Yes. Since 2010, I've been begging in forums on Android and iOS to use a heavily layered category system or tagging system that would allow me to narrow and filter my search as much as I need to. I want this as a consumer. I want this as a developer. Why it doesn't exist makes absolutely no sense to me. Especially for games.
I should be able to go to action games, then platformers, then side-scrolling, endless, speed run, leveled, then filter out only those with boss battles, or powerup-ups, or 8-bit graphics, etc, and so-on.
The only thing I figure is that the developers will abuse the ability to tag their own apps, making the fine-tuned results even more ridiculous than general results.
I think what you want could be solved by a better search. If there was a better search you could search for an 8-bit platformer game and find a list of them. Tagging doesn't really add anything that a better search couldn't provide. Plus, a better search in descriptions means that the terms still have to make sense in a description. I guess you could load the description up with terms, but I suspect that it is more likely that one would get caught gaming the system that with tags.
In my opinion, it's in Apple's best interest to improve discoverability as it could result in more apps being sold.
The problem with a lot of categories is that it makes navigation cumbersome as you'd need many taps to get to an app.
Oh, and if you want change (at least in the iOS case), send feedback to Apple and/or a bug report. Complaining on forums does nothing.
Sadly, yes. There's no evidence that Apple has any interest in improving the App Store experience for devs or for customers.
In fact, I'm not convinced that Apple knows how to improve the experience. No one in Cupertino seems to be acting as dev or consumer champion, and upper management are apparently too removed to understand what's needed.
I should be able to go to action games, then platformers, then side-scrolling, endless, speed run, leveled, then filter out only those with boss battles, or powerup-ups, or 8-bit graphics, etc, and so-on.
The only thing I figure is that the developers will abuse the ability to tag their own apps, making the fine-tuned results even more ridiculous than general results.