[ramy_d]

mobile game discovery is big pain point for devs as well, and that none of Apple/Google seem to do anything about is frustrating. This is in sharp contrast to, say, steam, where discovery is something they are constantly trying to improve.

[JiNCMG]

Funny cause both stores (App and Play) are always promoting games to me. Usually crap like Fortnite which stinks on any mobile device. Yes devs have to pay for those promos but just like in Steam, Retail and all the console markets you pay for marketing.

[ramy_d]

Yes you can pay for promotional spots on both mobile stores and steam, but that is not to say that they are remotely similar in terms of discoverability.

Discoverability would include things like a recommendation algorithm but also filtering features, promotional spotting, social graph relevance (do my friends own this game? do they want to?) and general UI accessibility, to name some factors.

Steam has put so much work into making sure users can find a title (regardless of that title's marketing budget) that fits their arbitrary preferences that they are now LEAGUES ahead of mobile stores on that metric.

One example that is easiest to point out is the main carousel (and entire front page) of the steam store. Everyone's carousel is customized to their profile and will show both old games and new based on an algo that weighs your preferences against a title's relevance and performance metrics.

The irony that google, a company that made its name in SEARCH, has an app store who's discoverability is so abysmal that i can't find certain titles without explicitly typing in the name or digging through 100s of "more titles like this" lists is not lost on me.

It's just really bad. The game categories are too few in numbers, and there's no tagging to speak of so finding something remotely hybrid is a pain and the categories themselves have become unhelpful.