App Store shrank for first time in 2017 due to crackdowns on spam, clones etc. • Hacker News Board

Re: App Store shrank for first time in 2017 due to crackdowns on spam, clones etc.

#21

Post by olympus » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 12:26 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #15

makecheck wrote: post #10

A start. Now they need to shrink in-app purchases. Seriously, I see games with over a dozen kinds of in-app purchases that total well over $100 (sometimes individually that high), and many listed purchases seem to be for repeatable things like gem bags. How much money can you possibly spend on a game!? It should be completely against the rules for heaps of purchases like these to even be an option . Basically, your a…

I agree that, for normal people, these purchases would only be made as symptoms of addiction, and so should likely be prevented or regulated like you say. However, I don’t think the people at the head of the revenue distribution for these games (the “whales”) are really in the throes of addiction. They’re actually spending completely normal amounts of money... for them. They’re just ungodly rich. Ask anyone from one…

Additionally, there are some specialist/professional apps that charge quite a bit and they would be screwed by a limit.

Example: the iPad is the defacto standard for electronic flight bags (digital charts for pilots), and the market rate is $75 per year. Higher end subscriptions with terrain awareness and instrument approaches are $150 per year. A rule designed to limit freemium games would hurt the EFB market on the iPad.

Re: App Store shrank for first time in 2017 due to crackdowns on spam, clones etc.

#22

Post by arielm » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 12:29 AM UTC

ASalazarMX wrote: post #17

arielm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We (Appfigures) looked at the SDKs that apps use to determine what's native vs. non-native. This method will catch "partially" non-native apps as well as fully non-native apps as the former will need to have the non-native SDK even for a single module.

You might want to correct a typo in the landing page: "Our indespensible reports..."

Good catch. Thanks!

Re: App Store shrank for first time in 2017 due to crackdowns on spam, clones etc.

#23

Post by IAmEveryone » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 12:36 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #15

makecheck wrote: post #10

A start. Now they need to shrink in-app purchases. Seriously, I see games with over a dozen kinds of in-app purchases that total well over $100 (sometimes individually that high), and many listed purchases seem to be for repeatable things like gem bags. How much money can you possibly spend on a game!? It should be completely against the rules for heaps of purchases like these to even be an option . Basically, your a…

I agree that, for normal people, these purchases would only be made as symptoms of addiction, and so should likely be prevented or regulated like you say. However, I don’t think the people at the head of the revenue distribution for these games (the “whales”) are really in the throes of addiction. They’re actually spending completely normal amounts of money... for them. They’re just ungodly rich. Ask anyone from one…

I really don't believe that Saudi princesses and similar are a meaningfully large demographic to be relevant in this market. I'd also think that ungodly rich oil royalty has better ways to spend their time and money than pay-to-play games.

The underlying hypothesis that these games have addictive properties targeting a segment with maybe low impulse control seems far more plausible. These are slot machines, not high-stakes blackjack tables.

Re: App Store shrank for first time in 2017 due to crackdowns on spam, clones etc.

#24

Post by mythz » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 12:55 AM UTC

A lot of it is also their new policy of removing old Apps that haven't received an update in a long time, of which from last year they started removing my earliest Apps.

Re: App Store shrank for first time in 2017 due to crackdowns on spam, clones etc.

#25

Post by 9935c101ab17a66 » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:00 AM UTC

rrdharan wrote: post #19

derefr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that, for normal people, these purchases would only be made as symptoms of addiction, and so should likely be prevented or regulated like you say. However, I don’t think the people at the head of the revenue distribution for these games (the “whales”) are really in the throes of addiction. They’re actually spending completely normal amounts of money... for them. They’re just ungodly rich. Ask anyone from one…

I wouldn’t be so quick to assume these folks can actually afford what they are spending: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-07-06/zynga-s-q... There were many articles covering this topic during the Zynga peak years, about folks developing gambling-type addictions to freemium games and spending money they don’t have. EDIT: here’s another article exploring these connections... https://www.theverge.com/2015/5…

I'm not really sure you can lay that one at FarmVille's feet. And to try and make a connection between the two seems a little ridiculous.

Re: App Store shrank for first time in 2017 due to crackdowns on spam, clones etc.

#26

Post by derefr » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:01 AM UTC

rrdharan wrote: post #19

derefr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that, for normal people, these purchases would only be made as symptoms of addiction, and so should likely be prevented or regulated like you say. However, I don’t think the people at the head of the revenue distribution for these games (the “whales”) are really in the throes of addiction. They’re actually spending completely normal amounts of money... for them. They’re just ungodly rich. Ask anyone from one…

I wouldn’t be so quick to assume these folks can actually afford what they are spending: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-07-06/zynga-s-q... There were many articles covering this topic during the Zynga peak years, about folks developing gambling-type addictions to freemium games and spending money they don’t have. EDIT: here’s another article exploring these connections... https://www.theverge.com/2015/5…

I don't deny that these people do exist. My point was that they—surprisingly!—don't pay the salaries of the devs at these game studios. The whales do. The studios can afford to keep the profit from the whales and lose the profit from the addicted middle-class.

And many of these studios are going this way! Even back when I was at the company I referred to (~2012), they were already building profiling logic into their backend to try to find the people spending "out of their range" and, effectively, stage interventions for them. They don't want these customers. They aren't their core demographic, any more than they're the core demographic of casinos, or than alcoholics are the core demographic of bars. And like a bar, they'd really rather "cut them off."

Re: App Store shrank for first time in 2017 due to crackdowns on spam, clones etc.

#27

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:33 AM UTC

makecheck wrote: post #10

A start. Now they need to shrink in-app purchases. Seriously, I see games with over a dozen kinds of in-app purchases that total well over $100 (sometimes individually that high), and many listed purchases seem to be for repeatable things like gem bags. How much money can you possibly spend on a game!? It should be completely against the rules for heaps of purchases like these to even be an option . Basically, your a…

[deleted]

Re: App Store shrank for first time in 2017 due to crackdowns on spam, clones etc.

#28

Post by gruez » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:41 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #26

rrdharan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t be so quick to assume these folks can actually afford what they are spending: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-07-06/zynga-s-q... There were many articles covering this topic during the Zynga peak years, about folks developing gambling-type addictions to freemium games and spending money they don’t have. EDIT: here’s another article exploring these connections... https://www.theverge.com/2015/5…

I don't deny that these people do exist. My point was that they—surprisingly!—don't pay the salaries of the devs at these game studios. The whales do. The studios can afford to keep the profit from the whales and lose the profit from the addicted middle-class. And many of these studios are going this way! Even back when I was at the company I referred to (~2012), they were already building profiling logic into their…

>And like a bar, they'd really rather "cut them off."

why? absent any legal requirements (which bars and casinos may have), isn't it better from a business perspective to get some money off them before they go bankrupt?

Re: App Store shrank for first time in 2017 due to crackdowns on spam, clones etc.

#29

Post by Franciscouzo » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 2:08 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #15

makecheck wrote: post #10

A start. Now they need to shrink in-app purchases. Seriously, I see games with over a dozen kinds of in-app purchases that total well over $100 (sometimes individually that high), and many listed purchases seem to be for repeatable things like gem bags. How much money can you possibly spend on a game!? It should be completely against the rules for heaps of purchases like these to even be an option . Basically, your a…

I agree that, for normal people, these purchases would only be made as symptoms of addiction, and so should likely be prevented or regulated like you say. However, I don’t think the people at the head of the revenue distribution for these games (the “whales”) are really in the throes of addiction. They’re actually spending completely normal amounts of money... for them. They’re just ungodly rich. Ask anyone from one…

That sounds like a post-rationalization to not feel bad about exploiting poor/addicted people.

Re: App Store shrank for first time in 2017 due to crackdowns on spam, clones etc.

#30

Post by jandrese » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 2:23 AM UTC

osrec wrote: post #6

About time they cleaned it up a bit. I find the app store a bit of a mess and finding a good quality app for a particular task is rather difficult at times. The best app is rarely the most "discoverable" so the more noise they remove the better.

Weirdly, some of the best apps I still use are 32 bit only and long since abandoned. They're the ones that do their job without cloud nonsense or built-in advertising or some damn "pro" version that requires a yearly fee and the free version won't shut up about it.