作者：Jeff Tunnell

我本来很想借本文痛骂应用商店的，因为我觉得这事真的很重要。但我又觉得单纯地抱怨应用商店太没建设性了，所以我决定采用更积极的方式——提出9条我认为可以改进应用商店的建议。

首先，我认为应用商店的出现是很令人惊喜的。尤其是四年以前，应用商店刚刚问世的时候。但我可不认为所有人都料到它基本上成为人们获取应用信息的主要途径。为此，苹果和谷歌必须改进应用商店中许多陈旧的机制。

我认为应用商店的根本问题在于，苹果用他们做iTunes音乐的思路做应用商店。而谷歌基本上是照搬苹果的做法，所以，我们其实有的是两个相同的应用商店。问题是，人们已经通过Pandora、Spotify、卫星广播和无线电广播等听过自己想要的音乐了，所以当浏览iTunes时，大部人其实已经知道自己要买什么了。游戏却没有这种优势。因此，我提出9条优化应用商店的建议。

app store(from realmacsoftware.com)

1、允许对商店列表进行类似于网页的分析和A/B测试。因为开发者不知道他们的营销文本是否有效。

2、销售排行榜并不是评价游戏的最佳指标。收益排行榜尤其怪异，这种东西开发者能看得到，但跟玩家其实没有任何关系。我知道人们对电影票房或书籍销量会有短暂的兴趣，但我不认为那是人们决定要不要消费的最理想的发现机制。然而，在应用商店，它基本上成为做决定的唯一机制。

3、给上排行榜的游戏附加分析信息。这些信息可以是，一天内有多少人玩了这款游戏，或者玩家平均玩这款游戏多少时间。这样，排行榜就会立即变成“最多人玩的游戏”榜。

4、优化游戏分类标准、类型和标签，让玩家更容易浏览和点击。

5、允许选择性查看到我的朋友在玩什么游戏，以及我的朋友是否可以向我推荐游戏。

6、优化排行榜和后端支持。谷歌甚至没有这个，所以Game Center就没有达到应有的效果。这有助于病毒性传播。

7、确认给某游戏评级的玩家自己已经安装了这款游戏，这样就能使评级更加可靠。一个简单的解决办法是，只允许玩家玩过X分钟后才能提交评级。

8、如我之前提到的，把商店当成后端分配系统来运行，这样就会有许多小众商店。可以官方允许这些小众商店安装在手机中。小众商店要支付一定的加入费用，其中开发者要承担30%的费用。当然，苹果和谷歌可以保留自己的商店，但多一些选择总是好事。例如，教育/家庭应用商店或者小众RPG商店。

9、有一个更像Netflix的推荐引擎。我知道那也不算完美，但总比Genius（游戏邦注：这是来iTunes中的音乐推荐工具条）得强。你最后一次使用Genius是什么时候？

一旦销售排行榜不再是“最佳游戏”的决定性列表（至少在苹果心目中），那么就没有必要担心AppGratis之类的服务了。人们看待那些内容管理服务将不亚于网络看待Woot.com。

以上，就是我想到的改进方法。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Nine Things That Could Make the App Stores Better

by Jeff Tunnell

I have been on a rant lately, but I think this is really important. Instead of complaining about the app stores, I want this post to be a more positive approach of offering ideas that I think could make them better.

First of all, I think the app stores are amazing. The original app store was particularly amazing four years ago, but I don’t think anyone thought that apps would essentially become the primary method for people to obtain their information and be entertained. With that in mind, both Apple and Google essentially need to recreate many of the mechanisms that the Internet has had 20 years to perfect.

I think the basic flaw with the app stores is that Apple took what they developed for iTunes music and adapted it for apps. From there, Google basically copied what Apple created, so we essentially have two of the same approaches. The problem with this is that music has built in discovery via Pandora, Spotify, satellite radio, terrestrial radio, etc., so while you can browse iTunes, most people already know what they want to buy. Games do not have this luxury. With that in mind, here are my nine ideas for making the app stores better.

1. Allow the store listings to have analytics and A/B tests similar to web pages. Developers are flying blind and have no idea if their sales text is working.

2. Sales Leaderboards are not the best measure of the best games. Top Grossing is an especially strange leaderboard that could be exposed to developers, but is not really relevant to players. I know people have a passing interest in top grossing movies or books, but I don’t think that is the most relevant discovery mechanism for how people choose to consume those items.

However, in the app stores, it is essentially the only mechanism for making decisions.

3. Use analytics signals for leaderboards. This would be things like how many times a game is played during the day or how much time is spent on it. This would allow leaderboards such as what is the most played game, this instant.

4. Create better game taxonomies, categories, and tags, so it is much, much easier to browse by clicking around. RPG, boom a bunch of games. Roguelike, boom less games. Pixel Art, boom, even less games. Wait, there’s Heroes of Loot, that looks interesting.

5. Allow me to opt in so I can see what games my friends are playing and so my friends can make recommendations to me.

6. Have better Leaderboards, and back end support. Google does not even have this, and Game Center is not as good as it should be. This helps with virality.

7. Confirm users that rate games own the game in a much more strict fashion so the ratings cannot be gamed. A simple solution would be to make sure the player has played X minutes or several times before they are allowed to submit a rating for review.

8. As I mentioned before, run the stores as a backend distribution system so there can be many, niche stores. These sanctioned stores can be officially allowed on the phones. An affiliate fee would be paid to the stores and the money would come out of the 30% fee the stores are charging developers. Of course, Apple and Google could keep their stores, but having more options would be a good thing. For instance, a really great Educational/Family store or a nichy RPG store.

9. Have a more Netflix like recommendation engine. I know that is not perfect either, but it is way better than Genius. When was the last time you used Genius?

10. Once the sales leaderboards are not the definitive list of the “best games” (at least in Apple’s mind), then they would not have to worry about services like AppGratis. Those kind of curation services would be viewed no differently than how the Internet views Woot.com, with its amazing deal per day.

Anyway, these are the ideas I have off the top of my head. Do you have any more ideas? Also, the idea that you need to make a great game has already been thought of.(source:makeitbigingames)