3 ms·

I have really mixed feelings about this. On the other hand I dislike this method of selling games but I also understand that it is rather difficult to make mone

by exDM69 13y ago

I have really mixed feelings about this. On the other hand I dislike this method of selling games but I also understand that it is rather difficult to make money selling $1 games. And a $5 price tag in the market doesn't work for most games (the exceptions seem to be ones that are coming from PC/consoles: Grand Theft Auto games, Minecraft and Final Fantasy games sell for $5-$15). But this micro transaction trend has been getting out of hand, this is already the second article on the subject on HN this week. I play a lot of simulator games, which have a lot of after market content. Flight simulators have a lot of 3rd party vendors who create additional aircraft and scenery (an aircraft may cost around $30 or more). The most popular train simulator has additional 1st party content, trains and routes which total up to $2000 even after discounts in Steam x-mas sales. The racing simulator I play has a subscription model and cars and tracks cost extra ($50 a year + $12 per car + $15 per track). But these pieces of extra content are very high quality and are accurate visually, historically and performance wise. I have no problem spending $10 to $30 every now and then on this. But there's a stark difference between additional content in simulators (which obviously costs money to create) and a pay-to-win IAP gaming model. In p2w games, there's a hidden subscription fee because you essentially have to pay every now and then to stay in the game and not have to wait for ages (e.g. real racing android game requires you to buy new tires every few races, or wait for hours) and a price on additional content which is usually nothing but a piece of artwork (which is cheap to create in contrast to the accurate simulator content). The biggest problem with this is that these games are labelled as "free" while in reality you pay subscription + extra for additional content. I would actually like to pay for games on my mobile, but I don't want to play games that where the whole game design is optimized for maximum IAP profit rather than maximum fun. But when browsing the Android market for games, you just can't find any interesting games that do not employ this IAP pricing model.

panacea 13y ago
Apple, as gatekeeper had (has?) the opportunity to fix this. They should not be listed as free games. Free games should be listed as demos. In-app purchasing should be limited to unlocking discrete chunks of game-play... not 'coins'. There should be a way to buy the game outright instead of freemium. Essentially, we're back to where we were with video arcades, before consoles at home gave us unlimited play. Video arcades died... Freemium games need to die too. Apple has a noose of very bad karma around it's neck because of this.
- bananacurve 13y ago
  Google did not have to follow Apple's lead, yet they did.
- exDM69 13y ago
  > Apple, as gatekeeper had (has?) the opportunity to fix this. Why would it be in Apple's interests to prohibit micro transactions in games? On the contrary, they do make a 30% cut of the sales, don't they? Even if Apple did change their policy, there's still Google, Amazon, Russian Yandex and Chinese app stores that do allow this. If Apple (or anyone else) disallows this, the game publishers will release their stuff on the markets that do allow IAPs. Although it seems like Apple have had some bad PR and having to refund some (32M$ !) of kids' purchases: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57617270-37/apple-to-refund-at-least-$32.5m-for-kids-in-app-purchases/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57617270-37/apple-to-refun... > Apple has a noose of very bad karma around it's neck because of this. Only some gamers complain, this isn't really hurting Apple's image as a whole enough to make them take action. I'm guessing this phenomenon will die by itself given some time. Gamers and parents are already revolting. When more parents will prevent their kids from using their credit cards, a (major?) part of the money supply will run dry and the game publishers will have to come up with other business models.
- mabhatter 13y ago
  "Essentially, we're back to where we were with video arcades, before consoles at home gave us unlimited play." you just nailed it... most of these companies executives were alive in the time of arcades... they all LOVED the play per quarter model. Most of the big companies have backdoors into Vegas gambling as well... keep you pulling that lever.. that's their BUSINESS. The idea that you played the games for just one bit of money was always a temporary thing.
Aardwolf 13y ago
$30 for an accurate aircraft simulation seems like a better deal than $120 for speeding up digging of 56 tiles. Not sure if this is a good comparison :)

by exDM69 13y ago

panacea 13y ago

Apple, as gatekeeper had (has?) the opportunity to fix this. They should not be listed as free games. Free games should be listed as demos. In-app purchasing should be limited to unlocking discrete chunks of game-play... not 'coins'. There should be a way to buy the game outright instead of freemium. Essentially, we're back to where we were with video arcades, before consoles at home gave us unlimited play. Video arcades died... Freemium games need to die too. Apple has a noose of very bad karma around it's neck because of this.

bananacurve 13y ago
Google did not have to follow Apple's lead, yet they did.
exDM69 13y ago
> Apple, as gatekeeper had (has?) the opportunity to fix this. Why would it be in Apple's interests to prohibit micro transactions in games? On the contrary, they do make a 30% cut of the sales, don't they? Even if Apple did change their policy, there's still Google, Amazon, Russian Yandex and Chinese app stores that do allow this. If Apple (or anyone else) disallows this, the game publishers will release their stuff on the markets that do allow IAPs. Although it seems like Apple have had some bad PR and having to refund some (32M$ !) of kids' purchases: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57617270-37/apple-to-refund-at-least-$32.5m-for-kids-in-app-purchases/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57617270-37/apple-to-refun... > Apple has a noose of very bad karma around it's neck because of this. Only some gamers complain, this isn't really hurting Apple's image as a whole enough to make them take action. I'm guessing this phenomenon will die by itself given some time. Gamers and parents are already revolting. When more parents will prevent their kids from using their credit cards, a (major?) part of the money supply will run dry and the game publishers will have to come up with other business models.
mabhatter 13y ago
"Essentially, we're back to where we were with video arcades, before consoles at home gave us unlimited play." you just nailed it... most of these companies executives were alive in the time of arcades... they all LOVED the play per quarter model. Most of the big companies have backdoors into Vegas gambling as well... keep you pulling that lever.. that's their BUSINESS. The idea that you played the games for just one bit of money was always a temporary thing.

Aardwolf 13y ago

$30 for an accurate aircraft simulation seems like a better deal than $120 for speeding up digging of 56 tiles. Not sure if this is a good comparison :)