Talk to any developer and they'll tell you all about the power of getting a game featured on the App Store in one of the highlighted sections such as New and Noteworthy, What's Hot, or What We're Playing.

Obviously you get a huge sales bump.

The problem is no one really knows how games get that status.

And now it seems it might not matter in the long term either.

At least, that's the conclusion being drawn from the graph provided by developer NimbleBit concerning its game Moon Drop.



The 99c, 59p game was released on 16 July 2009, and gained featured status over a week later. The result was a ten-fold increase in sales, which saw the game peak in the Top 100 around the #37 position.

However as we noted in our App Store Analysis on 9 August, a week later it had dropped completely out of the Top 100.

The reason was it had stopped being featured by Apple.

So the conclusion drawn is that while getting a game featured provides a massive boost to sales during that period, it doesn't necessary drive long term interest.

Or, in other words, Apple giveth and then Apple taketh away. Blessed be the name of Apple.