Google says it will start downranking non-tablet apps in the Play Store

fne8w2ah@lemmy.world to Android@lemmy.world – 79 points –
Google says it will start downranking non-tablet apps in the Play Store
arstechnica.com
9

And here I thought they only rank whoever pays the most in any relevant way

How else would all that free2play garbage always be ranked at the very top.

They all have such predicable names too:

War of Heroes: King Battle

The Great City: Global War

Arena of Warriors: Fire Multiplayer

I just made all three of those up, but I bet you there are games with names similar or even identical to that on the Play Store right now

You are totally right, there is a boatload of shovelware free2play/pay2win games on the Play Store. They all sound the same, they probably all are the same. I get the feeling that these games are auto-generated. Just have the same base game and swap out strings and maybe assets, autogenerate a new title and publish it.

This seems like a good idea and I hope Apple eventually follows suit. There are so many apps, especially on iOS, that are just the mobile app blown up on tablets that are basically unusable.

Robinhood on an iPad is hilarious. It's like you're on a giant phone when navigating the UI. Haven't been on it in a while though so not sure if they fixed it by now.