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ControlTowerVR
Participant
June 9, 2024

Applab game not searchable yet

I am the developer of Control Tower VR.

I am very excited with the app labs games being searchable on the main store, but so far Control Tower VR is not browsable (go to app lab tab, filter by genre arcade) and not searchable unless I enter the full name of the app.

Also, I am not allowed to add keywords to my game.

i suppose that Control Tower VR hasn’t been ported over to the open part of applab, but I was wondering what other app lab developers are seeing. Are you able to add keywords, is your app labs game searchable ?

9 replies

liam1421946
New Participant
June 10, 2024

i think there rolling it out probably. i cant add keywords either.

    BDJcurve
    Participant
    June 16, 2024

    I am having the same issue with my games as well.

      ControlTowerVRAuthor
      Participant
      June 16, 2024

      I was able to get someone at Meta, but they just told me that they progressively move games over time. I have noticed for example that the number of games in app lab arcade genre is slowly growing. So I think we just have to be patient. Though I wish Meta would be a bit more transparent with app lab developers. 

        keycapgames
        Up and Coming
        July 8, 2024

        Mine was searchable for 1 day using a part of the name, and suddenly it’s only showing up when searching for the full name.. goodbye sales 🙂

          ControlTowerVRAuthor
          Participant
          August 30, 2024

          Update: Control Tower VR is now searchable and I was able to add keywords. The version with keywords was released a few days ago and yet, I can easily find it with part of the game title but I cannot find the game with any of the keywords I have added. Anyone else has their keywords not working?

          keycapgames
          Up and Coming
          August 30, 2024

          Same exact thing with both my games.

            BunnyJoker
            New Participant
            November 29, 2024

            We have the same problem. We have a snowboard game called Slowp, and none of our keywords (that includes "snowboard") works! When we search for snowboard, all other games appear but ours don't. 

            We have seen many other new games released after that, and they all appear on search, but ours don't. No one on Meta seems willing to help. 
            It has been like this for almost 3 months now. A ticket with support won't do anything.

              keycapgames
              Up and Coming
              November 29, 2024

              Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do. It’s just how a monopoly is like 🙂

                ControlTowerVRAuthor
                Participant
                December 4, 2024

                I have tried one more time to reach out to support proving with screenshots that the keywords are ignored. They replied in a corporate language that things are how they should be.

                It seems that they don’t want to show all games in a search, they still select what games are searchable and what games are not. 
                My guess is that behind the scene, there is still the AppLabs system, from what I understand, they will only allow an app to be searchable with the keywords if an app has enough engagement. The advantage of this hidden app labs system is that partial title is searchable and if an app gets traction, they will move an app out of app labs system. The recommendation is to do our own promotion outside of meta store with social media and Sidequest.

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