Now, I understand that there can be a few slip ups when adding things to certain categories. I know that games like Zenonia can slip easily into Role Playing, Adventure, and Action and games like Asphault can easily be put into Action as well as Racing and maybe Role Playing if there are some elements... But how do Storm 8 games keep getting into friggen ADVENTURE? I mean, they barely categorize as Role Playing, since you're most certainly not playing any sort of role, you're just stat grinding. And it's not just crappy myspace style games that are ending up in horrendously wrong categories. I was browsing the adventure category of the games section, and I keep seeing a retarded amount of Castle defense games. Defending a castle requires an unreasonably small amount of adventure... Doesn't apple screen these things in it's retarded approval process? or do they just throw these apps onto a table for a little while to test the developer's patience? srsly <:x
I assume they do, but there should be some sort of moderation by iTunes. I mean, if I developed a computer game, and it was sold at Best Buy, I'm sure they'd put it in the Games section if I tried to wedge it in with the music CDs
Good analogy, but I think yours is too far on the extreame, to be taken as a fair comparison. If there is any bit of a game that fits it's parent category, it can technically apply. I'm sure apple doesn't want to spend thier time doing category audits, as it would probably have to become by someone with a lot of experience, as game genres have become very numerous due to people wanting to give them very specific requirements to fit the archetype. I doubt apple has anyone right now who would be able to really do this efficiently, and to get a new employee to do this full time would probably not bring in any additional value to the company. I think our best bet would be to suggest devs put it in more revelant categories. They are the ones loosing most money. If I want to find a good action game, and thier action game is in adventure, they would be harder to find. Any dev with a brain knows visibility is key to sales. It would be thier loss to have it in a completley wrong category. It's probably safe to assume try are putting them in categories that would make them visable to thier target audience.
I think a dev can choose two categories to list their games under. Its up to them to choose wisely. If they fail then their sales fail. Simple as that. If I am looking for a particular type of game and see some obvious mis-categorized games I skip over them. Surely the dev tries to do what they can for sales. And to speak to your analogy - if I was looking for music and found a game I would either say - gee wrong spot for this and move on; or by some chance say - wow this is a good discovery that was misfiled! So its going to depend. Bottom line, the dev has all the control here and will ultimately win or lose in their choices.
Wait until spiffyone sees this thread. He'll rant and rant and rant all the way into the early hours of the morning
well that's not really the problem. The problem is that devs are putting (in my opinion bad) games into categories they dont' fit into, and since they're simple to make, and apparently quite popular games, they sneak up onto the top 100 charts, and move /actual/ games that fit into that category out of the listing (and of course I'm talking about the Zynga-myspace-game-ripoffs that are oh-so-numerous on the app store)
That is exactly what happens. I had a bit of a rant about this in a dev thread here: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=41829 My proposed solution is to allow App Store users to suggest the "correct" categories for things that seem out of place, with Apple reviewing and moderating the store based on these suggestions, and penalizing developers who continue to categorize their apps incorrectly.
