There have recently been some small changes in the Google Play store, at least on my end. I used to get all kinds of interactive fiction recommendations right on my front page due to my purchasing history. Now all recommendations have defaulted off to awful shovel-ware, the type of games a new user with no purchasing background would see.
Point is, CoG (at least on my account) is no longer getting recommended or placed on the front page. Is anyone else experiencing this?
Yeah. Also the playstore has a bigger prob atm, as if you click on āmore from this developerā the list loops after a couple of games
Oh jeeze, I hadnāt noticed that, but youāre absolutely right! Thereās no order and games are repeated over and over again!
As an upcoming CoG author with a game coming out next month, this is super concerning in terms of visibility. Hopefully Iām over thinking it, but these changes canāt be a good thing. Hopefully Google gets their crap together.
I mean, isnāt the whole point of getting customer metrics to target their individual wants with targeted apps and purchases? Why are they defaulting off to crap that Iād never buy and never have? Do they really expect me to play āGems or Jewelsā, āSolitaireā, or āChessā? It feels like the whole system is broken and just shoving out basic defaults.
I hope theyāll fix it soon 
Iād noticed the same. As you say, hope they get it together soon!
It could be this 
So thatās the reasonā¦ I was wondering myself. Well, Iām sure theyāll take the necessary corrective actionā¦ Soon?
Links from Danās article (in Reddit posts) are suggesting that many developers are experiencing as high as 80% decrease in downloads. 
I sincerely hope we havenāt been so badly affectedā¦ what is going on?!
I wonder if the ārecommendedā is going off of how much the metadata relates to a given term?
So like for example, I wonder if The Eagleās Heir would pull up some estate planning recommendation? Lolā¦
Also if you search on google play āhosted games or choice of gamesā, at the top of the list, it always arranges the same books passes as study in steampunk and Fatehaven.
I think Iām experiencing the same thing as you are. All Iām seeing are the same 6-7 stories on an unending loop in the Google Play Store if you look up CoG or Hosted Games
Thatās not good, under āsimilar apsā for a cog or a hg game I used to get suggestions that included cog, hg, and delight type games. Now not one single games from any of those companies turns up. There are however completely unrelated freemium games from companies like EA and tinyco. Anyone think Google has decided to tweak the algorithm to favour larger companies over indie developers? It would make sense from their money making point of view.
Edit: also just checked and most of the cog and hg library is inaccessible on Google Play on my phone as well. (It just loops a few lines of games).
Google play store in my phone is somewhere in between.
I get no Cog/HG recommendations (which iāve previously downloaded a lot), but i get Delight Games and Episodesā¦
The library works fine for me, but when i click āsimilarā the page has one CoG/HG game for every 9 other non-related games.
I still see some CoG games in my recommendations but there are less than before
My āyou might also likeā is really messed up at the moment as well. Under the new cyborg game there is 1 delight game (at the very bottom), no HGs or cogs at all (the games Iād be most likely to buy) a few scattered RPGs and āchoicesā games that I have zero interest in, a lot of games from large companies like tinyco, EA, star wars, fallout, the Sims, GOT, final fantasy etc (none of which Iād be interested enough in to even look at) and weirdly enough several otome games even though Iāve never downloaded one on or off Google (no interest at all). Makes me wonder if itās just now completely wrong or whether Google is tracking the fact that I read the rather off topic discussion that happened in Donor earlier. (Yay for Google tracking?)
Okay, this is just weird. Iām getting the exact same āyou might also likeā games as Jacic. Itās like Google has completely stopped using their data to cater recommendations and is just sending generic suggestions to everyone.
How can this be good? Even for Google? They know what I buy, they have the data. Why would they stop showing me things I might want to click on? Itās like if Amazon only showed people the current best sellers rather than a catered main page that shows the books Iām interested in. Showing catered lists based on past sales and clicks is an industry standard for a reason! What the hell is Google doing?
The article posted by @dfabulich states:
and
So, most likely, the ārecommendedā algorithms and its ilk will be retuned to reflect actual user data.
A lot of peopleās experiences (including many reported on Reddit threads linked by the article) donāt follow that though. It may be part of it, but it doesnāt really explain why so many people are now seeing content on their Play Store home screens and recommendations that have nothing to do with past purchases and weāre all seeing the same brands of shovelware all of a sudden where none of us used to.
Google has claimed elsewhere that this is āworking as intendedā and that they changed the algorithm to reflect and recommend better quality apps, but that sure doesnāt seem to be my experience as an end user.
My Google Play store has been acting like this for at least two and a half weeks by the way. I even mailed Jason about it when I first noticed it since it disturbed me.
Screwing up, sounds like. Also, screwing us.
Went in and looked around, and found a really interesting things.
While most hosted games I checked had the same bland, nondescript āsimilar gamesā (Fallen Hero gets a lot of fitness games), there is one exception:
Way Walkers University.
For that game, the recommendations works like they always do, filled with good fits and other text games.
Maybe someone in choice of games can have a look and see if there is something different about that game? Do they have custom tags or something?