This was a great post. Having seen several apps deployed in the app store myself, it seems to me OP is right on that discovery is bad (beyond editors' features

This was a great post. Having seen several apps deployed in the app store myself, it seems to me OP is right on that discovery is bad (beyond editors' features, search and recommendation systems are terrible). It makes it really hard to gain traction through word of mouth. Nowadays, especially for a game, you need to plan on having a large UA budget. Google Play seems better than the App Store right now in terms of both search and recommendations (though both are still bad). Still, it is brutal out there and you need not just hefty UA budget, but a real operation around this stuff. OP had great thoughts on solving this. App Store / Play APIs would be awesome. Wonder if AMZN will do (or already has done?) this and set the pace. Thanks for writing and sharing this article, Jeff. It is great to be able to learn from your experience, and the candid and humble approach is appreciated!