Skich Enters the Fray as a New Contender in Alternative App Stores

With Apple's ecosystem now open to alternative app stores, the race to become the first successful alt app store on iOS is heating up. Enter Skich, a new player in the altstore space that's carving out a niche with a strong focus on gaming. Unlike broader platforms like Apptoide, Skich aims to stand out by emphasizing gaming and leveraging a robust set of discoverability features.

At the heart of Skich's appeal is its discoverability system, which includes three key components: a sophisticated recommendation engine, a swipe-based discovery feature, and a social system. These allow users to see what games their friends and others with similar tastes are playing. This setup might remind you of Steam, a comparison that's not unwelcome. While the Epic Games Store for iOS, for example, inherits some limitations from its PC version, particularly in social features and game discovery, Skich seems poised to fill this gap.

Skich's focus on gamer-centric features is undoubtedly its strongest selling point. However, the question remains: can this be enough to draw users away from established platforms? Epic Games Store uses the allure of free games to entice users, while Apptoide casts a wider net by including various types of apps. Skich's success hinges on its ability to convince gamers that its unique features are worth the switch.

While Skich's future is uncertain, the trend of larger publishers like EA and Flexion exploring alternative app stores suggests a potential shift in the market. We might soon see a landscape where these new entrants challenge the dominance of official storefronts, making the gaming ecosystem on iOS more diverse and competitive.