That said I feel the conflation of “demo+upgrade to full game” and “‘free’ game with unending pay to play” in the iOS App Store at least is miserable.
If I see an app that says “in app purchases” I ignore it as scamware unless there’s been some review I saw elsewhere. This is of course a problem AppStores could fix if they cared.
Yeah, I agree that “in app purchases” needs to be contextualised better. Even with non-game apps, it’s hard to tell what to expect. For example:
- does it just mean you can manage a subscription service via the app (if you hadn’t paid for it elsewhere)?
- is it to remove ads?
- is it to download extra 3rd party content like songs or TV / films?
- do you get a full basic app but you can buy “features”?
- are you paying for a demo that lasts a month or is severely crippled to the point that it’s basically unusable for the advertised function?
Some of those usages are perfectly reasonable reasons to want in app purchases. Others are signs that the app is bullshit. But there’s no way to tell just by looking at the term “in app purchases”
exactly. There's a world of difference between "demo with paid upgrade", "full app with additional features you can pay for", "game you can only really win if you buy add ons", "glorified gambling" :-/
That said I feel the conflation of “demo+upgrade to full game” and “‘free’ game with unending pay to play” in the iOS App Store at least is miserable.
If I see an app that says “in app purchases” I ignore it as scamware unless there’s been some review I saw elsewhere. This is of course a problem AppStores could fix if they cared.