151–160 of 231 posts
As a father, thank you. Games with in-app purchases are NOT free -- the reason of the intervention is that in a lot of cases, especially children, people were charged without noticing. These game should not be mingled with free games and parents should have an option to forbid them.
Can children have credit cards?
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Indeed. There is always a point where everyone of us starts being not sophisticated. Each time somebody tells me that we shouldn't protect stupid people, I remember not feeling very smart in front of pages of legalese in insurance and banking contracts. I keep thinking, yes they are probably going to screw me, but somebody is working to prevent them from screwing me too overtly.
I guess I didn't realize the average person was that stupid. I play games with in-app purchases. It's pretty easy just not to pay for them. If the public is this bad with something as simple as in-app purchases, why should we ever legalize drugs? This is a serious question.
Because enforcing strong anti-drug laws causes even more damage. It's not that most people want drugs to be legal, it banning them does not work.
On the other hand a legislation like this is easy to enforce, because you pretty much only have to get Apple, Google and Microsoft to comply in their stores.
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I believe that it's not so much that it specifically gets hard after you've paid (although that's a neat dark pattern that I wouldn't put past some of the current crop of App game developers frankly!) but rather that after a certain point it simply gets too hard to progress without paying. So the developers draw you in with what appears to be a skill game that you can enjoy playing, and then after they've got you com…
Except I have lots of friends who played to the last level of Candy Crush without buying any IAP. The game is not impossible to beat without IAP.
I'm not going anywhere with this, just wondering about the staggering amount of time that gets sucked into games like candy crush.
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Sorry, but it tells you the cost, right on the damn screen. It's not hidden. It literally tells you the price. This is well after you've already downloaded the free app. So you have the game. You are inside, and their are prices next to it. I mean, damn. Do these same people go to a club, get in for free, and then wonder why they still have to pay for drinks? > Say "Free game of the week with paid IAP still included"…
If it's "unlock extra maps for $5" I think that's fair. If it's "125 tokens for $10", that's not really telling you the price. Video arcades used this abstraction tactic successfully. Make people convert money upfront, make the exchange rate difficult to calculate mentally, ensure that the user is left with worthless "change" so they top up again, to avoid being left with sunk costs. If every time an IAP is offered i…
The EU should not invent its own.
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> WTF? Those SaaS/PaaS usually make clear what the plan cover and don't cover. WTF? Those free games don't cost you a thing, too! And damn, if you don't want to pay, you don't have to. Apple tells you straight out if a game, free or otherwise, has IAP. They provide you with prices. What more do you want? > I do have a problem with companies saying those are free games where they aren't free and have paid requirements…
> What more do you want? People want clarity of information. You keep saying that the price is listed. But IAPs are hidden behind an extra click. This might seem trivial to you but it is the kind of thing that the EU regulates and most citizens are pleased they do so. Take another example. In the UK if you're a business marketing to the public and you advertise goods you must include the VAT in the advertised price.…
Let's see. Game section, and the top free game I see is Disco Zoo. It's advertised as free. It's described as best new game.
Tap.
Okay, let's see, still free. Swipey Swipey swipe. Pretty pictures, Game Center, and oh look! IAP. But yres, I need to tsp to see those prices.
I wonder..,
So yeah, it's battleship meets zoos. You earn gold in game and use that to fund your battle shipping excursions. I guess if I'm impatient I can just buy more gold. Yep.
Yes yes, I see your point! The game is clearly not free! I have to buy that gold instead of playing the game.
Thank god the EU is there to tackle the horrors of Disco Zoo.
Seriously, the only dishonesty here are the people claims of suffering from this.
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'Need' is tricky to define in this case. Many 'freemium' games are very different experiences based on whether or not you pay via additional IAP. From what I gather, not having actually played it, Dungeon Keeper is about the most extreme example of this. It sounds like you really do need to pay in order to play the actual game , as opposed to playing something which many would describe as not really being the game .
Agreed, the recent Dungeon Keeper release was effectively unplayable without buying the IAP items.
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I think it'd be a good thing to do. You have a process in place, and enough self discipline to avoid installing such apps. But not everyone is like that. I'm guessing majority of the users go like this: "ah, it's a free app, great, I'll get it. Oh, what do I do now? £0.99 is not too bad, I'll just get another pack of , so I don't have to wait 30 mins". Can people self-regulate and avoid behaving like that? Yes. Do th…
I'm not the first or last person to say this, but the solution to "some people behave in way X, while other people behave in way Y" is generally not "we need legislation compelling everyone to behave the same way".
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> What more do you want? People want clarity of information. You keep saying that the price is listed. But IAPs are hidden behind an extra click. This might seem trivial to you but it is the kind of thing that the EU regulates and most citizens are pleased they do so. Take another example. In the UK if you're a business marketing to the public and you advertise goods you must include the VAT in the advertised price.…
Hidden behind an extra click? Okay I'll bite. I'm on my phone, but that's fair as most people would be as wee I imagine. Let's see. Game section, and the top free game I see is Disco Zoo. It's advertised as free. It's described as best new game. Tap. Okay, let's see, still free. Swipey Swipey swipe. Pretty pictures, Game Center, and oh look! IAP. But yres, I need to tsp to see those prices. I wonder.., So yeah, it's…
In the EU the price you see is the price you pay. Weights and measures are standardised so people can compare proces across different stores.
In the US the price you see is less than the price you pay. You add sales tax. That makes it harder to compare prices.
The problem isn't that apps cost money nor that they offer IAPs. The problem is the lack of tranparency with apps. This means that good quality apps with honest procing are penalised by lower quality apps that hide the cost in IAPs but describe themselves as free.
You only need to look at the App Store to see how dysfunctional the current system is.
I realy don't know why you are so aggressively dismissive of something that would allow developers to advertise their software at a sensible real cost and not have to compete with shitty "free" apps that hide the cost in IAPs.