Apple begins rejecting apps that offer rewards for video views, social sharing

Good riddance.<p>Let&#x27;s go even further and have them ban consumable IAPs. There&#x27;s almost no legitimate use case for them other than creating pretend currencies that make people hit the skinner box lever harder and spend more money.

&gt; [W]here a confused developer wonders, “so we can’t encourage users to share stuffs [sic] on social networks anymore? This is one of the oldest tricks in the book and even Candy Crush uses it.”<p>&quot;Even Candy Crush uses it&quot; is not the best argument for this developer&#x27;s point. It is the best argument for Apple&#x27;s shift in enforcement.

Great but as many have pointed out the biggest problem with the App Store is that IAP has made pricing completely opaque.<p>The whole experience is completely untrustworthy as an app which requires an average spend of £20+ to use properly is considered more &quot;Free&quot; than an app which costs £2.99.<p>It&#x27;s made a complete mockery of prices.<p>Fixed prices are popular for a reason and I hope Apple learns this and starts properly surfacing information as well as categorising based on the reality of an App&#x27;s &quot;price.&quot;

IAP Ranters. Here is a story. A real one.<p>I take a coffee break and fire the addictive social game &quot;Boom Beach&quot;.<p>My troops are ready and I am ready to attack the neighbors.<p>I buy a 5 USD tea + 3 USD water bottle (both I can get free at my office).<p>The attack doesn&#x27;t go well. One little error. My break is about to end, but I want to try one more time. Just that, it will take 2 hours to train my troops.<p>Or Wait, 1.99 USD to speed that up. Hours of planning, that went for the attack and just 2 USD to find out if I was right or wrong. Is it worth it ? I look at my coffee and water, the time, the ending break, the distractions till this is resolved. It&#x27;s worth it. And while I am putting in 2USD, might as well take the 10USD deal for next 20 battles. Better spent than &quot;expensive-than-movie&quot; popcorn. Ban that first.

What I find annoying is that they did this with no warning. I got an app rejected a few days ago. I have a coin model in my apps. The users can a) Complete actions within the apps to earn coins b) Purchase coins through IAPs c) Watch video ads for coins d) Complete offers for coins. Many users have expressed that they were happy with the system, especially the video ads, with reviews such as &quot;I wish there was more videos to watch for coins&quot;. With only around 2% of users spending money on IAPs, offers and videos are a good way to monetize at least a portion of the remaining 98%.

This is a change I wholeheartedly agree with. The prompts in games to make you watch advertisements or download other apps for game credits was always to me a bit iffy. I am glad to see Apple officially forbidding these kind of moves. Developers of free-to-play games will just find other clever ways of making money off of free users, whether that be prompting you to spend real money on in-app purchases or even forcing you too at some point: who knows what will happen.

I feel bad for all the developers who are going to see a substantial drop in revenues from incentivized video ads. But as a user, I am happy to see this change. Developers have been very abusive with in-game credits.

Interesting how the normally libertarian HN is very much against a &quot;free market&quot; in apps, preferring that Apple get to dictate who earns money instead.

Random thoughts:<p>They are supposedly now banning keywords in titles so you won&#x27;t be seeing more title like Floopy Bird - incredibly fun additive threes 2048 game. Good.<p>As for banning incentivized social actions: that really sucks if you aren&#x27;t one of the companies (like King, Zynga, etc) that have really benefited from the growth of using those incentivized actions. Developers that came before you won&#x27;t be punished and you are now going to have to spend your way to the top. Good luck with that.<p>One rumor is that they are banning some incentivized video ad networks because ads were coming up with Google Play logos. Oops.<p>Anyways - the long and short of it is, while the policies are probably net positive for the consumer, the people that gamed the system early still win.

It&#x27;s about time. It&#x27;s not only games that do this, even brand name companies pay for positioning via incentivized downloads from these marketing companies.

So where do you draw the line between viewing advertisements to play the game, and viewing advertisements to enhance the game? What makes a video view for gold coins different from an ad view to proceed to the next screen? I don&#x27;t fully understand the distinction here?

The clause of being able to promote apps that are made by the same publisher will have a very significant impact on the industry and could even lead to more consolidation and a significant disadvantage for independent developers. In fact, I think this could lead to a business opportunity for publishing as a service whereby a developer can host their app with a partner and get paid based on the number of ads clicked, impressions, etc.<p>Overall, an unfriendly move for developers. I think it might be time to buy some Zynga ;-).

Thats very good move, i guess.

Good. Start with Angry Birds Star Wars telepods and don&#x27;t let them back in if they remove it. Rovio really ruined the good thing they had going by getting way too greedy.

If Apple would just open up sideloading, all of the controversy could just go away.

does this mean hay day is gone?