A lot of people are making false assumptions about what this is about; Here's the actual EU release rather than a blog rewrite:<p><a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-187_en.htm?locale=en" rel="nofollow">http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-187_en.htm?locale...</a><p>The actual issue is "Often consumers are not fully aware that they are spending money because their credit cards get charged by default." - so it's not an issue of people disliking paywalls in free games, it's an issue of people not realizing they're handing over real cash in games which are marked free.<p>The EU also has't said they want Free/IAP games to not be marked as free, but what they said is 'Games advertised as “free” should not mislead consumers about the true costs involved' (i.e IAP should be made more explicit).
I wholeheartedly agree with this. The point for me isn't so much "protection" against unforseen expenses it's just that I want to know up front what costs money and what doesn't.<p>When I browse for a free app I don't want to see the crippled in-app-unlockable app next to the truly free app.<p>Strict rules for prices in marketing is a prerequisite for a functioning market, my other pet peeve is the contract phone. Not only do I think telcos should be required to market the total cost (which they are already at least here) , I want to take it one step further and completely ban the marketing of the small upfront cost as the price.
When I look at free games on the App Store I see if it says "offers in-app purchases".<p>If it does I look at the in-app purchases.<p>If the in-app purchases are "x00 Special In-Game Currency Units" then I don't install the game.<p>Not sure we need legislation to avoid being ripped off...
Personally I would like to see iAP to be considered like advertising and for it to be more heavily regulated at child audiences. Tired of my 4 year old crying because I won't let him spend another $4 to unlock another widget.
This is one of the areas where I wish EU would punish Apple for.<p>Their <i>free app of the week</i> is often so-called free games but they almost always have in-app purchases that's required to take full advantage of the game.
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.<p>These game should not be mingled with free games and parents should have an option to forbid them.
It would be interesting if one could differentiate between playable games, and in game purchases are "fun", versus games that are unplayable in the 'free' mode without purchasing additional tokens. Its the latter that people really hate.
The solution for this would be to change the purchase approval model where you have to enter your password to purchase anything. You can have to options: 1) authorize until closed, or 2) authorize just this purchase. This way kids could not run up charges using iAP.<p>However, if you an adult, and you have purchased $100s of iAP, and now you feel bad about it, I have 0 sympathy for you.<p>Overall, this is just EU being EU, nothing surprising.
People in this thread are ignoring where the true responsibility lies here, Apple (or Google).<p>As a dev I have no control whether to call my app "Free" or "Free to download but contains IAP that are required to use the whole game."<p>Apple has two categories, "Free" and "Paid" and places your app in the category automatically depending on whether the download price is nonzero.<p>So really, if you want to blame anyone, blame the app store creators, not the app creators.<p>(Of course there's still the ability to blame companies who market their apps as "FREE" in advertisements in other apps).<p>EDIT: And of course Apple has already added the label "Includes In App Purchases" to free games with IAP. I think that's good enough.
Hm. I see the good intent of protection against 'unwitting purchases' BUT still do not welcome the government intervention here. Governments have a tendency to work on 'soft targets' like software / app development. I would like to see them work first on unwitting charges/terms-and-conditions imposed by credit card or insurance companies.<p>The order of priority just feels wrong.
What about advertising? It consumes my time and attention, which is generally worth more (at least to me) than a few bucks. And advertising can have a powerful affect on susceptible minds. By this logic, all advertisement-supported games should be clearly marked as well.
Seems kind of ridiculous to me.<p><i>"Consumers and in particular children need better protection against unexpected costs from in-app purchases."</i><p>What are unexpected costs? Are users ever charged without explicitly agreeing to it?<p><i>"The use of the word 'free' (or similar unequivocal terms) as such, and without any appropriate qualifications, should only be allowed for games which are indeed free in their entirety, or in other words which contain no possibility of making in-app purchases, not even on an optional basis."</i><p>What is the cost of someone downloading a 'free' game only to realize that they need to pay to get the experience that they expected? They can just uninstall the game. I've paid for and downloaded games that didn't deliver the experience I expected.<p>If the goal is protecting kids from making in-app purchases, maybe parents should learn how to use parental controls, or not attach credit cards to their children's devices. Does this really 'protect' anyone, or does it just change the language that game-makers use for this model, and nothing else?
Companies will find a different name ... and go on with the same business model.<p>Just a naming game ... no real progress, yet.<p>Clever companies will always find ways, to fool not so clever people. I also think, that most people know, that F2P is not really free.
Banning the term "free-to-play" because there are optional features that cost money means you would also need to ban the term "free admission" when a venue charges for food and drinks. You'll also have to get rid of "buy one get one free" and, well, pretty much just strike the word "free" from the dictionary altogether since technically there is not a thing in the world that is entirely without consequence, tradeoff, opportunity cost, etc.
Requiring explicit authorization would be really nice. I recently discovered that even if you set Google Play to always require a password (which apparently isn't even necessarily the default(?)), you still don't require a password for 30 minutes after any purchase. That means that if I buy a game for my son to play with, any in-game purchases he randomly clicks on automatically get approved.<p>Fortunately I get them refunded when I complain, but it's still a stupid policy.
It'd be interesting if they required games with IAPs to show an "average spend/user" number next to the big "FREE" label, so you know how much you can expect you'll get suckered in. Although I suspect it would be pretty meaningless since users would be split between "doesn't pay a cent" and "whales who spend lots".
This is silly. At the end of the day, game developers need to get paid for their effort and time spent. The days of $49 boxed games are over (on mobile). The iAP model is proven again and again across different platforms and the majority of the top grossing apps are following it.<p>It costs money to develop games and apps. A quality title might cost over a million dollars in development. What makes the consumer believe they deserve to get it for free?<p>iAPs are not necessarily evil - they are a great and perfect way of pricing things for different subsets of people. If you reduce iAP revenue, you make developers more driven toward ad revenue.
Some of these are reasonable protections, but I wonder if there's that many offenders -- are there really apps that don't follow "in-app purchases should not be made without the consumer's explicit consent?" I don't have an iPhone, but in Android you have to go through a Google Play dialogue to authorize any IAPs I've made.<p>Some, though, seem rather ineffectual. If the App Store and Google Play replace the button that says "Free" with one that says something else, and the game still doesn't cost anything up-front, is that really going to change anyone's behavior?
This is not unlike 1900 numbers that children called to hear bedtime stories. Apple and other OS providers should be regulated to conform to standards that include parent control over purchases done by their kids.<p>Better labeling is always in the consumer's interest. If games and other apps encourage in-app purchasing for a good experience then this info should be clearly on the packaging. And I say this as an app developer with in app purchases!<p>Apple already shows this info but may have to label it better.
As an adult iOS/Android user, I am annoyed by IAP games, but I don't feel like I'm being bamboozled or defrauded. Nothing warranting government interference.<p>But as a parent of a 2 year old, I am not pleased with some kids games developers trying to take advantage of children (and I'm talking toddlers) using devices where parents haven't blocked IAP, or placing ads that they presumably get click-revenue from kids not understanding what they're clicking on...
BHAHAHAHAHA I just love how many people are getting their arms up about this, then you find out its because they're the CEO of Supercell.<p>"Free to play" should not be a model which says, "Free, but in order to actually, well, WIN, you need to pay". Take a look at Dota 2. Thats a successful f2p model. Game itself is 100% free and you can be a top player without paying a DIME.
I actually think if Apple were to rearrange the App Store so that we had 'free', 'paid', and 'free with IAP' categories it might make discovery a lot better too. The 'top grossing' chart if currently pretty much an 'IAP' chart so just remove IAP apps from the free chart and replace 'top grossing' with top grossing IAP apps.
There should be 3 classifications of apps. Free, Paid, IAP. I absolutely agree that IAP apps should not be able to be marketed as 'Free'. It's quite disingenuous to do so.<p>It's like a store saying everyone can have a free t-shirt. But then requiring that you buy $10 of stuff from the store first. You would still call that shirt free?
I've said it before and I'll say it again: in-app purchases are the premium SMS scam of the '10s.<p>Companies making a killing on IAP these days are no different from Jamster mobile club and its kin.<p>Regulations will catch up soon enough but no doubt by then some other avenue for bilking kids out of their cash will have presented itself by then.
Similarly misleading advertising: Telling that you can "buy" digital video when it comes encumbered with DRM that turns your "buying" into "renting for an undefined time period".<p>Maybe European Commission could do something about that too, it would most definitely be welcome.
This used to be much easier when I was young. Freeware vs Shareware. Just searching for "freeware <x>" would normally find me the truly free (as in beer) thing if there were multiple versions.
God Bless the EU.<p>They are the only ones fighting the good fight for the consumer these days. Thanks to the lack of campaign finance reform in the U.S., all our pols are on the take to those with the deepest pockets.
It just boils down to the EU preferring to protect it's citizens/consumers/public, whereas the US loves to protect it's companies/corporations/lobbyists.
There's a clear definition of what is free software:
<a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html</a><p>The EU should not invent its own.