http://so-stadium-status.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/435126-iap.jpg (PCMAG)Google and Apple have both been under increasing scrutiny by E...
http://so-stadium-status.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/435126-iap.jpg
(PCMAG)Google and Apple have both been under increasing scrutiny by European regulators for the way free-to-play games are marketed in their respective mobile app stores. Now Google has agreed to make a significant change to the way these apps and games are labeled. Under the agreement, titles with in-app purchases (IAPs) will no longer be called free at all.
Issues began to surface shortly after Apple implemented IAPs a few years back. The idea that a game would ask for real money after it was installed was completely foreign to people. As a result, kids frequently racked up huge bills because of the relative lack of parental controls. Google added IAPs to Android shortly thereafter and saw some of the same issues.
The problem has only gotten worse as IAP-laden games like Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans have come to dominate the free app charts. Of course, they are only free in the most basic way. These games are designed to push you aggressively toward spending money just to get away from the grinding slowness of the free gameplay. Even if you don’t have a deep dislike for in-app purchases, you have to admit simply slapping a free label on these titles as Apple and Google do is misleading.
Now that Google has decided to stop calling these games free, it might have to rearrange the Play Store to accommodate the rise of IAPs. Maybe they’ll get their own section, but there’s a lot of nuance to IAPs. Some developers simply use in-app purchasing as a way to upgrade to a premium license, rather than having multiple app listings in the Play Store. Perhaps the section will remain the same, but the “free” badge will be replaced with something else.
Apple, for its part, responded to the news, saying it already has easy parental controls in place and doesn’t see a problem with the current system. We’ll see if they continue to hold out once Google makes its change. Speaking of, we don’t know if Google Play will change in Europe only, or if other regions will be seeing the free label go away too.
Google Agrees to Stop Calling Games with In-App Purcahses "Free" in the Play Store
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