The game section on iTunes is amazing! 5 categories of recommendations. All the games are divided into subcategories. Everything looks as if an accountant has been filing and keeping the game sections in order from day one. If you take the category of "Entertainment" for example the 927 pages of apps are managed by Bob. He only has one job. Make a list ,open the door to a small room, throw the new apps and the ones that keep overflowing into that room, close the door. The 300 pages of " almost nude women " would be listed in a subcategory. Leaving "only 627 pages of "other" apps to be categorized! 300 of the 627 pages are probably games that are already listed where they belong "in the game section" Quickly, those 927 pages are suddenly becoming manageable. The Appstore has grown so much that all categories need to be treated the exact same way as the "Game Section". I know this would be a monumental exercise for Apple but to be honest now would be the time, before it becomes impossible to implement. Increased sales of apps would easily pay for this exercise. Comments? Would the game section suffer?
I am in favor of this. Also, I think there needs to be more control over what category an app goes in. I think you can pretty much put an app wherever you like right now. For example, I don't believe there is anything stopping me from putting a boobs app in the Family and Children's games categories after it's been approved. Other developers experiment with putting their games in incorrect categories just to see if it will increase sales, which just confuses things.
I'd be in favor of this as well, a little more differentiation in some of those categories couldn't hurt!
Excuse my category related ranting I don't know what bizarro world iTunes you are looking at, but look at the RPG section of games in iTunes on your PC or Mac. Look at how many mis-categorized games or apps there are in there! No one cares, they shove their entertainment apps into RPGs, their action games, etc. Let's look at the top 20 right now and highlight some of the mis-categorized stuff: #20 - Suzie's Sushi House. Is this an RPG? NO! #18 - Street Racing 30 Rewards Points. Let's get the record straight- These point pack pseudo RPGs are the scourge of the category, and should have a category all their own. Every time someone releases another "me too" point pack game it is an avalanche of crap that pushes deserving games off the release list or out of the top 100. #17 - Mafia Wars 30 Reward Points. See #18 Rant #16 - 100 Nazi Scalps. This is NOT an RPG! #15 - Epic Pet Wars Moost +10 Respect... See #18 Rant #14 - GraalOnline Classic+... Ohhhh, our first RPG in the category. Amazing! #13 - American Idol. NOT an RPG. Looks like some sort of "tap to the music" game #12 - Inotia 2. No doubt this should be here #11 - AngerOfStick. Absolutely NOT an RPG. Possibly using copyrighted sprite works from others in it too. #10 - Dungeon Hunter. A little weak on RPG elements, but without a doubt this is the best place for it #9 - Heavy Mach 2. NOT an RPG. Why is this here? #8 - Cartoon Defence. NOT an RPG. #7 - Baseball Superstars. NOT an RPG. This is a sports game, a baseball season simulator. It does not belong here. #6 - World War 60 Honor Points. See #18 Rant #5 - Sword and Poker. An AWESOME little game. Maybe more of a strategy/card game with RPG elements though? I'd allow it in any of those areas. #4 - iMobsters 60 Favor Points. See #18 Rant #3 - 007: Top Agent. Sony, this is NOT an RPG! It is an ACTION game. #2 - Zenonia. Yep, RPG here. no doubt #1 - Colosseum. NOT an RPG. No way. The guy even knows it... in his description the first line (after 50% off sale) is "Colosseum is an action game..." So yeah... We have about 4.5 RPGs here. The rest is crap, or intentionally mis-categorized crap by the authors of these games so that they can game the system and get some visibility. This is the stuff that needs to stop. Take a quick peek at the first page of recent releases there too... Here's the readers digest version: 8 Point packs for various games, 2 Japanese language only games (in the USA store), a book, a racing game, an action game, a puzzle game, and a damn toilet action game, "HolyPoops". And about these stupid point packs... Why hasn't Apple declared them "minimal functionality" and stopped accepting them? Make these guys use in-app purchase for buying points! I'm sure that would stifle what must be rampant cheating in the pirate community with these "point based" games too. What's the point of this rant? Basically Apple needs to handle categorization of all apps and games. If you leave it up to the authors, they do underhanded things like take their "me too" game that would have been buried in Action Games and stuff it into RPGs where it doesn't belong, just because it might get better exposure there. What would happen if you got a dozen categories in Entertainment? The same thing. Boob and Fart apps would start oozing out of the woodwork in every category even if you had clearly marked Boob and Fart sections in which they should be placed. As I said... Apple is the one that needs to fix this, before adding more categories. Will they? I doubt it.
Great idea, it's hard to imagine how anything gets found outside the charts in non-game categories, and it would give iTunes shoppers a lot more to browse through.
Yes. Large companies like Apple have a group of employees that are finding out (daily) what the common folk think. TouchArcade is an obviuos choice. It is a good business practice.
Commander Data, Great post! The accountant is doing his job. He receives his files in the late afternoon he is told where they go and he files them away as instructed. The structure of the game section is excellent compared to the rest of the categories. The accountant files the baseball game and the tap music app in the RPG section because that is what he is told to do. If you gave the accountant the power to say hey this bbbbbig boob app doesn't belong in RPG then things would change. I am quite sure every developer is 100 % behind you on this issue. We need better categorization (more of it) and better placement of apps tied directly to the keywords submitted by the developer.
that game is without a doubt an RPG. let me explain you control by drawing a path for your mech. when you get to an enemy, there is no tactic to fighting, really. you go to them, tap on them and wait to see what happens. the outcome of the battle really depends on your level and your equipment. that clearly makes the game an RPG any RPG fan would recognise that. i admit is is an action RPG, but an RPG nevertheless.
The app discovery problem really hurts the App Store user experience, and it's gotten seriously out of hand. It's become the proverbial iceberg: we can see only 10%, while the rest lies hidden in the inhospitable depths where only the bravest or most foolhardy venture! Improving transparency and discovery would benefit everyone: devs, customers, and Apple itself.
He wasn't 100% accurate on all his statements of the top 20. All that aside, he got his point across.
Absolutely, if Apple changed their terms a bit and allowed their reviewers to "re-categorize" apps based on where they REALLY belong then categories would be fantastic, and the more the better. Sorry for my long winded rant about it this morning, but I really care about the future of the store Right now it's like a grocery store where the suppliers all get to come in and put their stuff on any shelf they want. The dairy farmer walks in and says, I know my milk and cheese should go back in the dairy section, but I think if I stick it up here in the produce section maybe more people will buy it... All these unscrupulous developers are doing is making it even harder to find what you're really looking for. Offtopic- Jak56, Everyone has their opinion. If we took a random poll of 100 people here and asked them what category each game in the top 20 RPGs really belonged to I think the majority of results would back up my list. Anyway I don't want to start a flame-war on the definition of an RPG... I have seen those type of arguments too many times and no one wins... The interest here is getting things sorted into their correct categories (and potentially adding more categories) to make things easier to find. Apple needs to enforce categorization, I hope they step up and do so. Edit- Bravetarget- sorry you posted while I was finishing up! As you note, even if not everyone agrees with all the items on my list, my point is about categorization
Actually, to take this one step further... If anyone feels uncomfortable with Apple assigning categories for stuff, maybe they can let app store users sort the clutter for them! Basically, provide a mechanism in iTunes for users to suggest the proper category for an app or game. The submitter of the app can put it into a starting category. From there, if the app in question gets more than some target threshold number of suggestions for a new category, an Apple reviewer can double check the validity of the suggestion and make the change. If that happens too many times, the submitter may have his account flagged and Apple employees would then decide his or her starting submission category for every new app or game they submit (because they've proven themselves untrustworthy). This manual check and change would prevent "ballot stuffing" where a company like gameloft could get all 4000 employees to vote GTA out into Entertainment or Family so that Gangstar would not have visible competition
There is a simple solution to this complex problem. We need a category called "CRAP" where to put everything that doesn't have more than 5 lines of code and 3 stolen images. To access the CRAP category, one should fill in a form, sign it, and personally deliver it to Apple in Cupertino.
write them a visitor message on their profile ? i did instantly - with a little harsh tone.... don't know if this might get me banned or something in this forum... UPDATE: just did a search on all the posts this AppsCrunchy guy/joke made, and they all are simply unrelated SPAM posts with a youtube link, and quoting the previous post as the only text. This user deserves the kick from this forum and might even be only a spambot...
