

Smurfs Sneak into Apple's App Store, Rob Parents - slaven
http://slaven.posterous.com/smurfs-sneak-into-apples-app-store-rob-parent

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stevenwei
A massive number of Top Grossing games use this model. Just looking at the Top
20: Tap Zoo, Restaurant Story, FarmVille, Kingdoms at War, Touch Pets Cats,
Zombie Farm, We Rule.

I suppose there should be a setting (perhaps even the default) that allows
parents to always require a password for every in app purchase. Wonder how
much it would affect sales...

What's funny is I bet that most people who complain about "expensive" (read:
more than $5) apps wouldn't blink at spending a bunch of money on virtual
coins/berries/gems/stars/whatever.

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the_unknown
I'd love it if we could get a better breakdown of app-types: 1) paid download
2) free-to-download and play 3) free-to-download with in-app purchase

This would not only be more reflective of the state of the game but also allow
me to make better informed decisions when downloading apps for my child (or
myself).

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slaven
I have some paid apps that also offer in-app purchases so maybe a new flag
that lets parents know which apps have in-app purchases? Or at least a way to
reset the iTunes password on demand...

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slaven
Good point! I've never seen this model shoot straight into the top spot on
grossing list, I guess that's probably because Capcom jacked up prices on
their items. I don't think they'll be allowed to continue this, or Apple will
have a revolt on their hands.

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cmelbye
This has definitely happened before. Last time I checked, almost half of the
apps in top grossing were free. You don't think apps should be allowed to
price their in-app purchases at whatever they'd like? Really?

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slaven
Well, when you're targeting children with a $60 upsell then yes, really.

