Zombieville USA made it into "new and noteworthy" about 2 weeks after it was first released in mid-February. At the time it was priced at $3, and had seen somewhere around 3000 downloads in its first two weeks before being featured, mostly from promoting it here on toucharcade. The game briefly peeked into the top 100 at the time, but it wasn't until getting featured, an update and a price drop that we got into the top 10. I don't think there's any magic formula for getting into the new and hot lists, but if you can manage to break into the top 100 without any help from Apple, you're probably not far from being selected. There's also the slim chance that someone at Apple just likes your app for some reason. All we can really do is make the best games we can, promote them amongst enthusiastic iPhone gamers, and hope for the best.
OK, here's another experience: Matt Drake also had two apps featured and gave this advice on his blog.
Quite honestly, I don't think it matters. I've seen applications that I KNOW were released months ago. These probably fall under "Noteworthy" rather than "New". Or they updated it to a new version and that is what made it a much better product.
Timewerks Mobile Billing and Spawn Illuminati are examples of two apps that have been out for a while, yet both were recently selected for New and Noteworthy. I think that's why they added "Noteworthy".
Here's something to add to the discussion. Cute Math by Bokan Technologies is featured this week in New and Noteworthy. They were also featured in New and Noteworthy Jan 29-Feb 23. It was released Jan 09 at $1.99. Bumped to $2.99 for a day after being featured. Then down to $0.99 after 5 days for the remainder of the New and Noteworthy. I don't know of any other app that has been featured twice in the New and Noteworthy section. It appears that the first time featured Cute Math was "New", and this time they were "Noteworthy". So, any discussion of how to get on New and Noteworthy should include this app for kids younger than 5.
It seems more and more like the names of these categories actually stand for very little and they are all just areas where you get featured because Apple believes you have a quality product.
I really appreciate all the helpful discussion here. I am not a developer (yet), but I am a graphic designer working closely with a developer on a game. I like that devs are appreciating the fact that intriguing design and artwork goes a long way towards polishing your product. Even just having a good icon makes a huge difference. I agree with Anders from Illusion labs on many points, like sticking to what you are good at, and hire out if sound or artwork is not a strongpoint, and maintaining an original price point for as long as possible. Most of Illusion labs games are and have always been at $4.99 and I have bought most of them at that point, cause I know that the quality will be top notch and that the price will hold for a long time. There seems to be a psychological block to buying a game that has had a price increase (for me anyway). A good example of this that has been discussed is idracula. Even with added features (which is difficult to inform your general audience of) it's a hard sell to know that something used to be cheaper and now it costs more; why not just wait for the inevitable drop? side note: it seems like "sway" didn't stay in the top 100 for as long as deserved (unbelievably good game). Anyway back on topic, the noteworthy is there for a reason, your app has to be just that. So be willing to critique your own work and accept input from many others on how to take it from being just another app, to something noteworthy. Hopefully I can practice what I preach as my developer buddy and I get closer to release, and solicit some touch arcade member input. I have been a long time lurker here and unfortunately have rarely commented but I just wanted to say thanks to all for the great discussion in this thread and countless others.
Just got into the New and Noteworthy section Hi Everyone, I realized yesterday that "Mummy's Revenge" was featured in the New and Noteworthy section of the App Store outside of the US, it was featured in what others have called the Rest Of The World region. So in countries like Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Croatia, Egypt, Israel, etc.. I'm not sure whether this is the first step to getting into the U.S. App Store New and Noteworthy section. I really hope so, but I was hoping for other developers experiences. Does this type of publicity effect my chances of getting into the new and noteworthy section of the United States or other regions with higher sales potential. Either way I'm not complaining in anyway, I am very happy that Apple chose to recognize "Mummy's Revenge".
I don't think sales have anything to do with an app getting featured anywhere. Castle Conflict was getting pretty pedestrian sales (10-30 a day across the world), but afterwards was featured both in the New and Noteworthy and What We're Playing sections of the US app store. The e-mail we received, apple claimed they 'Loved our game', and I'm not sure how much of the e-mail is automatically generated, so it is possible that we just made a game that apple really enjoyed.
In the iTunes Store you can select the countries you want to view. This option is at the bottom of the screen. You will note that each region has the same iTunes Store look with the same games being featured. "Mummy's Revenge" is being featured in a select group of countries, when I tried to research why it was these select countries I came across a forum that described this region as "Rest Of The World". Hope that answers your question.
Wow - you got an email! Amazing We found out we were featured (Sheepish) when we downloaded the daily sales data and thought there must be some mistake because our sales had increased about 100-fold!
I'd like to add something to this discussion because I believe that the New and Noteworthy selections can at times be completely arbitrary. I noticed an app called Facebook Pixster in the New and Noteworthy section a little while ago and couldn't believe it had been selected. Here's an app that was $0.99 and its only feature was to upload pictures to Facebook, which obviously is already in the Facebook App itself - for free! Not only that though, it actually compressed your pics into a small 320x320 version and best of all, the app crashed half the time! All this has been reported by the REAL reviews for the app. Unfortunately, it seems the developer has created a ton of accounts so that he can review his own app. There are a myriad of undeserved 5 star reviews, all bubbled up because he presumably used the accounts to make his own reviews "helpful". But if you keep on scrolling past these astroturfed reviews, you can see the REAL reviews of which the users are absolutley livid for being conned into buying this app. After being featured in New & Noteworthy, this app became #3 in Social Networking, beating Tweetie(!). It actually cracked into the Top 100 overall into the Top 70!! Now tell me, how can Apple POSSIBLY feature this app when it is redundant, doesn't even work and is obviously astroturfed?? The only reason I can think of is either: a) New & Noteworthy is driven by initial reviews and sales. It's an algorithm in which this dev gamed. He created 50 accounts with his promo codes and gave himself 50 five star reviews and bumped himself into being noticed and for some reason, Apple decided to feature him. b) He either has a friend inside Apple on the review team or he bribed someone to get featured. Either way, it stinks of something foul. The only reason I know so much about this app is because I was just in disbelief that not only would Apple feature the app, but the fact that simply being featured would boost sales for an App so poorly done. I'm sure that all the bubbled up, fake reviews had something to do with it as well. Anyway, see for yourself... Here's the link to the App: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=316678979&mt=8
I've had the good luck to get an app featured in Apple's "What we're Playing" section. I don't believe that this category of promotion, or "New and Noteworthy" necessarily have anything to do with number of sales or user reviews. If anything, Apple appears to uses these categories as marketing experiments, to try and give obscure but interesting titles more visibility It's fun to see the effect this type of marketing can have. For the time Hurdler was featured, the full version was outselling the lite version by huge margins.
Facebook Pixster >Now tell me, how can Apple POSSIBLY feature this app when it is >redundant, doesn't even work and is obviously astroturfed?? The only >reason I can think of is either: > >a) New & Noteworthy is driven by initial reviews and sales. It's an algorithm >in which this dev gamed. He created 50 accounts with his promo codes and >gave himself 50 five star reviews and bumped himself into being noticed and >for some reason, Apple decided to feature him. >b) He either has a friend inside Apple on the review team or he bribed >someone to get featured. How about: c) a human at Apple noticed this app, didn't realize it was redundant with the free Facebook app, and flagged it as being "Noteworthy" because it sounded interesting and unique. The fact that the app took off like mad and sold just shows how undiscriminating people can be. Most users can't be bothered to go to the second page of top lists. And most users will simply assume that a featured app must be good. I doubt the typical reviewer employed at Apple is much different.
