2011-2016, what can we find from the best of Apple AppStore?

iPad

Outstanding Games – Lara Croft Go; Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft; Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade

Innovative Game - Dark Echo

iPad

Best Game – Vainglory

Excellent games – Implosion; Rayman Adventures; Lara Croft Go;

Innovative Game - Shadowmatic

Best Game – Monument Valley

Excellent Game - Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Outstanding Game – Clumsy Ninja

iPad

Best Game – Badland

Outstanding Game – Clumsy Ninja

Excellent Game – Horn

iPad

Best Game – The Room

Excellent Game – Bastion

iPad

Game of the Year Gold Medal - Dead Space; Contre Jour; Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery Ep

In 2011, Apple only gave out three so-called annual gold awards on both the iPhone and iPad platforms; in 2012, it changed to selecting the best game and outstanding game on the iPhone and iPad platforms respectively, and this selection method continued until 2014; after entering 2015, Apple added the Innovative Game Award on this basis; this year, Apple simply launched the double top ten for mobile phones and tablets, and the game ranked first in each top ten is the best game of the year for that platform.

From 2011 to 2015, even in China where inferior products were rampant and online games dominated, Apple still gave awards to core and stand-alone products in its annual selections. In 2011, the stand-alone IP-transferred FPS game Dead Space won the iPad Game of the Year Gold Medal.

In 2012, Rayman Jungle Adventure, Horn, and Bastion won the Best and Excellent Game Awards. Rayman and Bastion are both high-quality games backed by the PC platform, while Horn is an AR PG game with obvious stand-alone features.

Relatively speaking, core games were relatively unpopular in the 2013 selection. Although Badland is not a traditional hardcore game, it is also a pure stand-alone game across multiple platforms such as PC and consoles.

2014 should perhaps be called the year of "Monument Valley". It was almost the biggest winner and phenomenal game of the entire year in mobile games. However, the emergence of the mobile version of "Hearthstone" still retains the dignity of hardcore games. Although it only appears as a derivative of the online game "World of Warcraft", its core background and origin are beyond doubt.

2015 was a year of "blowout" awards for core games. Apart from Vainglory which won an award with the help of Apple, Hearthstone won the award again. Among the other award-winning games, Rayman Adventures is a new series of classic core games, while Lara Croft Go is a derivative of the core action game series Tomb Raider, and Implosion, launched by Rayark, is a core action game with no in-app purchases.

However, to some extent, 2015 seems to be the last glorious year for core games on the Apple platform. When the time came to 2016, we looked at the top ten games for iPhone and iPad, and none of them could be related to the "core" category - "Clash Royale" focused on real-time online strategy PVP, "Onmyoji", which was criticized by all players as "hardcore" but was still very popular, won countless LU users with its super high appearance, "VOEZ" took a niche and non-traditional route, and "My Civilization" was a big thunder with little results.

As players are gradually being educated about native mobile gaming products, Apple's perception of gaming is also shifting from EA and Ubisoft to native mobile gaming companies. Mobile gaming, which has long been debated as to whether it should be "light or heavy," has gradually found its answer, at least in Apple's selection. Of course, IP derivative products with world-class reputation like "FIFA" will still be favored in Apple's selection. For this, we can refer to the top ten games in 2016 in many regions including the United States, Canada, and Australia.

However, this situation seems to have improved significantly in 2016. I don't know whether it is to better adapt to the tastes of local Chinese users, but in 2016 Apple chose to use the top ten approach to showcase its favored game products. This undoubtedly gave more local products more and better exposure opportunities - for example, NetEase, which has always had a good relationship with Apple, won a place in the top ten with "Onmyoji", Rayark won another award with "VOEZ", and the independent game "Super Phantom Cat" produced purely by Chinese people also won the top ten. At the same time, many products from major international manufacturers, including "FIFA", failed to win awards in the Chinese selection.

Before 2016, the only game that performed relatively well on the best-selling list in China and eventually won Apple's annual award was Hearthstone. Even the once popular Clash of Clans (COC) did not win any awards, and its sequel Boom Beach was only nominated for Outstanding Game.

But after entering 2016, the interesting rules formed in the AppStore annual selection in the past five years were broken in one fell swoop. In addition to "Clash Royale" winning the best title worldwide, the emerging "Onmyoji" which performed well on the best-selling list also made it into the top ten. This was an extremely rare situation in the past AppStore annual selection.