Gaming the App Store
On the Apple App Store, if you want to sell millions of your apps, the best way is to get into the Top Ten Paid Apps list. Thats it. You are there, you make millions.
Now people have found a way to misuse this. When the iPhone 4 was about to release, Electronics Arts and Gameloft, two renowned iPhone game developers, dropped their game prices to $1. This sky rocketed their sales. In reality they sell games in the range of $5.
Now on the day of the iPhone 4 launch, they had reached the Top Ten Paid Apps list. Anyone getting a new iPhone, was bound to buy apps from this list. Electronics Arts raised the game prices to $3 and Gameloft brought back the prices of their games to $5. Gameloft’s N.O.V.A., actually went upto $7 for an hour.
Marco found another problem:
I went to buy Angry Birds on Topherchris’ recommendation and got this:
The first two pages of search results for “angry birds”.
The first two are real. Rocket Bird 3D and MY BEST FRIEND are other things (although probably keyword spammers). The other six of the top ten results for this game’s name are pure spam.
But compare this to the condition on the Google Marketplace and you see who has a problem. Chaos.
