In App Purchases in Free Apps now available.

I could see alternate pricing schemes for the same amount of content working. Chop up the content, and sell it for $1 each piece in the free version. But offer the same content all at once at a lower price in the full version. Of course, this only works with content that can easily be split without ruining the game.

 

Most games in AppStore have a lite version. This move will eliminate the need of having one. That's what Eliminate seems to be doing too. Bundling the lite and full version into a single app.

I for one have some faith in this move by apple and do believe it could work out in favor of the devs and consumers alike. If nothing else it shows that apple is still experimenting with the AppStore. They may seem a little slow in making major changes to it but atleast they are trying.

 

I'm a little shaky on DLC, so could someone please clarify 2 points?

1) Is DLC only available from within an app (paid or free), or can it be a standalone purchase as well?

2) Will each DLC have its own review (like the way updates currently are) and rankings?

 

1. That will depend on the developer. 2. They don't now.

 

It'll be interesting to see what happens. My main game is #33 in paid Board games, so chucking it into a giant free list to eliminate my Lite version doesn't sound all that appealing. My Lite version weeds out all the kids who like to leave bad reviews for fun.

 

1. The content, or access to the content, is unlocked from within the app.

2. I believe a review is for the app alone. But who knows what Apple will do in the near future.

 

So what are you guys thinking as far as implementation? My first thought is to continue as per usual, making both a paid and lite version, but add DLC to the lite version in case people want to upgrade via that route. What do you think?

 

So you don't plan to lower the price of your games so they are all 99 cents and add DLC to them as a 3rd option?

 

I knew you'd have a good idea!

 

When Apple first introduced DLC, I thought it would be a nice thing to have a free app with purchasable content. Now, I'm pretty sure it's a bad idea (at least for now).

There are several important issues with that:

1. Your app must be 3.0, or probably it can also be 2.x, but you lose the in-app purchases, so it's useless. For free apps, supporting 2.x is crucial in reaching top-100, no matter how good your app is.

2. Rate-on-delete feature is still there, so you'll end up having 1-2 stars, again no matter how good your app is.

3. If you have a free app which allows purchases, and a paid app with the same functionality, your free app's in-game purchases will steal sales from your paid version, resulting in lower "top paid" and "top grossing" ratings.

4. Why would one decide to limit himself by only having a free version in a first place, while he can have both free and paid version, and be seen in all top ratings?

 

Thanks guys! Now I'm torn as to what to do with Fuzion. I could make it free and have different quest/monster/trial bundles as DLC options. Free gets so much more exposure, but I'm not seeing much evidence of a positive trend with lite app to paid conversion rates.

 

Regarding paid list vs free list -- couldn't I just release a paid version and a free version (as you do today) except that the free version could ALSO be unlocked through DLC? I don't see any reason I couldn't do both. Even with the 'free version only' model, I effectively have to create a Lite version, so the amount of work would be the same. I'd rather submit two apps, and have visibility on both charts.

 

This is what I was thinking as well.

 

One way around this is to offer the paid version at a better price than the free DLC version turns out to be in the long run. Not sure how customers would react though.

 

What if I had two apps, one free with dlc, and a paid one with no dlc, but the price is what the free with all dlc total is together? Could I do that?

 

Maybe free games with DLC shouldn't be listed in the top free games, they should be listed in the paid apps list or revenue list? A little weird... but has interesting potential (customers might see it in the paid list but then see that it's free and get excited... but then they'd find out it's paid to get a reasonably sized game and get angry.)

Maybe apple just needs a new category: trial or demo, or something -- doesn't really cover all cases, though. This is problematic, for sure.

Another thought: Am I correct in saying that devs are responsible for serving the dlc? Unless it's just an unlock, extra downloaded stages or whatever are actually served up at the dev's expense, right?

So... this is another possibly nice benefit for Apple, but not the devs?

I'm also still unclear on the piracy thing. Once the whole app is all together, why can't you just copy that app with all the dlc and just crack out the dlc checking part of the code or the bit where the dev checks to see if it's unlocked? I'm a little ignorant of the whole process... more into developing than cracking.

 

Yes but arn's point is that you would be splitting your sales and it would be harder to get onto a paid chart.

 

Correct.

 

Also, for a free upgradable demo game you can't have the full upgrade price listed in the app charts. Everything'll just say FREE until you click into the app description... Maybe this'll help people stop shopping as much based on 99c-ness?