Apple's App Stores add Free App Of Week, more curated highlights

Apple has added two new curation features to its iOS and Mac App Stores, "Free App Of The Week" and "Editor's Choice," which are designed to help consumers discover new games. Many have complained about discoverability problems on iOS's App Store in the past, as it can be difficult for a game to stand out from the hundreds of thousands of other titles available on the service. Electronic Arts founder and Digital Chocolate head Trip Hawkins recently remarked that it's becoming less viable for developers to self-release a hit game for iOS without the help of a publisher to market a game, due to the flood of titles on the App Store. Apple's App Stores do have some tools designed to introduce users to new apps, such as the "What's Hot" category and the Genius recommendation feature, as well as a standard "App of the Week" promotion they've run in the past. They also have Top 25 Paid/Free/Grossing charts for games, but titles need to reach a very high number of downloads or revenues just to break into those lists. The iOS App Store has selected ZeptoLab's Cut the Rope: Experiments as its current Free App of The Week, and Miniclip.com's Extreme Skater for one of its Editor's Choice picks. The Mac App Store has featured Square Enix's Deus Ex: Human Revolution as an Editor's Choice. Competing app marketplaces like Google Play and Amazon's AppStore already offer comparable "Free App of the Day" and Editor's Choice features.