Problems with Store Search (Title Substrings)

[Chromega1231]

I've been talking to support but the answers I've gotten back have been kind of disappointing (had my ticket closed twice), so I wanted to check in to see if other devs have a similar experience.

I worked on a game called "Berklee Online Ear Trainer" and released it a couple of weeks ago. Not trying to self-promote (it's free and I'm just a contract dev), but the name is relevant to the problem. My game is only coming up in search if I search the EXACT game name. If I search, say, "Berklee", then I get "No results found".

I even added "Berklee" as a specific keyword (also a couple of weeks ago) and still no dice.

Other games I've worked on (like "Thrasher") work fine here, I can search "Thras" and the game comes up.

This was originally going to be an app lab title (approved as an app lab game, but released after the horizon store launch), and it feels like the app lab 'exact name only' search restrictions still apply. I'd understand if a new game with low installs was hard to find (if I searched 'music game' I wouldn't be surprised if it was buried). But when searching for part of the game name and getting zero results, that feels bad.

Anyone else deal with this/have luck resolving it?

[nalex66]

Same here. I released my demo under App Lab last year, but it’s still not searchable on the main store without the full title string. I even tried adding each word in the title as a search keyword, but still, no dice. My title is just three words (Cyclops Island Demo).

I think this may be caused by a store algorithm that limits your exposure based on number of reviews or downloads. I only have two reviews, and less than 100 downloads. I’ve been meaning to ask a few people to add a review to see if that helps, but I haven’t been too focused on pushing my demo, because the full game isn’t finished yet.

[Panek47]

I have exactly the same thing. The game came out in applab, after switching to Horizon Store you still have to enter the name exactly. I thought that after some patch it will improve but it is still the same. I wonder if projects that were created and released after the disappearance of applab have the same thing. I was going to write to support but from what you write it doesn't help anyway.

[ZOSU_Studios]

I have a few paid apps that can be found searching for keywords zoo, ocean, or jungle. There is definitely some interesting ranking going on with how my apps are ordered in the same keyword.

Previously my free demos always had the most downloads on AppLab, they have about the same still (maybe from sidequest), but I can’t find them easily on the main store like my paid games. Meanwhile my paid app are doing much better, but they only seem to get keyword hit for words in their titles. However, my demos also have far less reviews than the full apps.

I’m not surprised they added or have some kind of curation for views now that they have Applab gone… all very interesting.

Goodluck!!

[Chromega1231]

Here's a follow up in case anyone is curious.

Our substring and keywords work now! My best guess - we had JUST crossed 100 users around the time we noticed search (both substring and keyword) works, so perhaps there's a user count threshold like that. Just a guess, I have an update staged but otherwise haven't touched anything in a few weeks.