46 ms·

App store payments will have increased competition

331 points by laurieg 5y ago

patio11 5y ago
Happy to chat about it, HN, since otherwise I'd just be playing more Genshin Impact. My capsule review of the game nobody asked for: if you like Breath of the Wild, you'll likely enjoy it a lot. It is not as pure of an exploration game at BotW is, and the emergent game mechanics that made BotW such a joy, a toy which produced its own unique stories with every player, are mostly absent. The exploration doesn't tie in closely with the plot like it does in BotW. But, other than that, it's an extremely, extremely effective game. Excellent art and music design; the graphics compare favorably to anything I've ever seen in an AAA game if you like this anime-inspired visual style. I find the combat similar to single-player WoW with more interesting strategic choices (regarding party comp, etc) and less interesting tactical choices. Harder encounters are fun puzzles to solve. While the actual story in the game is nothing we haven't seen done better before, the character interactions are an extremely interesting Chinese take on Chinese/Japanese/Western fantasy tropes. Someone could get an East Asian Studies thesis out of it fairly easily. It's amusing to "read" with that cultural commentary lens on; the localization is also surprisingly well done (including both English and Japanese, to the extent you credit me with being able to perceive that). The metagame about how to progress as quickly as possible, and where to invest your resources / how to harvest them efficiently, also pushes my buttons very effectively.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I like Breath of the Wild, but trying Genshin Impact was like having a root canal done on my brain. After around 30 minutes of playing it I had to put it down, grinding a game for the promise of being able to buy microtransactions is not a effective way for me to spend my time. Maybe it's just because I'm not an MMO fan, but Genshin feels like a regression in the genre of JRPGs.
  - kahrl 5y ago
    CRPG.
  - johnnyanmac 5y ago
    I'm of two minds on it. On one hand, yeah. Grind for a chance (a low one, even among other mobile games) of pulling a favorite character can be a discouraging model. And having no end in sight can be disenheartening for those wanting to binge on a compelted game. But on the other hand, JRPGs tend to not get major updates, and are now taking 3-5+ years per game to meat that criteria. Unlike fighting games, you can't make meaningful character DLC post release that would mesh into the game. The very closest I've seen to this in modern times is Kingdom Hearts' 3 DLC letting you play as 2 additional characters... for one specific boss fight each out of a ~5 hour DLC of a 30-40 hour game. Meanwhile, new characters, events, and areas drop monthly for Genshin. Without a direct subscription cost if you treat the game as a JRPG with some 4-5 playable characters gotten in story (which is average for a modern JRPG) and ignore the new characters other JRPGs don't have the option for. There are some very niche benefits and workaround of issues most JRPGs have today in Genshin. ---- I don't really have much of a point here. Just rambling on some musings that I wish console JRPGs could take lessons from. I guess I just miss those days where is didn't feel like Final Fantasy (and ONLY FF) was the only big JRPG in town pushing graphical boundaries, and Genshin gave me some of those vibes. Moreso than any JRPG in the 2010's outside of FF and KH. Tales of Arise coming in a few weeks gives me some hopes, but I want to hope this isn't just a one-off fluke in the genre.
- sleibrock 5y ago
  I think the distinct lack of enemy diversity is what kills it for me. Even the boss designs are overall lackluster. A bunch of cubes casting spells, or an ice/fire flower. I go to challenge this water goddess thing and instead I fight water squirrels and crabs. That and I can only kill about four bosses a day for rewards. First going in I thought I would be playing with friends and fighting bosses. Now I've been told not to do that because you don't want friends stealing your chests. Maybe I'm doing things wrong.
  - professorsnep 5y ago
    Enemy diversity is just part of another big issue for me: General gameplay diversity. Most of the stuff the game has you do outside of story content is just fighting the same enemies or boss types. There's no unique dungeons or bosses, the "domains" you need to farm for gear are all just waves of enemies, daily quests are just killing enemies, etc. There's rarely any unique mechanics or novel ideas that actually change the way you play, which makes the game get stale fast.
  - cosmojg 5y ago
    Just a heads up, you're the only one who can open your chests in Genshin Impact. The most that other players can do to your detriment is pick flowers.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  Do you think this will have any impact on aps that are not pay to win games?
- ezekg 5y ago
  This blog post is published tomorrow, just a funny heads up :)
  - mlpinit 5y ago
    Different time zone: Time zone in Tokyo, Japan (GMT+9)
    - ezekg 5y ago
      Ah, good call. Forgot he's in Japan. My mistake.
- ChuckMcM 5y ago
  At some point I hope this model evolves to engage content creators. Clearly the biggest "draw" for these sorts of games is new content, and that is a sort of sunk cost with developers who pay people to create new content so that they can monetize it. However, when it shifts into something like an MLM scheme where an "end user" can develop new content and then deliver it through the game engine, and then the game engine owner and person who developed the content "share" in the monetization (one by game sales etc, the other by in game currencies) then games like PoE and others can grow diversity without hiring. The incentive alignment is pretty clear, really avid players can both improve their own playing experience (enrich themselves in game) by doing this, and the game developer gets more people playing because there is such an interesting mix of things to do an see. At some point this evolves into market exchanges where people who can conceive compelling stories find others who are skilled at art or puzzle design and they can form a group for the purposes of delivering a bit of gameplay content that they share in the rewards from. If you are having a hard time visualizing this, consider WoW for a moment. Let's say Bliz had a way for an avid player to "design" an NPC, write their back story, their interaction dialogs, and the quests they would give in the execution of their "story". An artist teams up with this person to provide textures for either an existing character type, or potentially designing a completely new kind of creature for this. All WoW quests have a fairly fixed set of game mechanics choices to work from so putting those together in ways that are interesting might be the role of a third member of this ad-hoc group. Once completing the story line you have access to a vendor NPC who will sell you various items for WoW gold (pets, spells, recipes, etc). If the "team" that came up with this whole package got a cut of the WoW gold that the vendor received for their wares, that would provide an incentive to this team to make their content compelling. That may be all the incentive they need. And Bliz gets a quest chain + vendor + content that enhances game play for all players and keeps it fresh. Sort of like the virtual gig economy where players add content to the game in exchange for in game currency.
  - nxrabl 5y ago
    What you’re describing sounds a lot like Second Life, which launched in 2003 and is still running. (Incidentally, to tie it back to Genshin, Second Life recently banned gacha-style transactions on its platform [0]) [0] https://ryanschultz.com/2021/08/02/second-life-bans-gacha-machines/ https://ryanschultz.com/2021/08/02/second-life-bans-gacha-ma...
- franciscop 5y ago
  I've seen it announced a thousand times on the trains in Tokyo, and I'm always drooling at how beautiful it looks, but assumed it was just marketing and not the real gameplay. I'll give it a try, thanks for the review!
- kbenson 5y ago
  I learned all I want to know about that game while my 11 year old was playing it. Sounded like BotW with annoyingly long and useless grinding to get weird crystals or something that are needed to buy better weapons (or buy loot boxes of a sort with low good loot chace, IIRC). It didn't sound horrible, because he seemed to like the gameplay, but I didn't feel any desire to get into a game where you can pay for benefit (I tend to the other end of the spectrum, repeatedly punishing deaths until you get better, like Dark Souls). He probably spent a total of ~$80 on the game, over 4-6 months. I don't count that as too bad, as it's not much more than buying it and an expansion would cost, and it provided him a lot of entertainment. That said, the reason it as only ~$80 is because I was controlling the purse strings.
  - ve55 5y ago
    That's the rough part with acquiring characters (or anything) through the equivalent of cash-funded roulette: you can set out to spend a certain amount to attain something you want, but it might not work, and if you're sufficiently unlucky it may turn into an order of magnitude more spending than you originally intended. While you could of course commit to only spending $X and dealing with the results even if they're unsatisfactory, this can be surprisingly difficult psychologically, combining the best of the gambler's fallacy with the sunk cost fallacy (among many other behaviors very cleverly inspired by the game's developers) into one.
    - kbenson 5y ago
      Worse for me, as I'll likely ignore the pay route and go the exceedingly long and grindy route, and if I feel they've made that far too punishing for the rewards, I'll likely feel the game isn't rewarding enough to play. I'm not really interesting in proving to myself that I can pay money to do better than other people, so it doesn't help me enjoy games that are competitive in any way, and if it's a non-competitive game, I just feel like I'm being manipulated, which also saps the enjoyment out of it for me. I don't mind purely cosmetic offerings being present in games, and I'll even buy a few. But if I feel like I'm competing on a field that's stratified by money, it just kills the enjoyment for me. It's the same reason I stopped playing Magic: The Gathering back in the mid nineties a few months after when it was first released. It was fun when we all had starter decks, but after friends started collecting special cards, I saw where I thought it was going an opted out. The realization just sapped a lot of the enjoyment out of the game for me.
- novok 5y ago
  What is the interesting Chinese take on it?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- darren_ 5y ago
  Strong disagree, if you like BoTW and are looking for similar you might get tricked into liking it for a bit until you notice how incredibly lackluster it is both at being BoTW (and at being interesting otherwise). The lack of emergent mechanics is a huge deal, but even the basic exploration sucks. Mondstadt is an utterly forgettable area (OK, the town is kind of fine, but the surrounding countryside is samey and unremarkable), and while Liyue is more interesting, it's mechanically awful as suddenly the verticality of the scenery increases massively so now your 'gameplay' consists of micromanaging your stamina meter as you tediously scale mountains. I quit before the new area so maybe it's better, I suppose? And the non-BoTW elements are bad too. The 'strategic' choices in combat involve knowing what you're going to fight, matching your elements to that as best you can (oh, by the way, the two guaranteed free fire element characters are awful at actually delivering fire damage, so hope you gacha-ed one of the good ones if you need fire element). Where's the interesting strategy there? And then the actual fight is just spamming your attacks and rapid-fire switching characters so the elemental effects stack. Also, quite likely you're fighting a boss design that is literally a cube (there are multiple of these). The 'meta-game' is knowing which bosses/domains/whatever you're going to grind x times today to maximise the chances of dropping one of the hundreds of materials you need to level up whichever character/weapon/skill you're targeting at this point. It's not exactly complex, the game tells you what drops you can expect. It's just a tedious grind, and it's cynically designed to keep you coming back to the game day after day (for people who haven't played: you can only grind these bosses/domains x times per day, and it doesn't take long before grinding up the materials you need to level up something requires multiple days of this grind. You can, of course, pay IRL money to grind a few more times in a given day. Oh, and you can only grind certain things on certain days of the week. So monday you're grinding for a weapon upgrade, tuesday for a skill upgrade, etc. It's incredibly obvious manipulation.) And then after all that, the game levels up the world as you progress. You start out the game hitting level 10 hillichurls with your sword 5 times to kill them. After hours of playtime and leveling up and forging advanced weapons, you're now hitting level 60 hillichurls with your sword 5 times to kill them. Wow!
AlexandrB 5y ago
As an avid Genshin Impact player, I think this style of game needs to be heavily regulated. Besides endless grinding for slightly better random stats on a few items, there is little endgame progression possible outside of rolling for new characters in the "gatcha", and the prices are insanely high! I find that this setup generates a compulsion in me to spend money for "one more roll". And while I've never been to a real casino, this resembles accounts of gambling addiction. At a minimum, these games should be rated 18+. There's no way it's healthy for kids to be exposed to mechanics that amount to unregulated gambling before they've even developed some modicum of self control.
- patio11 5y ago
  Experiences can be compelling without being addictive, which is a distinction I think sometimes lost here. Civilization is compelling and I for one have lost some sleep to Just One More Turn, but one rarely loses one's job or family over Civilization, which is not true of gambling addiction. Inability to stop despite sincere desire to stop, negative impact across multiple outside-the-activity areas of life, etc, are diagnostic criteria for addictions of all sort for basically this reason. As a parent, I probably wouldn't encourage my children to play either WoW or Genshin Impact or similar until I had a strong bead on their level of self-regulation capacity.
  - mattnewton 5y ago
    I think the difference here is that Genshin only has variable rewards and allows you to pull levers for them with real money. Civilization (for the right player) has bottomless gameplay time, A game like WoW has a fixed subscription cost (with cosmetics) and a bottomless gameplay time; what Genshin Impact adds to the danger list is the “gacha” style gameplay progression where you gamble with as much money as you are willing to spend for game items, stat boosts and characters, many available for only a limited time. I have no doubt this model is much more lucrative but it feels like there is a slot machine standing in the way of what is otherwise a very impressive fusion of different ARPG ideas.
    - 5y ago
stalfosknight 5y ago
I don't think so. I'm sure I'm not the only one who really enjoys the convenience of managing all of my payments and subscriptions in one place in the Settings app. EDIT: You can downvote me all you like, but you need to deal with the fact that the end user's experience is more important than a bunch of devs who think they are entitled to be free riders on an App Store that is most certainly not free to develop or maintain.
- minhazm 5y ago
  It comes down to how much you're spending. People are spending hundreds of dollars (some spend thousands) on Genshin and other gotcha games. If you're spending hundreds of dollars and you can get 30% more virtual currency for your money then you're much more likely to go out of your way to do it.
  - stalfosknight 5y ago
    I really dislike the whole "freemium" or "free-to-play" category of games and I refuse to touch that garbage. Software should have a fair upfront price. It's not complicated.
    - ezekg 5y ago
      It's even worse when you have kids... your toddler gets upset because the very fun looking princess puzzle she's trying to play "is broken." In reality, it's just pay-walled.
    - svachalek 5y ago
      It's so hard to find anymore. Digital board games are one exception, there are a lot of really excellent ones with great replay value for a fixed price. Scythe, Root, Spirit Island, Railroad Ink, Wingspan, Through the Ages, Galaxy Trucker...
    - orangecat 5y ago
      The IAP model became dominant on mobile largely because of Apple's store policies and their refusal to allow other forms of distribution. Meanwhile Steam and many other channels are largely pay-once, and they exist only because of the developer freedom that you decry.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
NHQ 5y ago
Would it not be more profitable to process all payments for all internet transactions, rather than one app store? Ditch app stores, fully integrate the web as a platform, then bake Apple/Google pay into the browser/OS, and just be the payment processor for all transactions. This would also make it much easier for web developers to fetch payments from their apps, no third party API needed. The boost in volume from this factor alone should be considerable.
- astlouis44 5y ago
  We're building this at our startup - a universal app store in WebGL. Primary use case is for game developers (Unreal Engine, and later Unity). No 30% fees, applications work everywhere. For users, clicking a link is much easier than installing an app.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  Apple already has baked in Apple Pay to Safari for a cut of all transactions.
  - rollcat 5y ago
    Apple Pay doesn't take a cut.
    - _jal 5y ago
      I'm not sure what exactly you're including/excluding under the 'Apple Pay' umbrella here, but what do you call the merchant discount rate?
    - Hamuko 5y ago
      It absolutely does. https://www.theregister.com/2014/09/13/apple_to_get_15_cents_for_every_100_dollar_payment_on_its_pay_service_says_ft https://www.theregister.com/2014/09/13/apple_to_get_15_cents...
jscottmiller 5y ago
With respect to the author, I found the article a bit overwrought and folks may bounce before getting the gist. tl;dr Apple will be more generous in allowing developers to message their customers about payment options outside the app. This is a big deal for virtual game economies (and others!) because now Epic can email/message you about a fortnite vbuck bundle sold from their website, where epic can pay their payment provider, say, 3% plus $0.25 for a $10 transaction rather than the 30% App Store fee, saving $2.45! The revenant Apple text: > To give developers even more flexibility to reach their customers, Apple is also clarifying that developers can use communications, such as email, to share information about payment methods outside of their iOS app. As always, developers will not pay Apple a commission on any purchases taking place outside of their app or the App Store. Users must consent to the communication and have the right to opt out. Very exciting stuff, and Patrick is right that this messaging will be rolled out quickly by games and others.
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
  > folks may bounce before getting the gist Agreed. I had to read it more than twice to get what he was talking about. I'd say that the the only reason I bothered is that I usually like patio11's insights so I figured it was worth trying to understand it. Since I'm not a gamer, I got distracted trying to understand a lot of the game stuff and why it was so relevant to what he was getting at. ps, I like your tl;dr :-)
lifeisstillgood 5y ago
Was listening to Ben Evan's podcast earlier today and he had a stat from the Apple / Epic trial that shook me a bit - in a given month in 2016 something like 0.05% of Apple users were spending in excess of 450 USD on in-app purchases. And that was 54% of App store revenue. This is basically addicts gambling. Its the sort of numbers you see at Casinos and online casinos, and ... i dunno. It saddens me. Yes the vast vast majority of players have a "bit of fun", most never pay for anything, but all the profit comes from the addicts. Even in IOS App Store. Which really did look like it was trying to avoid that.
- dvt 5y ago
  > This is basically addicts gambling. A bit tangential, but there is some serious cognitive dissonance here on HN (and more broadly in the tech world in general). When Apple/Google does this -- facilitates some kind of arguably degenerate behavior -- it's "evil." But when OnlyFans does it -- sex addicts, lonely guys, social weirdos that need friends collectively spend millions of dollars on parasocial fake OnlyFans relationships -- this "empowers sex workers."
  - makeva 5y ago
    I think you are making a connection that I can't find. Care to elaborate?
    - hengri 5y ago
      Could be that HN is more inclined to use OF than play mobile games heh
  - jjulius 5y ago
    FWIW, I've seen many discussions about how OF's biggest spenders are people like that in many OF-related threads on HN.
  - paulddraper 5y ago
    I've seen equal criticism of both.
ArchOversight 5y ago
I know I am probably not your average consumer, but I am not looking forward to this at all. I like having a single place that my payment info is stored and processed, and I trust Apple with it. With this new world order everyone and their dog is going to be asking for my credit card details and who knows how well or safely it is going to be handled/stored. For small purchases I really don't want to have to enter my credit card details.
- tommymachine 5y ago
  seems like by using Apple Pay / google pay your fears would be assuaged?
  - ArchOversight 5y ago
    Apple Pay still sends a credit card number to a website. Where it may be used like any other credit card number. Same with Google Pay.
    - tommymachine 5y ago
      pretty sure at least apple pay uses a dynamic security code, and not just a raw card number that can be saved?
      - judge2020 5y ago
        Yes > After you authenticate your transaction, the Secure Element provides your Device Account Number and a transaction-specific dynamic security code to the store’s point of sale terminal along with additional information needed to complete the transaction. Again, neither Apple nor your device sends your actual payment card number. Before they approve the payment, your bank, card issuer, or payment network can verify your payment information by checking the dynamic security code to make sure that it’s unique and tied to your device. > Like with in-store payments, Apple sends your Device Account Number to the app or website along with the transaction-specific dynamic security code. Neither Apple nor your device sends your actual payment card number to the app. Note that this can be prefaced by 'usually' - some banks, instead of generating a new unique ID for Apple Pay, will use the CC number itself, or will at least augment the device ID with the payment card (I noticed this as receipts showed the last 4 of the card, despite using Apple Pay). https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203027 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203027
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mattnewton 5y ago
I would pay more per app to a third party App Store that promised platform independence- that is, I can take my App Library with me to android from iOS or from iOS to android, where supported, like I do with steam windows/Mac/Linux.
- boplicity 5y ago
  Exactly. I own a lot of game licenses via Steam and Epic. I expect to be able to use those licenses no matter the device I'm using. This alone is why app stores should be de-coupled from hardware vendors.
amelius 5y ago
So we can't mention other payment methods inside our own apps. Isn't that a violation of Freedom Of Speech?
- ChrisKingWebDev 5y ago
  Freedom of speech only refers to your ability to criticize the government. A private company can do whatever they want with their platform.
  - jjcon 5y ago
    It does violate the concept of freedom of speech (though it does not violate the law as enshrined in USA 1st amendment to the constitution)
  - amelius 5y ago
    Ok, well it violates my definition of freedom of speech.
OldHand2018 5y ago
The Genshin Impact behavior, as described, sounds like a true nightmare. It's like when you skimmed through the Epic lawsuit against Apple and they described all the "features" that Apple is "preventing", I just wanted to throw up. On the customer side, who the hell wants this stuff?
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  well, it's a monetization model and not a gameplay feature for a reason. Financial incentives will always be at war with the consumer ideal of "free and constantly updating, no strings attached". I don't think anyone "wants" to pay for this kinda stuff. But many have.
- wonnage 5y ago
  The customer probably just wants a button they can click in-app to pay for stuff.
nikodunk 5y ago
Another, less rosy take: https://world.hey.com/dhh/apple-s-new-settlement-is-a-corrupt-joke-bd8b9c1e https://world.hey.com/dhh/apple-s-new-settlement-is-a-corrup...
- senojsitruc 5y ago
  > But it gets worse, because the trophy of this settlement, as presented in the press, is supposedly that developers can now tell their customers where to buy services outside the app. Except no, that's not actually what's happening! Apple is simply "clarifying" that companies can send an email to their customers, if they've gotten permission to do so, on an opt-in basis. That email may include information about how to buy outside the app. This is exactly the problem. Without the ability to at least link to (if not fully integrate) a payment system, this settlement is a total sham. Hopefully South Korea will make the first real crack in this dam.
cblconfederate 5y ago
This is not a new situation, Facebook platform games went through all those gaming-the-gamers phases 10 years ago. If devs start baiting people to give their address, soon all the devs will do that and apple will ban it because reasons. Very few people will give their email anyway. Overall the impact will be minimal. Also, surprised that apple hasn't banned those gacha things yet.
somehnacct3757 5y ago
Interesting wrinkle for Mihoyo (Genshin Impact dev), I've heard from a big spender friend that he purposely buys primos on iPad even though he plays on PC. This is because their PC payment flow routes through China and puts flags on his card. They may need to address that first, before they can route more US traffic through a non-apple flow. Still worth their time, but could refute the "single sprint" dev cost in the article.
kposehn 5y ago
A few notes about Genshin Impact: - Genesis Crystals are the base currency that RMT get you in Genshin Impact, not Primogems. You have to choose to convert them in order to do wishes (Gacha rolls) - In 2.0, MiHoYo implemented cross-save functionality with PlayStation, PC and iOS. This allows PS players to now play on other devices, but importantly Genesis Crystals do not carry over between platforms - The end result is that your RMT purchase is locked into the platform you use until you convert it into Primogems - As a result, Genesis Crystal purchases have an additional hurdle that MiHoYo has to deal with to incentivize users (GC->Primogems conversion) but it is by no means insurmountable
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  Correct, this is often common practice with any cross platform app (usually IOS/Android). I imagine for platform policy reasons they can't just let you move over premium currency that was bought on one platform.
josephd79 5y ago
Honestly , I think developers are going to have a hard time changing peoples behavior. If its vastly cheaper to pay outside of the app store, sure I can see that impacting peoples decisions on how they pay. But, if you're only talking about a couple bucks, most people are just going to say f it, its easier to just use in-app purchases. Also, if you think about it. people would probably only do that for apps and games that you can play across several different devices.
- collaborative 5y ago
  Most people have a paypal account they can use instead of Apple/Google. It's also a lazy payment method, a couple clicks and you're done
  - josephd79 5y ago
    true, but it requires you to go to their website and pay. You still can't put payment links to third party payment processors in the app. You have to offer something big enough to get them to choose to take the time outside of the app.
    - collaborative 5y ago
      You can just embed the paypal payment in a web view inside the app. I currently do that for example for rooted users because many of them have hacked the IAP to auto approve. It's very doable
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
sedev 5y ago
One of the better things Apple does with their position as a middleman is give customers more control over their relationship with app creators of all kinds. If the customer is unhappy about their experience, iOS gives them what amounts to a one-click "get off my phone and get out of my wallet" button. Compare this to the notorious New York Times cancellation rigamarole where cancelling a subscription required a phone call to a person whose job was to talk you out of cancelling. This level of autonomy is clearly valuable to customers: behold the widespread dissatisfaction about subscriptions vs. one-time purchases. People don't like the experience of being strongarmed into a business relationship any more than they like it with interpersonal relationships, and rightly so. However, because Apple exerted the degree of control that it did over what shape a customer relationship mediated by their app store could look like, it hasn't been clear exactly _how_ valuable that control is to consumers. Once app creators have options for customer relationships other than Apple's app store, I expect that we'll find out exactly how valuable that autonomy is to customers, and I'm personally fascinated about what the answer might be.
- bern4444 5y ago
  I find this to be equally true for Apple's hide my email service and Apple Pay. When I have to give my email out - to sign up for a service, or make a one time purchase online for the receipt etc, Apple provides the option to use a unique anonymized email alias that forwards to my iCloud account. When I want to unsubscribe from any of these services, I control it directly and can just delete email alias for that service instead of going through unsubscribe flows which don't seem to work half the time. I love using Apple Pay for a similar reason. It has that, it just works, quality, especially when ordering packages. There's absolutely zero friction and never any fixing of incorrect auto filled forms. I get the same experience everywhere and its always seamless.
- notSupplied 5y ago
  Regarding hard-to-cancel subscriptions: I always thought this should be the credit card company's responsibility. High-end credit cards like AMEX and Chase Sapphire already have so many cushy perks, what's so hard about also adding something like "We'll guarantee you can 1-click unsubscribe from anything <=$30 month and underwrite any risk of these going to collections"?
quadrifoliate 5y ago
> Gacha games are named after the onomatopoeia describing vending machines in Japanese malls and arcades which dispense toys and trinkets for, typically, 100 to 200 yen (about $1-$2). The pool of trinkets is displayed prominently on the machine; which trinket you get is effectively randomized. If you had your heart set on a particular one, you might spend much more than $1 on getting it, and some children (and adults!) very much do. Many very successful games have a monetization strategy which descends from a variant of this. I am sorry to say this as someone who usually agrees with 'patio11 on everything, but both gacha and the "monetization strategies" inspired by it (be they hawking in-game currency or trying to mine email addresses) sound like a terrible idea. I don't want gacha, or any of these monetization strategies in my ideal consumption model. I want to look at a toy in the store and buy it while knowing what I am getting. This gacha model sounds like it's incentivizing gambling from a very young age. Am I too close-minded? Idealistic? Missing some crucial part of the article? I'd like to hear, because nothing seems good about this at the moment.
- junar 5y ago
  My reading is that "successful" means "makes a lot of money for the developer". It sounds like your concern is about the effect on the consumer, which is covered in a separate footnote. https://www.kalzumeus.com/2021/08/27/app-store-payment-competition/#fn:whales https://www.kalzumeus.com/2021/08/27/app-store-payment-compe...
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  This was posted to HN a little while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIuhg0bjvQI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIuhg0bjvQI [1h 41min]. It's long, but very much worth a watch if you're interested in gacha. One of the conclusions reached is that the amount of money a game like Genshin Impact can make over time can fund development far in excess of what a traditional shipped-and-finished game could afford (even with expansions/etc). This improves the experience for everyone, > 90% of whom don't pay for the game at all. It seems like a win to me. It just requires a change of mindset: enjoying the game while accepting that your in-game resources are limited and "completion" is impossible.
EastSmith 5y ago
Not one mention of Epic in the article.
lolinder 5y ago
The proposed plan for monetizing this relies on a misunderstanding (deliberately crafted by Apple) of the app store changes. If you obtain contact information from within the app, you can't use that information to steer monetization. Here's a quote from the new policy: > Developers cannot use information obtained within the app to target individual users outside of the app to use purchasing methods other than in-app purchase (such as sending an individual user an email about other purchasing methods after that individual signs up for an account within the app). Developers can send communications outside of the app to their user base about purchasing methods other than in-app purchase.
gamerDude 5y ago
I imagine we will quickly see "popups" on ads that allow you to save 10% by buying online instead of the app store in order to cut out apples 30%. If that happens, maybe apple would reduce their fee to try and keep more money on the app store. It will definitely be an interesting change!
ineedasername 5y ago
This seems like a move designed to head off antitrust issues.
cenophor 5y ago
> There’s an interesting discourse about whether gacha games are anti-consumer or not which I don’t have enough space to do justice to here. Broadly I think they have some challenges similar to gambling, insofar as many adults gamble recreationally and enjoy it, while some are clearly harmed by it. I used to think that free-to-play games’ dependence on whales was strong evidence that they were a negative development, but I heard an argument from the CEO of Kongregate which changed my mind. Distilled to its essence, it is that “Many whales are simply employed professionals who enjoy what they enjoy, and professionals historically spend a lot of money on what they enjoy. Why should we have contempt for this in a video game when we don’t if it is e.g. figure skating or wine?” I recommend reading or watching the entire talk if you’re interested in this topic. I find it pretty disingenuous to put this in the footnote and brush it off as "not having enough space", and then went on to justify it with an opinion from someone who clearly has stake in this space. Equating whales with professionals is just completely missing the point, and is simply marketing speech that masks the underlying problem. A lot of mechanisms in Gacha games are engineered dark patterns whose sole purpose is to make money. They are basically there to exploit those who are psychologically more susceptible. It's ironic that the author uses Genshin Impact as an example and then went on to say something about spending more money in Gacha game is a reflection of professionalism. In Genshin Impact you can power up A LOT by spending money on Gacha because you can get substantially better equipment that is otherwise unavailable through normal game play, or you can power up your existing characters, too. Can someone instantly become better at skating with a better pair of skates?
- notSupplied 5y ago
  Actually, one of the reasons Genshin is lauded by it's player base is that you can clear the hardest content with free to play characters. The 5 stars have way flashier looking abilities and get more face-time in the narrative, and are generally a bit more meta, but are not leaps and bounds stronger. So Genshin has at least proven that "selling broken OP characters" is not a necessary ingredient to making a $2B hit. That said, other gacha games are definitely all about selling that power.

331 points by laurieg 5y ago

Happy to chat about it, HN, since otherwise I'd just be playing more Genshin Impact. My capsule review of the game nobody asked for: if you like Breath of the Wild, you'll likely enjoy it a lot. It is not as pure of an exploration game at BotW is, and the emergent game mechanics that made BotW such a joy, a toy which produced its own unique stories with every player, are mostly absent. The exploration doesn't tie in closely with the plot like it does in BotW. But, other than that, it's an extremely, extremely effective game. Excellent art and music design; the graphics compare favorably to anything I've ever seen in an AAA game if you like this anime-inspired visual style. I find the combat similar to single-player WoW with more interesting strategic choices (regarding party comp, etc) and less interesting tactical choices. Harder encounters are fun puzzles to solve. While the actual story in the game is nothing we haven't seen done better before, the character interactions are an extremely interesting Chinese take on Chinese/Japanese/Western fantasy tropes. Someone could get an East Asian Studies thesis out of it fairly easily. It's amusing to "read" with that cultural commentary lens on; the localization is also surprisingly well done (including both English and Japanese, to the extent you credit me with being able to perceive that). The metagame about how to progress as quickly as possible, and where to invest your resources / how to harvest them efficiently, also pushes my buttons very effectively.

smoldesu 5y ago
I like Breath of the Wild, but trying Genshin Impact was like having a root canal done on my brain. After around 30 minutes of playing it I had to put it down, grinding a game for the promise of being able to buy microtransactions is not a effective way for me to spend my time. Maybe it's just because I'm not an MMO fan, but Genshin feels like a regression in the genre of JRPGs.
- kahrl 5y ago
  CRPG.
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  I'm of two minds on it. On one hand, yeah. Grind for a chance (a low one, even among other mobile games) of pulling a favorite character can be a discouraging model. And having no end in sight can be disenheartening for those wanting to binge on a compelted game. But on the other hand, JRPGs tend to not get major updates, and are now taking 3-5+ years per game to meat that criteria. Unlike fighting games, you can't make meaningful character DLC post release that would mesh into the game. The very closest I've seen to this in modern times is Kingdom Hearts' 3 DLC letting you play as 2 additional characters... for one specific boss fight each out of a ~5 hour DLC of a 30-40 hour game. Meanwhile, new characters, events, and areas drop monthly for Genshin. Without a direct subscription cost if you treat the game as a JRPG with some 4-5 playable characters gotten in story (which is average for a modern JRPG) and ignore the new characters other JRPGs don't have the option for. There are some very niche benefits and workaround of issues most JRPGs have today in Genshin. ---- I don't really have much of a point here. Just rambling on some musings that I wish console JRPGs could take lessons from. I guess I just miss those days where is didn't feel like Final Fantasy (and ONLY FF) was the only big JRPG in town pushing graphical boundaries, and Genshin gave me some of those vibes. Moreso than any JRPG in the 2010's outside of FF and KH. Tales of Arise coming in a few weeks gives me some hopes, but I want to hope this isn't just a one-off fluke in the genre.
sleibrock 5y ago
I think the distinct lack of enemy diversity is what kills it for me. Even the boss designs are overall lackluster. A bunch of cubes casting spells, or an ice/fire flower. I go to challenge this water goddess thing and instead I fight water squirrels and crabs. That and I can only kill about four bosses a day for rewards. First going in I thought I would be playing with friends and fighting bosses. Now I've been told not to do that because you don't want friends stealing your chests. Maybe I'm doing things wrong.
- professorsnep 5y ago
  Enemy diversity is just part of another big issue for me: General gameplay diversity. Most of the stuff the game has you do outside of story content is just fighting the same enemies or boss types. There's no unique dungeons or bosses, the "domains" you need to farm for gear are all just waves of enemies, daily quests are just killing enemies, etc. There's rarely any unique mechanics or novel ideas that actually change the way you play, which makes the game get stale fast.
- cosmojg 5y ago
  Just a heads up, you're the only one who can open your chests in Genshin Impact. The most that other players can do to your detriment is pick flowers.
tomjen3 5y ago
Do you think this will have any impact on aps that are not pay to win games?
ezekg 5y ago
This blog post is published tomorrow, just a funny heads up :)
- mlpinit 5y ago
  Different time zone: Time zone in Tokyo, Japan (GMT+9)
  - ezekg 5y ago
    Ah, good call. Forgot he's in Japan. My mistake.
ChuckMcM 5y ago
At some point I hope this model evolves to engage content creators. Clearly the biggest "draw" for these sorts of games is new content, and that is a sort of sunk cost with developers who pay people to create new content so that they can monetize it. However, when it shifts into something like an MLM scheme where an "end user" can develop new content and then deliver it through the game engine, and then the game engine owner and person who developed the content "share" in the monetization (one by game sales etc, the other by in game currencies) then games like PoE and others can grow diversity without hiring. The incentive alignment is pretty clear, really avid players can both improve their own playing experience (enrich themselves in game) by doing this, and the game developer gets more people playing because there is such an interesting mix of things to do an see. At some point this evolves into market exchanges where people who can conceive compelling stories find others who are skilled at art or puzzle design and they can form a group for the purposes of delivering a bit of gameplay content that they share in the rewards from. If you are having a hard time visualizing this, consider WoW for a moment. Let's say Bliz had a way for an avid player to "design" an NPC, write their back story, their interaction dialogs, and the quests they would give in the execution of their "story". An artist teams up with this person to provide textures for either an existing character type, or potentially designing a completely new kind of creature for this. All WoW quests have a fairly fixed set of game mechanics choices to work from so putting those together in ways that are interesting might be the role of a third member of this ad-hoc group. Once completing the story line you have access to a vendor NPC who will sell you various items for WoW gold (pets, spells, recipes, etc). If the "team" that came up with this whole package got a cut of the WoW gold that the vendor received for their wares, that would provide an incentive to this team to make their content compelling. That may be all the incentive they need. And Bliz gets a quest chain + vendor + content that enhances game play for all players and keeps it fresh. Sort of like the virtual gig economy where players add content to the game in exchange for in game currency.
- nxrabl 5y ago
  What you’re describing sounds a lot like Second Life, which launched in 2003 and is still running. (Incidentally, to tie it back to Genshin, Second Life recently banned gacha-style transactions on its platform [0]) [0] https://ryanschultz.com/2021/08/02/second-life-bans-gacha-machines/ https://ryanschultz.com/2021/08/02/second-life-bans-gacha-ma...
franciscop 5y ago
I've seen it announced a thousand times on the trains in Tokyo, and I'm always drooling at how beautiful it looks, but assumed it was just marketing and not the real gameplay. I'll give it a try, thanks for the review!
kbenson 5y ago
I learned all I want to know about that game while my 11 year old was playing it. Sounded like BotW with annoyingly long and useless grinding to get weird crystals or something that are needed to buy better weapons (or buy loot boxes of a sort with low good loot chace, IIRC). It didn't sound horrible, because he seemed to like the gameplay, but I didn't feel any desire to get into a game where you can pay for benefit (I tend to the other end of the spectrum, repeatedly punishing deaths until you get better, like Dark Souls). He probably spent a total of ~$80 on the game, over 4-6 months. I don't count that as too bad, as it's not much more than buying it and an expansion would cost, and it provided him a lot of entertainment. That said, the reason it as only ~$80 is because I was controlling the purse strings.
- ve55 5y ago
  That's the rough part with acquiring characters (or anything) through the equivalent of cash-funded roulette: you can set out to spend a certain amount to attain something you want, but it might not work, and if you're sufficiently unlucky it may turn into an order of magnitude more spending than you originally intended. While you could of course commit to only spending $X and dealing with the results even if they're unsatisfactory, this can be surprisingly difficult psychologically, combining the best of the gambler's fallacy with the sunk cost fallacy (among many other behaviors very cleverly inspired by the game's developers) into one.
  - kbenson 5y ago
    Worse for me, as I'll likely ignore the pay route and go the exceedingly long and grindy route, and if I feel they've made that far too punishing for the rewards, I'll likely feel the game isn't rewarding enough to play. I'm not really interesting in proving to myself that I can pay money to do better than other people, so it doesn't help me enjoy games that are competitive in any way, and if it's a non-competitive game, I just feel like I'm being manipulated, which also saps the enjoyment out of it for me. I don't mind purely cosmetic offerings being present in games, and I'll even buy a few. But if I feel like I'm competing on a field that's stratified by money, it just kills the enjoyment for me. It's the same reason I stopped playing Magic: The Gathering back in the mid nineties a few months after when it was first released. It was fun when we all had starter decks, but after friends started collecting special cards, I saw where I thought it was going an opted out. The realization just sapped a lot of the enjoyment out of the game for me.
novok 5y ago
What is the interesting Chinese take on it?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
darren_ 5y ago
Strong disagree, if you like BoTW and are looking for similar you might get tricked into liking it for a bit until you notice how incredibly lackluster it is both at being BoTW (and at being interesting otherwise). The lack of emergent mechanics is a huge deal, but even the basic exploration sucks. Mondstadt is an utterly forgettable area (OK, the town is kind of fine, but the surrounding countryside is samey and unremarkable), and while Liyue is more interesting, it's mechanically awful as suddenly the verticality of the scenery increases massively so now your 'gameplay' consists of micromanaging your stamina meter as you tediously scale mountains. I quit before the new area so maybe it's better, I suppose? And the non-BoTW elements are bad too. The 'strategic' choices in combat involve knowing what you're going to fight, matching your elements to that as best you can (oh, by the way, the two guaranteed free fire element characters are awful at actually delivering fire damage, so hope you gacha-ed one of the good ones if you need fire element). Where's the interesting strategy there? And then the actual fight is just spamming your attacks and rapid-fire switching characters so the elemental effects stack. Also, quite likely you're fighting a boss design that is literally a cube (there are multiple of these). The 'meta-game' is knowing which bosses/domains/whatever you're going to grind x times today to maximise the chances of dropping one of the hundreds of materials you need to level up whichever character/weapon/skill you're targeting at this point. It's not exactly complex, the game tells you what drops you can expect. It's just a tedious grind, and it's cynically designed to keep you coming back to the game day after day (for people who haven't played: you can only grind these bosses/domains x times per day, and it doesn't take long before grinding up the materials you need to level up something requires multiple days of this grind. You can, of course, pay IRL money to grind a few more times in a given day. Oh, and you can only grind certain things on certain days of the week. So monday you're grinding for a weapon upgrade, tuesday for a skill upgrade, etc. It's incredibly obvious manipulation.) And then after all that, the game levels up the world as you progress. You start out the game hitting level 10 hillichurls with your sword 5 times to kill them. After hours of playtime and leveling up and forging advanced weapons, you're now hitting level 60 hillichurls with your sword 5 times to kill them. Wow!

AlexandrB 5y ago

As an avid Genshin Impact player, I think this style of game needs to be heavily regulated. Besides endless grinding for slightly better random stats on a few items, there is little endgame progression possible outside of rolling for new characters in the "gatcha", and the prices are insanely high! I find that this setup generates a compulsion in me to spend money for "one more roll". And while I've never been to a real casino, this resembles accounts of gambling addiction. At a minimum, these games should be rated 18+. There's no way it's healthy for kids to be exposed to mechanics that amount to unregulated gambling before they've even developed some modicum of self control.

patio11 5y ago
Experiences can be compelling without being addictive, which is a distinction I think sometimes lost here. Civilization is compelling and I for one have lost some sleep to Just One More Turn, but one rarely loses one's job or family over Civilization, which is not true of gambling addiction. Inability to stop despite sincere desire to stop, negative impact across multiple outside-the-activity areas of life, etc, are diagnostic criteria for addictions of all sort for basically this reason. As a parent, I probably wouldn't encourage my children to play either WoW or Genshin Impact or similar until I had a strong bead on their level of self-regulation capacity.
- mattnewton 5y ago
  I think the difference here is that Genshin only has variable rewards and allows you to pull levers for them with real money. Civilization (for the right player) has bottomless gameplay time, A game like WoW has a fixed subscription cost (with cosmetics) and a bottomless gameplay time; what Genshin Impact adds to the danger list is the “gacha” style gameplay progression where you gamble with as much money as you are willing to spend for game items, stat boosts and characters, many available for only a limited time. I have no doubt this model is much more lucrative but it feels like there is a slot machine standing in the way of what is otherwise a very impressive fusion of different ARPG ideas.
  - 5y ago

stalfosknight 5y ago

I don't think so. I'm sure I'm not the only one who really enjoys the convenience of managing all of my payments and subscriptions in one place in the Settings app. EDIT: You can downvote me all you like, but you need to deal with the fact that the end user's experience is more important than a bunch of devs who think they are entitled to be free riders on an App Store that is most certainly not free to develop or maintain.

minhazm 5y ago
It comes down to how much you're spending. People are spending hundreds of dollars (some spend thousands) on Genshin and other gotcha games. If you're spending hundreds of dollars and you can get 30% more virtual currency for your money then you're much more likely to go out of your way to do it.
- stalfosknight 5y ago
  I really dislike the whole "freemium" or "free-to-play" category of games and I refuse to touch that garbage. Software should have a fair upfront price. It's not complicated.
  - ezekg 5y ago
    It's even worse when you have kids... your toddler gets upset because the very fun looking princess puzzle she's trying to play "is broken." In reality, it's just pay-walled.
  - svachalek 5y ago
    It's so hard to find anymore. Digital board games are one exception, there are a lot of really excellent ones with great replay value for a fixed price. Scythe, Root, Spirit Island, Railroad Ink, Wingspan, Through the Ages, Galaxy Trucker...
  - orangecat 5y ago
    The IAP model became dominant on mobile largely because of Apple's store policies and their refusal to allow other forms of distribution. Meanwhile Steam and many other channels are largely pay-once, and they exist only because of the developer freedom that you decry.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

NHQ 5y ago

Would it not be more profitable to process all payments for all internet transactions, rather than one app store? Ditch app stores, fully integrate the web as a platform, then bake Apple/Google pay into the browser/OS, and just be the payment processor for all transactions. This would also make it much easier for web developers to fetch payments from their apps, no third party API needed. The boost in volume from this factor alone should be considerable.

astlouis44 5y ago
We're building this at our startup - a universal app store in WebGL. Primary use case is for game developers (Unreal Engine, and later Unity). No 30% fees, applications work everywhere. For users, clicking a link is much easier than installing an app.
Hamuko 5y ago
Apple already has baked in Apple Pay to Safari for a cut of all transactions.
- rollcat 5y ago
  Apple Pay doesn't take a cut.
  - _jal 5y ago
    I'm not sure what exactly you're including/excluding under the 'Apple Pay' umbrella here, but what do you call the merchant discount rate?
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    It absolutely does. https://www.theregister.com/2014/09/13/apple_to_get_15_cents_for_every_100_dollar_payment_on_its_pay_service_says_ft https://www.theregister.com/2014/09/13/apple_to_get_15_cents...

jscottmiller 5y ago

With respect to the author, I found the article a bit overwrought and folks may bounce before getting the gist. tl;dr Apple will be more generous in allowing developers to message their customers about payment options outside the app. This is a big deal for virtual game economies (and others!) because now Epic can email/message you about a fortnite vbuck bundle sold from their website, where epic can pay their payment provider, say, 3% plus $0.25 for a $10 transaction rather than the 30% App Store fee, saving $2.45! The revenant Apple text: > To give developers even more flexibility to reach their customers, Apple is also clarifying that developers can use communications, such as email, to share information about payment methods outside of their iOS app. As always, developers will not pay Apple a commission on any purchases taking place outside of their app or the App Store. Users must consent to the communication and have the right to opt out. Very exciting stuff, and Patrick is right that this messaging will be rolled out quickly by games and others.

HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
> folks may bounce before getting the gist Agreed. I had to read it more than twice to get what he was talking about. I'd say that the the only reason I bothered is that I usually like patio11's insights so I figured it was worth trying to understand it. Since I'm not a gamer, I got distracted trying to understand a lot of the game stuff and why it was so relevant to what he was getting at. ps, I like your tl;dr :-)

lifeisstillgood 5y ago

Was listening to Ben Evan's podcast earlier today and he had a stat from the Apple / Epic trial that shook me a bit - in a given month in 2016 something like 0.05% of Apple users were spending in excess of 450 USD on in-app purchases. And that was 54% of App store revenue. This is basically addicts gambling. Its the sort of numbers you see at Casinos and online casinos, and ... i dunno. It saddens me. Yes the vast vast majority of players have a "bit of fun", most never pay for anything, but all the profit comes from the addicts. Even in IOS App Store. Which really did look like it was trying to avoid that.

dvt 5y ago
> This is basically addicts gambling. A bit tangential, but there is some serious cognitive dissonance here on HN (and more broadly in the tech world in general). When Apple/Google does this -- facilitates some kind of arguably degenerate behavior -- it's "evil." But when OnlyFans does it -- sex addicts, lonely guys, social weirdos that need friends collectively spend millions of dollars on parasocial fake OnlyFans relationships -- this "empowers sex workers."
- makeva 5y ago
  I think you are making a connection that I can't find. Care to elaborate?
  - hengri 5y ago
    Could be that HN is more inclined to use OF than play mobile games heh
- jjulius 5y ago
  FWIW, I've seen many discussions about how OF's biggest spenders are people like that in many OF-related threads on HN.
- paulddraper 5y ago
  I've seen equal criticism of both.

ArchOversight 5y ago

I know I am probably not your average consumer, but I am not looking forward to this at all. I like having a single place that my payment info is stored and processed, and I trust Apple with it. With this new world order everyone and their dog is going to be asking for my credit card details and who knows how well or safely it is going to be handled/stored. For small purchases I really don't want to have to enter my credit card details.

tommymachine 5y ago
seems like by using Apple Pay / google pay your fears would be assuaged?
- ArchOversight 5y ago
  Apple Pay still sends a credit card number to a website. Where it may be used like any other credit card number. Same with Google Pay.
  - tommymachine 5y ago
    pretty sure at least apple pay uses a dynamic security code, and not just a raw card number that can be saved?
    - judge2020 5y ago
      Yes > After you authenticate your transaction, the Secure Element provides your Device Account Number and a transaction-specific dynamic security code to the store’s point of sale terminal along with additional information needed to complete the transaction. Again, neither Apple nor your device sends your actual payment card number. Before they approve the payment, your bank, card issuer, or payment network can verify your payment information by checking the dynamic security code to make sure that it’s unique and tied to your device. > Like with in-store payments, Apple sends your Device Account Number to the app or website along with the transaction-specific dynamic security code. Neither Apple nor your device sends your actual payment card number to the app. Note that this can be prefaced by 'usually' - some banks, instead of generating a new unique ID for Apple Pay, will use the CC number itself, or will at least augment the device ID with the payment card (I noticed this as receipts showed the last 4 of the card, despite using Apple Pay). https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203027 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203027

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mattnewton 5y ago

I would pay more per app to a third party App Store that promised platform independence- that is, I can take my App Library with me to android from iOS or from iOS to android, where supported, like I do with steam windows/Mac/Linux.

boplicity 5y ago
Exactly. I own a lot of game licenses via Steam and Epic. I expect to be able to use those licenses no matter the device I'm using. This alone is why app stores should be de-coupled from hardware vendors.

amelius 5y ago

So we can't mention other payment methods inside our own apps. Isn't that a violation of Freedom Of Speech?

ChrisKingWebDev 5y ago
Freedom of speech only refers to your ability to criticize the government. A private company can do whatever they want with their platform.
- jjcon 5y ago
  It does violate the concept of freedom of speech (though it does not violate the law as enshrined in USA 1st amendment to the constitution)
- amelius 5y ago
  Ok, well it violates my definition of freedom of speech.

OldHand2018 5y ago

The Genshin Impact behavior, as described, sounds like a true nightmare. It's like when you skimmed through the Epic lawsuit against Apple and they described all the "features" that Apple is "preventing", I just wanted to throw up. On the customer side, who the hell wants this stuff?

johnnyanmac 5y ago
well, it's a monetization model and not a gameplay feature for a reason. Financial incentives will always be at war with the consumer ideal of "free and constantly updating, no strings attached". I don't think anyone "wants" to pay for this kinda stuff. But many have.
wonnage 5y ago
The customer probably just wants a button they can click in-app to pay for stuff.

nikodunk 5y ago

Another, less rosy take: https://world.hey.com/dhh/apple-s-new-settlement-is-a-corrupt-joke-bd8b9c1e https://world.hey.com/dhh/apple-s-new-settlement-is-a-corrup...

senojsitruc 5y ago
> But it gets worse, because the trophy of this settlement, as presented in the press, is supposedly that developers can now tell their customers where to buy services outside the app. Except no, that's not actually what's happening! Apple is simply "clarifying" that companies can send an email to their customers, if they've gotten permission to do so, on an opt-in basis. That email may include information about how to buy outside the app. This is exactly the problem. Without the ability to at least link to (if not fully integrate) a payment system, this settlement is a total sham. Hopefully South Korea will make the first real crack in this dam.

cblconfederate 5y ago

This is not a new situation, Facebook platform games went through all those gaming-the-gamers phases 10 years ago. If devs start baiting people to give their address, soon all the devs will do that and apple will ban it because reasons. Very few people will give their email anyway. Overall the impact will be minimal. Also, surprised that apple hasn't banned those gacha things yet.

somehnacct3757 5y ago

Interesting wrinkle for Mihoyo (Genshin Impact dev), I've heard from a big spender friend that he purposely buys primos on iPad even though he plays on PC. This is because their PC payment flow routes through China and puts flags on his card. They may need to address that first, before they can route more US traffic through a non-apple flow. Still worth their time, but could refute the "single sprint" dev cost in the article.

kposehn 5y ago

A few notes about Genshin Impact: - Genesis Crystals are the base currency that RMT get you in Genshin Impact, not Primogems. You have to choose to convert them in order to do wishes (Gacha rolls) - In 2.0, MiHoYo implemented cross-save functionality with PlayStation, PC and iOS. This allows PS players to now play on other devices, but importantly Genesis Crystals do not carry over between platforms - The end result is that your RMT purchase is locked into the platform you use until you convert it into Primogems - As a result, Genesis Crystal purchases have an additional hurdle that MiHoYo has to deal with to incentivize users (GC->Primogems conversion) but it is by no means insurmountable

johnnyanmac 5y ago
Correct, this is often common practice with any cross platform app (usually IOS/Android). I imagine for platform policy reasons they can't just let you move over premium currency that was bought on one platform.

josephd79 5y ago

Honestly , I think developers are going to have a hard time changing peoples behavior. If its vastly cheaper to pay outside of the app store, sure I can see that impacting peoples decisions on how they pay. But, if you're only talking about a couple bucks, most people are just going to say f it, its easier to just use in-app purchases. Also, if you think about it. people would probably only do that for apps and games that you can play across several different devices.

collaborative 5y ago
Most people have a paypal account they can use instead of Apple/Google. It's also a lazy payment method, a couple clicks and you're done
- josephd79 5y ago
  true, but it requires you to go to their website and pay. You still can't put payment links to third party payment processors in the app. You have to offer something big enough to get them to choose to take the time outside of the app.
  - collaborative 5y ago
    You can just embed the paypal payment in a web view inside the app. I currently do that for example for rooted users because many of them have hacked the IAP to auto approve. It's very doable
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

sedev 5y ago

One of the better things Apple does with their position as a middleman is give customers more control over their relationship with app creators of all kinds. If the customer is unhappy about their experience, iOS gives them what amounts to a one-click "get off my phone and get out of my wallet" button. Compare this to the notorious New York Times cancellation rigamarole where cancelling a subscription required a phone call to a person whose job was to talk you out of cancelling. This level of autonomy is clearly valuable to customers: behold the widespread dissatisfaction about subscriptions vs. one-time purchases. People don't like the experience of being strongarmed into a business relationship any more than they like it with interpersonal relationships, and rightly so. However, because Apple exerted the degree of control that it did over what shape a customer relationship mediated by their app store could look like, it hasn't been clear exactly _how_ valuable that control is to consumers. Once app creators have options for customer relationships other than Apple's app store, I expect that we'll find out exactly how valuable that autonomy is to customers, and I'm personally fascinated about what the answer might be.

bern4444 5y ago
I find this to be equally true for Apple's hide my email service and Apple Pay. When I have to give my email out - to sign up for a service, or make a one time purchase online for the receipt etc, Apple provides the option to use a unique anonymized email alias that forwards to my iCloud account. When I want to unsubscribe from any of these services, I control it directly and can just delete email alias for that service instead of going through unsubscribe flows which don't seem to work half the time. I love using Apple Pay for a similar reason. It has that, it just works, quality, especially when ordering packages. There's absolutely zero friction and never any fixing of incorrect auto filled forms. I get the same experience everywhere and its always seamless.
notSupplied 5y ago
Regarding hard-to-cancel subscriptions: I always thought this should be the credit card company's responsibility. High-end credit cards like AMEX and Chase Sapphire already have so many cushy perks, what's so hard about also adding something like "We'll guarantee you can 1-click unsubscribe from anything <=$30 month and underwrite any risk of these going to collections"?

quadrifoliate 5y ago

> Gacha games are named after the onomatopoeia describing vending machines in Japanese malls and arcades which dispense toys and trinkets for, typically, 100 to 200 yen (about $1-$2). The pool of trinkets is displayed prominently on the machine; which trinket you get is effectively randomized. If you had your heart set on a particular one, you might spend much more than $1 on getting it, and some children (and adults!) very much do. Many very successful games have a monetization strategy which descends from a variant of this. I am sorry to say this as someone who usually agrees with 'patio11 on everything, but both gacha and the "monetization strategies" inspired by it (be they hawking in-game currency or trying to mine email addresses) sound like a terrible idea. I don't want gacha, or any of these monetization strategies in my ideal consumption model. I want to look at a toy in the store and buy it while knowing what I am getting. This gacha model sounds like it's incentivizing gambling from a very young age. Am I too close-minded? Idealistic? Missing some crucial part of the article? I'd like to hear, because nothing seems good about this at the moment.

junar 5y ago
My reading is that "successful" means "makes a lot of money for the developer". It sounds like your concern is about the effect on the consumer, which is covered in a separate footnote. https://www.kalzumeus.com/2021/08/27/app-store-payment-competition/#fn:whales https://www.kalzumeus.com/2021/08/27/app-store-payment-compe...
thegrimmest 5y ago
This was posted to HN a little while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIuhg0bjvQI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIuhg0bjvQI [1h 41min]. It's long, but very much worth a watch if you're interested in gacha. One of the conclusions reached is that the amount of money a game like Genshin Impact can make over time can fund development far in excess of what a traditional shipped-and-finished game could afford (even with expansions/etc). This improves the experience for everyone, > 90% of whom don't pay for the game at all. It seems like a win to me. It just requires a change of mindset: enjoying the game while accepting that your in-game resources are limited and "completion" is impossible.

EastSmith 5y ago

Not one mention of Epic in the article.

lolinder 5y ago

The proposed plan for monetizing this relies on a misunderstanding (deliberately crafted by Apple) of the app store changes. If you obtain contact information from within the app, you can't use that information to steer monetization. Here's a quote from the new policy: > Developers cannot use information obtained within the app to target individual users outside of the app to use purchasing methods other than in-app purchase (such as sending an individual user an email about other purchasing methods after that individual signs up for an account within the app). Developers can send communications outside of the app to their user base about purchasing methods other than in-app purchase.

gamerDude 5y ago

I imagine we will quickly see "popups" on ads that allow you to save 10% by buying online instead of the app store in order to cut out apples 30%. If that happens, maybe apple would reduce their fee to try and keep more money on the app store. It will definitely be an interesting change!

ineedasername 5y ago

This seems like a move designed to head off antitrust issues.

cenophor 5y ago

> There’s an interesting discourse about whether gacha games are anti-consumer or not which I don’t have enough space to do justice to here. Broadly I think they have some challenges similar to gambling, insofar as many adults gamble recreationally and enjoy it, while some are clearly harmed by it. I used to think that free-to-play games’ dependence on whales was strong evidence that they were a negative development, but I heard an argument from the CEO of Kongregate which changed my mind. Distilled to its essence, it is that “Many whales are simply employed professionals who enjoy what they enjoy, and professionals historically spend a lot of money on what they enjoy. Why should we have contempt for this in a video game when we don’t if it is e.g. figure skating or wine?” I recommend reading or watching the entire talk if you’re interested in this topic. I find it pretty disingenuous to put this in the footnote and brush it off as "not having enough space", and then went on to justify it with an opinion from someone who clearly has stake in this space. Equating whales with professionals is just completely missing the point, and is simply marketing speech that masks the underlying problem. A lot of mechanisms in Gacha games are engineered dark patterns whose sole purpose is to make money. They are basically there to exploit those who are psychologically more susceptible. It's ironic that the author uses Genshin Impact as an example and then went on to say something about spending more money in Gacha game is a reflection of professionalism. In Genshin Impact you can power up A LOT by spending money on Gacha because you can get substantially better equipment that is otherwise unavailable through normal game play, or you can power up your existing characters, too. Can someone instantly become better at skating with a better pair of skates?

notSupplied 5y ago
Actually, one of the reasons Genshin is lauded by it's player base is that you can clear the hardest content with free to play characters. The 5 stars have way flashier looking abilities and get more face-time in the narrative, and are generally a bit more meta, but are not leaps and bounds stronger. So Genshin has at least proven that "selling broken OP characters" is not a necessary ingredient to making a $2B hit. That said, other gacha games are definitely all about selling that power.