10 ms·

Google will stop calling games 'free' when they offer in-app purchases

207 points by bergie 12y ago

mkaziz 12y ago
This is the best news I've heard in a long time, but how do they filter the "disable ads" IAP vs the "oh you spent 3 hours getting invested in this game, but you can't reasonably proceed further until you buy xxx"?
- slipstream- 12y ago
  Came here to say this. I guess that if devs want their games to be listed as free they'd need to have two versions of the app, a free ad-supported version and a paid ad-free version, instead of using IAP. I have actually seen devs do this, but I can't remember any exact cases.
  - bnejad 12y ago
    I feel like its pretty common to see both. I see the advantage in using the IAP though since you get to aggregate your ratings and reviews in one place.
  - gaustin 12y ago
    Angry Birds was that way at some point, IIRC. Haven't looked in a long time though.
- roc 12y ago
  Surely they can distinguish between one-time IAPs and "consumable" IAPs.
- martingordon 12y ago
  I'm not sure how Google Play works but on the App Store developers specify whether your product is consumable or non-consumable and the products must be cleared for sale before users are given the option to buy them.
  - infogulch 12y ago
    So ideally this would be worded as "apps with consumable IAP will no longer be labeled 'free'". Are there any drawbacks? Would this miss some of the cheaty games?
- gcb4 12y ago
  i for one would rather they block apps that are full of ads but the screenshots show none. those drive me crazy.
- Mithaldu 12y ago
  There is in fact a whole range of software types to distinguish here:, - apps that are entirely free - apps with ads - apps with removable ads - apps with premium features - apps that are demos (unlockable to the full app by paying) - apps that sell cheats (99% of IAP games, the ones that disguise their cheats as "energy" or "coins" or "gems")
- klewelling 12y ago
  Check out http://honestandroidgames.com/ http://honestandroidgames.com/ They will tell you what type of game (free, free with ads, paid, etc)
  - Mithaldu 12y ago
    I love the concept of the site. Sadly the interface is absolutely horrendous, as it makes no attempts to help the user find things, since one can't mark games one isn't interested in, or has already; and one can't restrict the display to cross-sections based on attributes describing for example the freeness type, or the needed permissions.
gcb4 12y ago
Google is the new Microsoft. the founders get down from their clouds and shit happens. remember the history about why ctrl f in outlook is not search? this is the same. probably someone was working a smart system to see when the game either had purchases or players dropped, and was working out a clever way to weed out the pay to win one... then one founder got fed up on pay to win bejeweled and dictated everything with in game purchases is now paid, even if it's just a donate button or skins.
- andrewl-hn 12y ago
  Well, in this case it's European Commission that requested this change.
- wutbrodo 12y ago
  What a hilarious delusion. Do you really think one of the founders (worth tens of billions of dollars) was having issues with paying 99 cents to get ahead a level in Bejeweled? And that he would find himself constantly confused as to which apps rely too much on IAP, since you apparently think he doesn't have the ability to read "Offers in-app purchases" on the app page? I know people get attached to the ludicrous narratives they construct about different companies, but this is beyond hilarious.
  - bdcravens 12y ago
    lol Shaq spends $1000+ a week on apps, pretty sure a billionaire founder will have no issues http://time.com/21470/shaq-spends-1000-a-week-on-apps/ http://time.com/21470/shaq-spends-1000-a-week-on-apps/
  - gcb4 12y ago
    the issue is what founders think their clients think.
dyarosla 12y ago
I think this is a great move. It will probably come as terrible news for manipulative game developers. From first-hand experience working at a company that did this and first-hand developer testimonials, IAP in "free" games and its design has long been associated with forcing emotional, heat-of-the-moment-spurred buys from consumers - ie. You were so close to beating the level that time but you lost your last life :( Get an extra life right now and you'll kill it this time around!!!. Sadly, a portion of total players (1-2% from what I've seen) will fall for these emotional tactics and spend the money, often more than once. Even worse is when they later convince themselves that the money was well spent (say, for an extra life in Candy Crush). I hope Apple also follows suit, as some sources allude to.
- jrockway 12y ago
  What's the expected value over the lifetime of a game from these 1-2% of users? Do they spend thousands of dollars, or do they just spend $10 or $20? I still don't get why mobile games are aimed at "I want a game, but I only have $0.99 to spend." Computer games cost $60+.
  - DanielStraight 12y ago
    I think "I want a diversion" is more common than "I want a game". Mobile games compete against Facebook, Twitter, the news, text messaging, anything else someone can do as a diversion on their phone. And none of those things cost anything at all. People who want a game and are willing to pay good money to get one generally expect a better experience than mobile can provide. I guess as more people go mobile-only, there will be a bigger market for higher priced mobile games, but I can't imagine anyone who considers themselves a gamer right now doesn't have either a console or a relatively high-end computer. (And I don't see anyone who doesn't consider themselves a gamer dropping more than $5 to play a game.)
    - TheCraiggers 12y ago
      >I think "I want a diversion" is more common than "I want a game". Mobile games compete against Facebook, Twitter, the news, text messaging, anything else someone can do as a diversion on their phone. And none of those things cost anything at all. People who want a game and are willing to pay good money to get one generally expect a better experience than mobile can provide. I agree with your general point, but I want to point out that the last sentence doesn't have to be true. Like tools in a toolbox, some platforms are more well-suited than others. The reasons vary for this, but in games it usually it comes down to control schemes. Mobile has its advantages as well- you always have it on you, likely has network connectivity 24/7, its unique control scheme, etc. I think mobile's biggest problem right now is creators are still trying to shoehorn last decade's games on a platform that was not designed for it. They may be different games than we're all used to, but there's no reason why mobile can't come into its own. That all said, I would rephrase your last sentence to "...generally expect a better experience than mobile currently provides." For what it's worth, I feel a game like Clash of Clans uses mobile's strengths very well (although I personally find it boring and its revenue model distasteful)- it makes good use of mobile's control scheme, makes good use of its platform's always-on mentality by delivering notifications of attacks, etc, and is social.
cliveowen 12y ago
Just today I installed Smash Hit and found out that it's pretty much useless if you don't shell out some money, you have to start over and over from the beginning because checkpoints are a premium feature. I hope this change will put an end to this behaviour but I fear developers are always gonna come up with new ways to trick users.
- TD-Linux 12y ago
  Smash Hit isn't really that bad - basically the free version is a trial, and you pay one price for the full version. I think this Google move is more targeted at the sort of games that don't fall into the trial/paid category, rather the sort that constantly try to bill you for microtransations.
  - gtremper 12y ago
    Yeah, I believe the free trial and full version were 2 different apps before. Now, you don't have to download a new app to upgrade and can keep game data from the trial. This seems like a better solution, though the price may be misleading due to how "free" games are displayed in the store. The new play store change should solve this.
    - watwut 12y ago
      I prefer buying new app. That way I know that I will still own it if I change the phone and I know the payment is one time only.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  Basically, there should be a Free Trial system forced or at least strongly encouraged like Microsoft Xbox does for some titles. That way, for a great game like Smash Hit, you don't feel tricked for not getting the full game for free.
fuzzythinker 12y ago
I think this is a bad move. They are jumping to an ill thought-out solution before diving deeper into the problem. Many games are actually really free in terms of no time or other baitty limits; many are 100% feature and playable up to a certain level, or the full game is playable with some restrictions. I would call these games free. The problem is with games that either have time limits or paid upgrades that popups up frequently or are too easy to click (spammy and meant to trick kids). We don't want to punish the good guys and severely hurt their discoverability with this unthought-out blanket rule. In-app purchase is not evil if done right, it's the way people/companies are abusing it via spammy or adiction ways.
- wutbrodo 12y ago
  Exactly. I haven't played many mobile games, but out of the handful that I have, I've never even come across a free game that I wouldn't say fully deserved that title (and most of them had in-app purchases).
- jusben1369 12y ago
  Hey fuzzythinker. I think you just defined the problem in a fairly limited way to support your argument. A game may be very eloquently developed and have a non intrusive but logical upgrade path after a good deal of time playing the free version. That can still cause parent's to get a shock (and it usually only happens at the end of each month) when they find out the "free game" they let their child download has in fact run up meaningful charges.
  - fuzzythinker 12y ago
    Why is that a problem? Setting up password protection for in-app purchases is easy.
- poopsintub 12y ago
  It's a move to prevent lawsuits and FTC fines like Apple, Amazon, and themselves have been hit with in the past. I'm not sure they have a choice, as far as E.U. is concerned. Either they do what is suggested or law is put in place to make them do it, right?
ww520 12y ago
Are they going to stop calling games with ads free as well?
- malandrew 12y ago
  Search engines too. I really wish there were more services out there that offered a paid alternative to ads, so that the consumer does not become the product. This will never happen though because many of the people with the means to buy themselves out of an ad-laden experience are the people the advertisers most want to reach. Without that cohort, I would imagine that the value per impression would drop remarkably.
pjungwir 12y ago
From a user perspective this seems very nice. It might be nice for developers too if it starts to train people to expect to pay more than $0-2 for a game. I wonder if part of Google's reason is to push people toward advertising instead?
- dyarosla 12y ago
  Either that, or push the customer base of Google to pay for quality applications. Sadly, with lack of curation, I would guess customers would be skeptical of spending money on a non-free game for fear of a poor purchase (crashes, not working, etc)
funkyy 12y ago
Finally. I want to see more clearance in app market like that. App market owners got lazy, there is little innovation today, just counting profits.
kabdib 12y ago
This is the Right Thing to do. Might want a refinement where it's possible to have whole-game access and the purchases are only cosmetic in nature.
tannerc 12y ago
As a developer who makes a portion of my regular income from an app offering IAP, this is concerning. Sure, the bulk of apps with IAP appear to be spammy and simply attempting to "cheat" customers into spending money. But for apps like mine, that offer players a "preview" of fuller functionality and then offer them the ability to unlock those features for a one-time fee, it feels like morally-balanced developers are getting the short end of the stick. I'd love to hear more discussion around this though, from both the perspective of other developers as well as customers and their experiences with paid, free, IAP, ad, and "trial" apps.
- Mithaldu 12y ago
  Why not offer two apps? A demo costing 0$ and the full game costing x$. Frankly, it all boils down to: Almost without exception, any app on the appstore that has free in the name or description, lies to the user, because it's still trying to sell something. And if you can't sell as well without a lie to hook costumers, you need to rethink what you're doing.
  - corysama 12y ago
    Free demo app + paid full app was the first thing people tried when the iOS App Store was new. The conversion rate for that setup is terribly low compare to a 1-click "unlock now" button inside the demo. It's all about reducing friction. App users are busy and distracted. Ain't nobody got time to fire up the App Store, find your paid app and download it (Again???. What's the wifi password here?) just to give you money.
    - molf 12y ago
      That's all perfectly fine, but app stores should not list these games as "FREE", they should be listed as "DEMO".
      - timpark 12y ago
        Unfortunately in Apple's App Store Review Guidelines, you have: "2.9 Apps that are "beta", "demo", "trial", or "test" versions will be rejected" Of course, people do have "Lite" versions with fewer features, but I guess there was some vague "threshold of usefulness" that they wanted to impose with this rule. Anyway, although I can find the word in the store, I think its use gets avoided due to this restriction. (And I know the article is about Google, but you used the more generic "app stores" so I'm replying to that) https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guid...
incision 12y ago
Sounds good. Between the restricted profiles in 4.3 and this it's finally reasonable to hand the tablet over to a child. Beyond this, I'd really like to see something added to provide a straightforward alternative to ad-support for apps. Something like a trivial option to generate ad-free builds for an ad including app. More than a few times I've encountered a solid app which I would gladly pay a couple of bucks for, but it's only available as ad-supported.
- themartorana 12y ago
  That's because - truly and honestly - you're in a super-minority. Like I said above, our IAP conversion rate to ad-free is insanely small, and accounts for less than 5% of revenue. Building in the IAP mechanism isn't trivial, and worse, IAP purchases can easily be hacked (especially on Android). Both platforms recommend you run your own server that verifies purchases with Google and Apple's servers, because even client-based validation is easily hackable. We have IAP removal of ads, but we're VERY successful compared to the average developer, and actually run our own servers. For the average dev, it's a non-trivial task. (Apologies for repeating myself.)
  - incision 12y ago
    I think we've missed each other here. I'm not suggesting that these things are trivial, exactly the opposite actually. I'm assuming that they aren't and suggesting that they should be - that all the validation and heavy lifting is something that ideally Apple/Google would handle and enabling the functionality would be trivial from a developer perspective. I wonder if conversion of free to ad-free would be better if the offerings were truly separate? I'm somewhat distrustful of IAP for this purpose as it has been flaky in my experience (likely to due to the seller run validation services as you describe). I'm much more inclined to try a 'Free' app followed by purchasing the ad-free 'Premium' version than I am to buy an IAP to convert one to the other.
sjs382 12y ago
Good. I got tired of clicking into "free" games, seeing "In App Purchases" and clicking the back button.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
du 12y ago
Good news, but I think this should go further. Like showing potential buyers the average or median amount spend for people who actively use(d) the app. Or money spend per hour/week of usage.
sosuke 12y ago
We should change the terminology back to old shareware days. If the Doom shareware floppy could have offered users a way to buy the full game from within the demo it would have. So new categories of apps: Free, no IAP, no cost, ads or something else Demos, IAP to upgrade Full, could be free but use IAP consumables, ads, whatever its all yours
lucb1e 12y ago
"will stop"? It's been like this for weeks..? Or is that only because I'm located in the Netherlands?
r00fus 12y ago
Props to Google. This is definitely the right thing to do. Let's hope Apple and Microsoft follow suit. There are games out there that are deceptively unplayable without shelling out.
Sephr 12y ago
I wonder how this will affect free applications with IAP-powered donation buttons.
post_break 12y ago
Good. I remember when Steve Jobs said on stage "Free apps will stay free" but I can't track down the exact video of him. Seeing "free" apps in the top grossing column pisses me off.
radley 12y ago
Currently, iTunes lists the top 10 in-app purchases in the app description, which makes it easy to gauge what will happen when you use the app. The Play Store only recently added "Offers in-app purchases" as small print next to the device compatibility info. Not sure if Android users will embrace any form of hybrid pricing that doesn't say "Free".
CookWithMe 12y ago
As a non-game app developer, I WANTED THIS FOR YEARS! Google (and Apple) calling my apps "free" did bring in massive amounts of bad reviews. I think this is good news for any developer that wants to offer a "free-to-download" app with non-exploitative IAPs. Think of a magazine-app: People should get the app itself for free to be able to choose which issue they want to buy. There is no emotional engineering going on. You don't want to trick people into believing this app is useful if they don't spend money - in fact, you don't even want people to download your app if they won't spend money anyway. But the app store says FREE... We had/have major problems with getting tons of bad reviews like "THIS APP IS NOT FREE, ASKS FOR IN APP PURCHASE!!11". We played with the description, so it would start with "buy" or "purchase" (e.g. "BUY THE NEW ISSUE ABOUT XYZ"), which helped a little (although most people seem to skip the description). We tried screenshots of the point where one needs to purchase... which is sort of fine for iPad screenshots, but a waste for smaller phone screens. We do now also offer a lot more content for free initially, which seemed to have helped most. I'm hoping for a consistent labeling of all apps (not only games!) that sets correct expectations for the user when downloading an app.
JopV 12y ago
Please stop calling F2P's "games".
smegel 12y ago
Long, long overdue. The absurdity of calling "its free to download bits to your computer but you have to pay us to use them" free was too much.
ulfw 12y ago
Fantastic! Because frankly free - means free. Not 'trial version free - hella expensive if you ACTUALLY want to use this game'
dminor 12y ago
What they really should do is give some stats about how much money people typically spend on an app that uses IAP. E.G., "98% of users spend no money, 2% of users spent an average of $3.50", or something along those lines.
duncan_bayne 12y ago
Google has not been doing a lot right, lately, but this is bang on the money (pun intended). Bravo!

207 points by bergie 12y ago

This is the best news I've heard in a long time, but how do they filter the "disable ads" IAP vs the "oh you spent 3 hours getting invested in this game, but you can't reasonably proceed further until you buy xxx"?

slipstream- 12y ago
Came here to say this. I guess that if devs want their games to be listed as free they'd need to have two versions of the app, a free ad-supported version and a paid ad-free version, instead of using IAP. I have actually seen devs do this, but I can't remember any exact cases.
- bnejad 12y ago
  I feel like its pretty common to see both. I see the advantage in using the IAP though since you get to aggregate your ratings and reviews in one place.
- gaustin 12y ago
  Angry Birds was that way at some point, IIRC. Haven't looked in a long time though.
roc 12y ago
Surely they can distinguish between one-time IAPs and "consumable" IAPs.
martingordon 12y ago
I'm not sure how Google Play works but on the App Store developers specify whether your product is consumable or non-consumable and the products must be cleared for sale before users are given the option to buy them.
- infogulch 12y ago
  So ideally this would be worded as "apps with consumable IAP will no longer be labeled 'free'". Are there any drawbacks? Would this miss some of the cheaty games?
gcb4 12y ago
i for one would rather they block apps that are full of ads but the screenshots show none. those drive me crazy.
Mithaldu 12y ago
There is in fact a whole range of software types to distinguish here:, - apps that are entirely free - apps with ads - apps with removable ads - apps with premium features - apps that are demos (unlockable to the full app by paying) - apps that sell cheats (99% of IAP games, the ones that disguise their cheats as "energy" or "coins" or "gems")
klewelling 12y ago
Check out http://honestandroidgames.com/ http://honestandroidgames.com/ They will tell you what type of game (free, free with ads, paid, etc)
- Mithaldu 12y ago
  I love the concept of the site. Sadly the interface is absolutely horrendous, as it makes no attempts to help the user find things, since one can't mark games one isn't interested in, or has already; and one can't restrict the display to cross-sections based on attributes describing for example the freeness type, or the needed permissions.

gcb4 12y ago

Google is the new Microsoft. the founders get down from their clouds and shit happens. remember the history about why ctrl f in outlook is not search? this is the same. probably someone was working a smart system to see when the game either had purchases or players dropped, and was working out a clever way to weed out the pay to win one... then one founder got fed up on pay to win bejeweled and dictated everything with in game purchases is now paid, even if it's just a donate button or skins.

andrewl-hn 12y ago
Well, in this case it's European Commission that requested this change.
wutbrodo 12y ago
What a hilarious delusion. Do you really think one of the founders (worth tens of billions of dollars) was having issues with paying 99 cents to get ahead a level in Bejeweled? And that he would find himself constantly confused as to which apps rely too much on IAP, since you apparently think he doesn't have the ability to read "Offers in-app purchases" on the app page? I know people get attached to the ludicrous narratives they construct about different companies, but this is beyond hilarious.
- bdcravens 12y ago
  lol Shaq spends $1000+ a week on apps, pretty sure a billionaire founder will have no issues http://time.com/21470/shaq-spends-1000-a-week-on-apps/ http://time.com/21470/shaq-spends-1000-a-week-on-apps/
- gcb4 12y ago
  the issue is what founders think their clients think.

dyarosla 12y ago

I think this is a great move. It will probably come as terrible news for manipulative game developers. From first-hand experience working at a company that did this and first-hand developer testimonials, IAP in "free" games and its design has long been associated with forcing emotional, heat-of-the-moment-spurred buys from consumers - ie. You were so close to beating the level that time but you lost your last life :( Get an extra life right now and you'll kill it this time around!!!. Sadly, a portion of total players (1-2% from what I've seen) will fall for these emotional tactics and spend the money, often more than once. Even worse is when they later convince themselves that the money was well spent (say, for an extra life in Candy Crush). I hope Apple also follows suit, as some sources allude to.

jrockway 12y ago
What's the expected value over the lifetime of a game from these 1-2% of users? Do they spend thousands of dollars, or do they just spend $10 or $20? I still don't get why mobile games are aimed at "I want a game, but I only have $0.99 to spend." Computer games cost $60+.
- DanielStraight 12y ago
  I think "I want a diversion" is more common than "I want a game". Mobile games compete against Facebook, Twitter, the news, text messaging, anything else someone can do as a diversion on their phone. And none of those things cost anything at all. People who want a game and are willing to pay good money to get one generally expect a better experience than mobile can provide. I guess as more people go mobile-only, there will be a bigger market for higher priced mobile games, but I can't imagine anyone who considers themselves a gamer right now doesn't have either a console or a relatively high-end computer. (And I don't see anyone who doesn't consider themselves a gamer dropping more than $5 to play a game.)
  - TheCraiggers 12y ago
    >I think "I want a diversion" is more common than "I want a game". Mobile games compete against Facebook, Twitter, the news, text messaging, anything else someone can do as a diversion on their phone. And none of those things cost anything at all. People who want a game and are willing to pay good money to get one generally expect a better experience than mobile can provide. I agree with your general point, but I want to point out that the last sentence doesn't have to be true. Like tools in a toolbox, some platforms are more well-suited than others. The reasons vary for this, but in games it usually it comes down to control schemes. Mobile has its advantages as well- you always have it on you, likely has network connectivity 24/7, its unique control scheme, etc. I think mobile's biggest problem right now is creators are still trying to shoehorn last decade's games on a platform that was not designed for it. They may be different games than we're all used to, but there's no reason why mobile can't come into its own. That all said, I would rephrase your last sentence to "...generally expect a better experience than mobile currently provides." For what it's worth, I feel a game like Clash of Clans uses mobile's strengths very well (although I personally find it boring and its revenue model distasteful)- it makes good use of mobile's control scheme, makes good use of its platform's always-on mentality by delivering notifications of attacks, etc, and is social.

cliveowen 12y ago

Just today I installed Smash Hit and found out that it's pretty much useless if you don't shell out some money, you have to start over and over from the beginning because checkpoints are a premium feature. I hope this change will put an end to this behaviour but I fear developers are always gonna come up with new ways to trick users.

TD-Linux 12y ago
Smash Hit isn't really that bad - basically the free version is a trial, and you pay one price for the full version. I think this Google move is more targeted at the sort of games that don't fall into the trial/paid category, rather the sort that constantly try to bill you for microtransations.
- gtremper 12y ago
  Yeah, I believe the free trial and full version were 2 different apps before. Now, you don't have to download a new app to upgrade and can keep game data from the trial. This seems like a better solution, though the price may be misleading due to how "free" games are displayed in the store. The new play store change should solve this.
  - watwut 12y ago
    I prefer buying new app. That way I know that I will still own it if I change the phone and I know the payment is one time only.
MichaelGG 12y ago
Basically, there should be a Free Trial system forced or at least strongly encouraged like Microsoft Xbox does for some titles. That way, for a great game like Smash Hit, you don't feel tricked for not getting the full game for free.

fuzzythinker 12y ago

I think this is a bad move. They are jumping to an ill thought-out solution before diving deeper into the problem. Many games are actually really free in terms of no time or other baitty limits; many are 100% feature and playable up to a certain level, or the full game is playable with some restrictions. I would call these games free. The problem is with games that either have time limits or paid upgrades that popups up frequently or are too easy to click (spammy and meant to trick kids). We don't want to punish the good guys and severely hurt their discoverability with this unthought-out blanket rule. In-app purchase is not evil if done right, it's the way people/companies are abusing it via spammy or adiction ways.

wutbrodo 12y ago
Exactly. I haven't played many mobile games, but out of the handful that I have, I've never even come across a free game that I wouldn't say fully deserved that title (and most of them had in-app purchases).
jusben1369 12y ago
Hey fuzzythinker. I think you just defined the problem in a fairly limited way to support your argument. A game may be very eloquently developed and have a non intrusive but logical upgrade path after a good deal of time playing the free version. That can still cause parent's to get a shock (and it usually only happens at the end of each month) when they find out the "free game" they let their child download has in fact run up meaningful charges.
- fuzzythinker 12y ago
  Why is that a problem? Setting up password protection for in-app purchases is easy.
poopsintub 12y ago
It's a move to prevent lawsuits and FTC fines like Apple, Amazon, and themselves have been hit with in the past. I'm not sure they have a choice, as far as E.U. is concerned. Either they do what is suggested or law is put in place to make them do it, right?

ww520 12y ago

Are they going to stop calling games with ads free as well?

malandrew 12y ago
Search engines too. I really wish there were more services out there that offered a paid alternative to ads, so that the consumer does not become the product. This will never happen though because many of the people with the means to buy themselves out of an ad-laden experience are the people the advertisers most want to reach. Without that cohort, I would imagine that the value per impression would drop remarkably.

pjungwir 12y ago

From a user perspective this seems very nice. It might be nice for developers too if it starts to train people to expect to pay more than $0-2 for a game. I wonder if part of Google's reason is to push people toward advertising instead?

dyarosla 12y ago
Either that, or push the customer base of Google to pay for quality applications. Sadly, with lack of curation, I would guess customers would be skeptical of spending money on a non-free game for fear of a poor purchase (crashes, not working, etc)

funkyy 12y ago

Finally. I want to see more clearance in app market like that. App market owners got lazy, there is little innovation today, just counting profits.

kabdib 12y ago

This is the Right Thing to do. Might want a refinement where it's possible to have whole-game access and the purchases are only cosmetic in nature.

tannerc 12y ago

As a developer who makes a portion of my regular income from an app offering IAP, this is concerning. Sure, the bulk of apps with IAP appear to be spammy and simply attempting to "cheat" customers into spending money. But for apps like mine, that offer players a "preview" of fuller functionality and then offer them the ability to unlock those features for a one-time fee, it feels like morally-balanced developers are getting the short end of the stick. I'd love to hear more discussion around this though, from both the perspective of other developers as well as customers and their experiences with paid, free, IAP, ad, and "trial" apps.

Mithaldu 12y ago
Why not offer two apps? A demo costing 0$ and the full game costing x$. Frankly, it all boils down to: Almost without exception, any app on the appstore that has free in the name or description, lies to the user, because it's still trying to sell something. And if you can't sell as well without a lie to hook costumers, you need to rethink what you're doing.
- corysama 12y ago
  Free demo app + paid full app was the first thing people tried when the iOS App Store was new. The conversion rate for that setup is terribly low compare to a 1-click "unlock now" button inside the demo. It's all about reducing friction. App users are busy and distracted. Ain't nobody got time to fire up the App Store, find your paid app and download it (Again???. What's the wifi password here?) just to give you money.
  - molf 12y ago
    That's all perfectly fine, but app stores should not list these games as "FREE", they should be listed as "DEMO".
    - timpark 12y ago
      Unfortunately in Apple's App Store Review Guidelines, you have: "2.9 Apps that are "beta", "demo", "trial", or "test" versions will be rejected" Of course, people do have "Lite" versions with fewer features, but I guess there was some vague "threshold of usefulness" that they wanted to impose with this rule. Anyway, although I can find the word in the store, I think its use gets avoided due to this restriction. (And I know the article is about Google, but you used the more generic "app stores" so I'm replying to that) https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guid...

incision 12y ago

Sounds good. Between the restricted profiles in 4.3 and this it's finally reasonable to hand the tablet over to a child. Beyond this, I'd really like to see something added to provide a straightforward alternative to ad-support for apps. Something like a trivial option to generate ad-free builds for an ad including app. More than a few times I've encountered a solid app which I would gladly pay a couple of bucks for, but it's only available as ad-supported.

themartorana 12y ago
That's because - truly and honestly - you're in a super-minority. Like I said above, our IAP conversion rate to ad-free is insanely small, and accounts for less than 5% of revenue. Building in the IAP mechanism isn't trivial, and worse, IAP purchases can easily be hacked (especially on Android). Both platforms recommend you run your own server that verifies purchases with Google and Apple's servers, because even client-based validation is easily hackable. We have IAP removal of ads, but we're VERY successful compared to the average developer, and actually run our own servers. For the average dev, it's a non-trivial task. (Apologies for repeating myself.)
- incision 12y ago
  I think we've missed each other here. I'm not suggesting that these things are trivial, exactly the opposite actually. I'm assuming that they aren't and suggesting that they should be - that all the validation and heavy lifting is something that ideally Apple/Google would handle and enabling the functionality would be trivial from a developer perspective. I wonder if conversion of free to ad-free would be better if the offerings were truly separate? I'm somewhat distrustful of IAP for this purpose as it has been flaky in my experience (likely to due to the seller run validation services as you describe). I'm much more inclined to try a 'Free' app followed by purchasing the ad-free 'Premium' version than I am to buy an IAP to convert one to the other.

sjs382 12y ago

Good. I got tired of clicking into "free" games, seeing "In App Purchases" and clicking the back button.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

du 12y ago

Good news, but I think this should go further. Like showing potential buyers the average or median amount spend for people who actively use(d) the app. Or money spend per hour/week of usage.

sosuke 12y ago

We should change the terminology back to old shareware days. If the Doom shareware floppy could have offered users a way to buy the full game from within the demo it would have. So new categories of apps: Free, no IAP, no cost, ads or something else Demos, IAP to upgrade Full, could be free but use IAP consumables, ads, whatever its all yours

lucb1e 12y ago

"will stop"? It's been like this for weeks..? Or is that only because I'm located in the Netherlands?

r00fus 12y ago

Props to Google. This is definitely the right thing to do. Let's hope Apple and Microsoft follow suit. There are games out there that are deceptively unplayable without shelling out.

Sephr 12y ago

I wonder how this will affect free applications with IAP-powered donation buttons.

post_break 12y ago

Good. I remember when Steve Jobs said on stage "Free apps will stay free" but I can't track down the exact video of him. Seeing "free" apps in the top grossing column pisses me off.

radley 12y ago

Currently, iTunes lists the top 10 in-app purchases in the app description, which makes it easy to gauge what will happen when you use the app. The Play Store only recently added "Offers in-app purchases" as small print next to the device compatibility info. Not sure if Android users will embrace any form of hybrid pricing that doesn't say "Free".

CookWithMe 12y ago

As a non-game app developer, I WANTED THIS FOR YEARS! Google (and Apple) calling my apps "free" did bring in massive amounts of bad reviews. I think this is good news for any developer that wants to offer a "free-to-download" app with non-exploitative IAPs. Think of a magazine-app: People should get the app itself for free to be able to choose which issue they want to buy. There is no emotional engineering going on. You don't want to trick people into believing this app is useful if they don't spend money - in fact, you don't even want people to download your app if they won't spend money anyway. But the app store says FREE... We had/have major problems with getting tons of bad reviews like "THIS APP IS NOT FREE, ASKS FOR IN APP PURCHASE!!11". We played with the description, so it would start with "buy" or "purchase" (e.g. "BUY THE NEW ISSUE ABOUT XYZ"), which helped a little (although most people seem to skip the description). We tried screenshots of the point where one needs to purchase... which is sort of fine for iPad screenshots, but a waste for smaller phone screens. We do now also offer a lot more content for free initially, which seemed to have helped most. I'm hoping for a consistent labeling of all apps (not only games!) that sets correct expectations for the user when downloading an app.

JopV 12y ago

Please stop calling F2P's "games".

smegel 12y ago

Long, long overdue. The absurdity of calling "its free to download bits to your computer but you have to pay us to use them" free was too much.

ulfw 12y ago

Fantastic! Because frankly free - means free. Not 'trial version free - hella expensive if you ACTUALLY want to use this game'

dminor 12y ago

What they really should do is give some stats about how much money people typically spend on an app that uses IAP. E.G., "98% of users spend no money, 2% of users spent an average of $3.50", or something along those lines.

duncan_bayne 12y ago

Google has not been doing a lot right, lately, but this is bang on the money (pun intended). Bravo!