Gaming the App Store: Real life examples

I find this astonishing:

This is RedCross Rescue, or at least that was its title when MobileX Labs released it in November of 2012. But after a few months of poor sales, its name was changed to “Bike Race HD” in January 2013. It gained some traction, breaking the top 250 in the Adventure category, but it began to slip once more.

Then, just last month, its fortunes miraculously shifted, climbing almost 750 spots from its 1,000+ ranking in Adventure to the top 300. But this amazing change of fortune wasn’t due to a new update, cool level pack, or added functionality. No, it was achieved with nothing more than a simple name change. Overnight, Bike Race HD became “Bike Race Ninja Clumsy Run HD.”

Capitalizing on the absolutely scorching hot search term “Clumsy Ninja,” the app did quite well, but its transformation wasn’t complete. On February 14, a simple new app called “Le Pupppy” took the App Store by storm, becoming a top 10 game shortly after launch. And wouldn’t you know it, as soon as Le Pupppy began its climb to the top, the app formerly known as RedCross Rescue evolved once again, this time to “Le Puppy Clumsy Biker Pupppy Race Ninja 2 HD.”

The article goes on to follow this app through another renaming scheme. Not sure how to police this, but this just hurts everyone.