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Growth & ASO2023

One reviewer can overrule fifty

Forty-six clean updates, then the forty-seventh meets a different rulebook.

Forty-six updates to Gladiators in fifteen months, not one rejected for its store page. The forty-seventh drew a reviewer who invoked the vague “screenshots must reflect gameplay” rule and, with it, overruled every colleague who had approved the page before him. The biggest titles ship pure promo art with no interface at all and get featured for it. I don’t dispute Apple’s right to write the rules — only a rule read one way for them and another for whoever has the least standing to argue it.

Takeaway

On someone else's platform, precedent isn't protection. Build for the reviewer you might draw, not the fifty who already said yes.