The iOS App Store has seen significant changes: Instead of using automatically generated lists of new games, it appears Apple has shifted strategy toward letting its editorial staff pick the best of the best.
These changes were noted by TechCrunch -- and they're reportedly only live on the U.S. App Store so far. 9to5Mac has confirmed the changes with Apple.
In the past, new games would automatically be dumped into a list ("New") sorted alphabetically (which led lots of developers to front-load the letter "A" into their game's title, among other tricks.) Of course, this is just one of many ways to try and game the system -- and Apple has cracked down on many others in the past. But a move towards editorial curation seems to suggest a fundamentally changed approach to surfacing games on the App Store -- at least from Apple's perspective.
Now, the lists are hand-picked by Apple's staff: "Best New Games" is the App Store's default recommendation engine for games. There's also still an auto-generated listing ("More Games You Might Like") that bases its recommendations on a player's purchase history.
The TechCrunch story offers a more exhaustive look at the changes that have come to the store.