Have you clicked “more”?
For me it shows 20 games and then loops
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Yeah I do get that same thing clicking ‘more’ on the Hosted Games part. Not on Similar Apps. If I search Hosted Games all the games seem to cone up ok.
Mm. I have forever transcribed pub:Choice of Games LLC and pub:Hosted Games into Play and it still works magnificently. Perhaps an addendum in the mailer and on the website to advise the more casual viewing audience to set those words in the search bar if the horrible loop happens to stay horribly looped?
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Hmm, went in and looked around. Most games have weird ‘similar to’ recommendations, especially the top ones. They feel more like sponsored search results than anything, a lot of them aren’t even games, but language training apps and training apps. But some games seemed to have good ‘similar to’ things, and I really can’t figure out why. But then again I can’t see the metadata.
I don’t have any issues with games looping, both hosted and choice of games show up well, and it seemed to be all of them. Did it both on my pc and my phone.
EDIT: More research done.
1: Choice of Games games seems to get better ‘similar to’ than hosted games, but I think this is because of…
2: The title of the game sets the similar to. I think the algorithm pulls the title down to its components and turns it into metadata. For example, Highway wars gives traffic apps, Life of a Wizard gives fantasy games, Fallen Hero: Rebirth gives kids apps (because of birth), Lost Heir gives trivia games. Of course the ‘choice of’ games gives more choice games…
I know that on apple, you have a set number of words as metadata, I could see which seed keywords was on Fallen Hero (I think, couldn’t change them), and It had abstracted from the title words into a lot of religious things. Lot of bible stuff…
Can Hosted games go in and check these things? If so, by providing the correct keywords, we should get nice algorithm work.
Is it possible for us to submit keyword lists for our games? I think it’s the autogenerated lists that are messing things up.
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I just tested the looping on my PC and can confirm that on my PC it does NOT loop. But it does on my Android phone. (Samsung A5 2017, if it matters.)
A very fair point. Frustrating to see a negative development for y’all, but hopefully some workarounds will present themselves as people figure out what does or does not get a game on the lists at this point.
Update from europe:
desktop now shows 49 games for Cog/HG via ‘more from this publisher’ before looping, mobile 39.
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Just a random thought, I wonder if all of the COG and HG games could be displayed as a text list, and sortable via Newest, Alphabetical, or Price? It may load faster on mobile or look nice in a mailer? I don’t get the mailer right now, so… Sorry if this idea is silly or redundant.
(Choice of Games: Sorting by Newest)
I can confirm that. When I click on the “more HG or COG” games in one of the game pages on my phone (android), I get 20 games which loop. The rest are invisible. I’m guessing this is a big problem as this is how I usually search for other games by a particular developer. I’m guessing a lot of other people do as well and any games not on the “top 20 list” will no longer be seen by the majority of google play users. I actually tried a few games and they were all almost the same list of 20, with only 1-2 games changing between each search.
On a PC search, the games loop after 49 games, so there’s still some missing (For example starship adventures,Tokyo wizard, Wizardry level C, scarlet sails, daily blackmail, the ascot etc.)
@dfabulich Searching “Hosted Games” (with the “”) actually doesn’t work for me either. It brings up more HG’s, mixed in with some COG’s but a lot are still missing or way down the list after unrelated games. For example I can’t find Wizardry level C at all, and games like Sons of the Cherry, Land of 3 classes, Zebulon, The 3games, Captive of fortune and a few others would probably be missed as they’re away from the main list after unrelated games like “Township”, Pirate Kings,Jetpack joyride, candy crush, solitaire, angry birds etc.
That’s not new, that’s always been the case. I suspect it’s because COG’s tend to sell and rate better than the HG’s on ave maybe?
PC screenshot (the play store is telling me I can’t take screenshots of it on the phone- strange.) You can see where lost heir turns up again starting the repeat on the last line.
On a note here:
What does one have to do to get a fancy developer/publisher page in the playstore? Maybe that might be a solution?
Edit: ah, never mind. Those have the same problem
This new algorithm is like soul-crushingly wrong. It’s basically trying its best to decieve people that CoG and HG have a combined 20 titles instead of hundreds of them.
Well, 179 games. Nearly “hundreds” but not quite.
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okay: checked the following:
If (on desktop) you click the developer name the overview is complete and dosn’t loop.
If you click ‘more from this developer’ it loops
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I sent in a constructive complaint about the new searching issues and 20 game loop thing. This is the response I got (Yes it is canned unless they can really somehow defend “Candy Crush” being a perfect match for a “hosted games” search.) Doubt it’ll make much difference but I guess if enough people send in feedback that they don’t like it they might change it. Would need a lot of people to submit feedback though, so I guess spread the word?
Thanks for writing on the Google Play Help Forum.
The search results for an app in the Google Play Store depends on the keywords used to search for an app. There isn’t an option to search for all apps from a particular developer. However, you can share your feedback for the same option or filter by following these steps :
Open the Google Play Store app Google Play.
Tap on the menu icon Google Play Music Menu icon at the top left.
Touch help & feedback.
At the very bottom, touch send feedback and write your suggestion.
Have a good day!
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So the question is: can we control the keywords used to describe our game?
Seems like they fixed it. Yay.
Took them long enough
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Can confirm. The company page now doesn’t loop. Recommendations are still awful though. Hopefully things are being fixed all around! Progress!
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