5 ms·

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 s

by 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...
bitJericho 12y ago
Surely a player intending to buy but checking out the demo won't be concerned about the notice that it's not free.
- tannerc 12y ago
  That's the issue at-hand: if the app isn't labeled as "free" then many users won't try it.
  - bitJericho 12y ago
    So you want to pass off your demo as a "free" game? Ah I see your other posts on this.
tommi 12y ago
So you develop an app which is preview until you pay and you want to call it free? As a customer: that's not free!
- tannerc 12y ago
  But the app is free. Only small parts of it are "locked." You never have to pay to enjoy the experience, there's no pressure at all to do so either.
- anywherenotes 12y ago
  It gives you a chance to try the app without buying it, and convenience of buying full version without having to go into play store to download new version, and also deleting the "demo" version. For example if you sign up for a free MMO trial, you can either cancel it or just buy subscription - you don't need to re-install the game and reapply any customization you have done. Also if it's a kid-game, and your kid is small, they might be super happy with the one or two free levels, and you wouldn't need to upgrade to full game.
  - evilduck 12y ago
    That's still not free product, that's a free trial. Those are worlds apart in customer expectations.
iwalton3 12y ago
What they could do is show the important distinction between the uses of IAP with 2 categories: - Games where each purchase can only be made once: Most games where purchases are used to add extra content - Games where the same IAP can be made multiple times: Spammy games with consumable purchases The two categories can have text indicating they include expansions (DLC) or that they contain consumable purchases (pay-to-win).
- Mithaldu 12y ago
  Honestly, i think calling them consumable is white-washing it. They're cheats in a fanciful disguise.

by tannerc 12y ago

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...

bitJericho 12y ago

Surely a player intending to buy but checking out the demo won't be concerned about the notice that it's not free.

tannerc 12y ago
That's the issue at-hand: if the app isn't labeled as "free" then many users won't try it.
- bitJericho 12y ago
  So you want to pass off your demo as a "free" game? Ah I see your other posts on this.

tommi 12y ago

So you develop an app which is preview until you pay and you want to call it free? As a customer: that's not free!

tannerc 12y ago
But the app is free. Only small parts of it are "locked." You never have to pay to enjoy the experience, there's no pressure at all to do so either.
anywherenotes 12y ago
It gives you a chance to try the app without buying it, and convenience of buying full version without having to go into play store to download new version, and also deleting the "demo" version. For example if you sign up for a free MMO trial, you can either cancel it or just buy subscription - you don't need to re-install the game and reapply any customization you have done. Also if it's a kid-game, and your kid is small, they might be super happy with the one or two free levels, and you wouldn't need to upgrade to full game.
- evilduck 12y ago
  That's still not free product, that's a free trial. Those are worlds apart in customer expectations.

iwalton3 12y ago

What they could do is show the important distinction between the uses of IAP with 2 categories: - Games where each purchase can only be made once: Most games where purchases are used to add extra content - Games where the same IAP can be made multiple times: Spammy games with consumable purchases The two categories can have text indicating they include expansions (DLC) or that they contain consumable purchases (pay-to-win).

Mithaldu 12y ago
Honestly, i think calling them consumable is white-washing it. They're cheats in a fanciful disguise.