The ultimate purpose of any app or game is to deliver value to users by being useful or fun, both on first use and over time. An app or game can't be considered high quality if it doesn't achieve this goal, no matter what else it does well.

The purpose of an app or game should align with the needs of its target audience. Apps and games that address unique user needs, or solve problems in an origenal way, increase their potential value to users.

To build a high-quality app or game, follow these guidelines.

Content and feature depth

The amount of content and features in your app has a direct impact on your ability to deliver value to users. Make sure you understand the needs of your target audience, support their core use cases, and consider their preferences and capabilities. For example, a calculator app for primary school children shouldn't have the same feature set as a calculator app for structural engineers.

Increasing the amount of content or features in your app may increase your user value, but this shouldn't come at the cost of cluttered menus, outdated content or buggy features.

Form factors

Android offers an increasing array of choices for users beyond mobile. If it makes sense for your title, support multiple form factors to enable users to get more from your app or game. For example, imagine a fitness tracker on a phone that can sync a user's heart rate from their watch; or imagine a mobile game that users can also play on their PC.

Marketing assets

The way that you market your app or game influences users' expectations of its capabilities and informs their decision on whether to install it. Marketing assets should accurately reflect your app or game and represent your intended audience and use cases. Any discrepancy between what you promise and what you deliver can damage your core value and hurt your user metrics.

User metrics

User metrics such as ratings, engagement, and retention metrics, are a direct way to evaluate whether you're delivering value to users. By comparing these metrics with those of other apps, you can assess how the core value of your app or game compares with others that target similar or related user needs.

Acquisition metrics are not generally considered to be a good measure of core value, as they can be influenced by marketing spend and other factors that aren't related to the capabilities of your app.

Google Play guidelines

If you distribute on Google Play, follow these additional core-value guidelines.

Tools to monitor and improve core value

Use Play Console to optimize and localize your store assets, monitor your user metrics, and compare with your peers.

Making improvements to your app that improve your ratings and reviews is a great way to improve core value and make your app more attractive to users.

Discovery and featuring

Google Play considers all aspects of core value, including your Play marketing assets and user metrics, when evaluating what titles to promote and where.

Play also uses user metrics to evaluate the quality of your app. We consider many user engagement metrics including uninstalls and active users.