> It's why virtually all mobile games transitioned from paid-upfront to the current model of dangling progress in front of the user and offering to pay to relie

> It's why virtually all mobile games transitioned from paid-upfront to the current model of dangling progress in front of the user and offering to pay to relieve the artificial obstacle. Yes, that, but also because people will pay a lot more for IAP, over and over again. (Total amounts paid for super-engaged users will run to 10s of thousands of $, far beyond what you can even charge for a single app.) (And on the flip side, the developer has to continue to improve and maintain the game to keep the $ coming.) Much of the time, in my experience, when you pay to download an unknown app, it'll end up being poorly implemented in some way, and never made better. It's like paying $2 for a cup of coffee, but 95% of the time, the coffee turns out to be dirty water.