exposure of 'newness'. What do you think? I dig it so far. (as a developer)
Good eye, never even scrolled down enough in iTunes to see that it's the top 200 now! If they bring back the game subcategories in iTunes and keep it set with a visibility of 200 it'll be a win for many of us here. I cannot imagine anyone thinking that the large, flat list of games was a good idea. If anything they needed even more subcategories (MMO Friend code games, I'm looking at you!!!) the FABRIK- your ideas that more people will attempt to search are intriguing, but I'm not sure that will happen. From what I see most consumers are just as happy to follow the crowd and buy whatever is visible on the hotlists at the time. I'd love to be wrong about that though
If anything, they should be adding more categories, not less. And I don't believe it will encourage searching since they've also restricted keywords to only "appropriate" words. So if a user wants to find a game like Fieldrunners, developers aren't even allowed to use "Fieldrunners" as a keyword since it violates Apple's rules. This just makes Apple MORE like Kingmakers and the Featured lists to be akin to writs handed down from the heavens to determine which apps will be successful.
Yeah, I think relying on Search will spell doom for most. I've never used search to find a random game to buy. I browse, and see what icons and names look interesting. I look at what's popular, and move further down the list if I don't find anything interesting.
+1 Forums, New Games Page (and new/price drop pages at that 148 apps site for non-game apps) is all I need.
I understand why you would think that. Though, forcing people into searching for keywords is basically the same as adding an endless amount of subcategories. Example: searching for a puzzle game, I would search for "puzzle'.
You are not allowed the keyword 'puzzle' because there is an App called 'Puzzle'. My App just got rejected for using puzzle as a keyword.
Dont think it`s anything more than a temporary glitch. Apple cant be that stupid to completely do away with the sub categories.
You'd lose the ranking system though. The top puzzle games may be mixed with the worst puzzle games. You're back to the never ending list of crap we had when the App Store opened a year ago. Customers want to know what the good games are, and what the newest games are, not slog through a list of 5,000 puzzles.
I wonder what the true percentage of app-shopping happens on the iPhone or iPod Touch vs browsing and purchasing in iTunes, then syncing? From the my own experiences and seeing the posts of others here it seems like it might be an even 50/50 split? That is where things will get really interesting. If sales don't drop very much for people who were ranking in a gaming subcategory over the next week or so, it would suggest that more people shop on the device (assuming the sub-categories remain accessible there as they are now). It's great that people can come here for game news and coverage. TouchArcade is the 800lb gorilla of iPhone Gaming in my book (I've found my share of hidden gems here!), unfortunately even the vast audience here is a mere fraction of the gamers out there. That means the majority of people will still miss out on great stuff that is seen by us. Hopefully this really is a glitch
That's stupid. Even more when I tell you that our app has puzzle as a keyword and is 4 weeks live. I'm lucky I guess?