ABC Blast - App Store Categories - Lesson learned...

EatingMyHat

Wanted to quickly share with your guys one thing that I learned today and was not aware of. Sorry if it is common knowledge for some...

Today I released my ABC Blast game ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/abc-blast/id419270311?mt=8&ls=1 ) which is an educational game for kids. The categories that I selected were as followed:

Primary:
Games
--> Kids
--> Educational

Secondary:
Education

During the day I noticed that the game does not show in the Eduction category. A bit of research led to the following insight:
If the single category (Education in my case) is secondary to Games (with two sub categories), the App will not show up in the secondary. If I would have put the single category as primary, and Games (with 2 subs) as secondary - the App will show up in all of them.

Don't know if it is a bug or by design, but given that you cannot change the categories (without an update) - it is a big deal.

Hope it will help others to avoid the same mistake.

Please have a look at the ABC Blast thread and give me some feedback on the game.

http://gamesalad.com/forums/topic.php?id=22296

Cheers,
GR

butterbean

That looks like a great game! I love the icon, and the graphics are nice!

It was my understanding that the secondary categories only place your game under "new releases" but won't be in the chart rankings.

So if for example, you put your primary category as "Games" kids, and educational, and your Secondary category under "Education", the game will show up under all 3 under "New releases" but in the charts, it will show up under your primary category under kids and educational.

So if your game didn't show up under the new release list under "Education" that sounds like it's either a bug, or they changed the policies recently.. I've released apps under similar categories, and they do show under the new release list under all 3.

Is that what you meant?

Good luck with your game!

EatingMyHat

The game was not showing under any of the sections of Education. After googling the subject I found the information that I described above. I wonder if other GS member saw similar or different behavior in respect to categories.

Being visible in the right categories is a big deal, I think it is important to understand how it works (or not working...)

Thanks.

JeffreyShimane

Thanks for sharing that, EatingMyHat. I was planning on doing an educational game at some point so this will be helpful.

Hope your app is successful! It looks great!

butterbean

@EatingMyHat: Yeah, thanks for the feedback on that, I'll have to watch and see if it's a pattern on my apps, appreciate that!

EatingMyHat

I hope I'm right, as I said - for sure my app is not showing up on the secondary category, as for the 'workaround' I picked it out of the web so please take it with a grain of salt (unless someone can verify it).

I was really hoping to be in the education category as it is not busy as the games one, so it was really disappointing to see that it is not there