It’s called the ay Store for a reason. ’s app store is filled with a veritable cornucopia of games—so many, in fact, it can be hard to find good ones that aren’t from big-name developers like Nintendo or Electronic Arts. But through a series of initiatives announced at the Game Developer Conference, is looking to change that.
As the ay store exps gaming becomes more sophisticated, has turned its attention to the little guy. ile the biggest games will still get the most visibility, has announced that it will begin promoting apps with high-quality gaming experiences—this based on engagement, not just installs.
The search giant has already begun to fine-tune its ay Store algorithms to optimize searches for the amount of time users spend with a game, not just how often it’s downloaded. says that while it won’t be discarding volume rating, it wants to reward game quality, its moves should help smaller developers reach a larger audience.
will also let developers offer sales with strikethrough pricing so users can see the extent of the discount. Available immediately in the ay Developer Console, the new feature will allows developers to run visible promotions on both paid apps games. had already begun a pilot program utilizing strikethrough pricing, it says developers saw up to 20 times more installs during their promotions.
Finally, will also be introducing a greater level of editorial curation of high quality games. It doesn’t take an expert to realize that a prime position on the main ay Store page will result in more sales, wants to exp that visibility beyond its current method. It will begin rolling out curated pages of h-selected games in various genres, helping users to discover games they might not otherwise find.
In addition to the new ay Store initiatives, announced that nearly 300 million new users adopted Android devices from emerging markets such as India, Brazil, Indonesia.
Game on: You don’t have to be a gamer to know hard it can be to find new apps in the ay Store. ile the announcements here are specifically targeted at gaming developers, the initiatives are useful all across the store, especially the strikethrough pricing. Seeing which apps are on sale the extent of the discount will surely increase sales, while also making it easier for users to find high-quality apps that will bolster their Android experience.