Apple’s editorial team given greater control over revamped App Store

The App Store has been given something of an overhaul, with particular focus on the games section.

The gaming area of the mobile marketplace is now largely curated by the editorial team, who highlight the best new titles for iOS devices instead of relying on previous algorithms to generate the lists.

Previous lists such as ‘New’, ‘What’s Hot’ and ‘All iPhone (Free & Paid)’ have been removed, reports TechCrunch and replaced with lists defined by the editorial team.

The benefit of removing these lists is that it prevents devs from exploiting the systems that generated them, such as naming their game ‘AAAAAA[Game name]’ to get at the top of the ‘All iPhone’ lists.

Editors now select titles for lists such as ‘Best New Games’ and ‘All Time Games’. The ‘More Games You Might Like’ list is still present, basing recommendations on users’ previous purchases, as is the recently introduced ‘Pay Once & Play’, which focuses on premium games with no microtransactions.

Curated lists even appear on subcategory pages such as action, adventure, racing and trivia. These are expected to go some way towards reducing the exposure to cloned games and same apps.