Editors' Choice (Google Play) is the label Google Play's editorial team uses to highlight what it deems the very best apps and games for a given topic, an editorial judgment that ad spend cannot buy.
Google describes Play featuring as manual selection by a team of editors and merchandisers, and says it uses the Editors' Choice label for what it deems the very best apps for a given topic. Those teams weigh the quality of the app experience plus novelty, design, usefulness of the content and breadth of appeal. Developers can pay to appear on Play, but only in clearly marked ad sections. Play's metadata policy also bars claiming the label: "Editor's choice" cannot appear in an app's title, icon or developer name.
The route to it differs from the App Store, where developers can submit featuring nominations in App Store Connect. Google offers no application for the Editors' Choice label; its editors choose. The practical path is Google's bar for featuring, which requires "great" quality judged across four pillars: core value, user experience, technical quality, and privacy and security. In our experience that means clean Android vitals, strong ratings, regular meaningful updates and, where eligible, a steady promotional content calendar that gives editors something new to consider.
Example
A note-taking app can't apply for the label, so its team spends a quarter cutting its ANR rate, replying to reviews and shipping a polished handwriting feature with fresh screenshots. That strengthens the quality signals Play's editors weigh, with no guarantee of selection.