Over 70% of App Store Purchases Are for Games
According to the study, the top 5 categories where money is being spent are, in order: Games, Music, Social Networking, Entertainment and Lifestyle.
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I, like Michael, would love for indie developers (at least the one who make productivity apps and the like) to see their apps climb the charts too. But an excellently designed calendar app just doesn’t make enough users feel the same way as winning a game against a friend. So when it comes time to choose between spending $5 on a better calendaring system or spending those five dollars in beating a friend at a game, which developer you think is buying themselves a coffee that evening?
See also: Jim Dalrymple, who talks about what he sees being promoted in the App Store.
Update (2016-04-14): Craig Grannell:
Which makes Apple’s ongoing lack of interest in games all the more baffling.
Update (2016-04-15): Paul Jones:
While professional, productivity, and utility applications aren’t #1, I get the impression its still a huge market. Stranger still, the recent Game Center white-screen bugs seem to indicate that Apple’s incentives haven’t particularly swayed to providing to the needs of game developers, but the amount of new graphics APIs recently somewhat counter this.
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Apple's relationship with games is just crazy. I suspect this is a problem of divided loyalties. Clearly some senior management in the app store see that's where their bread and butter is. But that's clearly not getting communicated to the VPs who are making decision about engineering focus or deciding how to market the Apple TV.
Thought experiment: The App Store isn't broken. It's a great dollar store (hat tip to Pieter Omvlee). What we need are more stores, and to divorce these stores from being simple [unsearchable] mirrors of the millions of apps on The Apple App Warehouse.
I don't see many productivity apps on the PS3 store. Nor should we. But don't just split stores by app type -- maybe there's an Indie App Store that you have to apply to enter. Maybe there's a well-stocked Editors' Choice Winners store that's the default when you open the App Store app. Maybe it's time to start letting well-vetted third-party app stores into the App Warehouse.
The Apple App Warehouse is an intranet of things. It's time to stop acting like the corner app store and to start acting like the UPS warehouse it's become.
