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Comment by johnvschmitt | Hacker News Reader

With millions of games released, we've essentially been conducting a wide experiment into what methods (free, IAP, free/pro) is effective (at getting in the top categories for revenue & downloads).

Now, we see that the top charts are dominated by games like this. Free, with IAP to accelerate. That's what the market evolution bore.

If we don't like it, we can try to ban practices, but unless Apple (as a gatekeeper) bans these things, they will persist, as that's what millions of apps across billions of downloads/players have evolved to, & will evolve back to.

To change the dominant business model, we'd need some new mechanic to supplant it, not just trying to tilt at windmills & complain.

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They are not trying to change the dominant business model nor ban IAP.

They ruled that if you make a game like Dungeon Keeper, then you can not advertise the game as free, because it is misleading to customer. EA has to make one minor change in like three words in that ad in order to comply. E.g. all they have to do is to change "free to download and play" into "free to download and try".

Yep. Liberal helpings of "if you don't like it don't p(l)ay it" should be applied here. No body is forcing anybody to p(l)ay. There will be a few very vocal people complain about the model, and then there will the be balance sheet. Which speaks louder?

To change the dominant business model, you need to come up with a new model that generates more profit. That is exactly what has happened here.

A thing is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I'm less concerned about expensive IAP than I am about the people who pay for them. But then I think: So what? People will pay too much for all sorts of things. Who am I to judge.

<rant>

I'm willing to pay for a good games that don't annoy me asking for more money, but see almost nothing to pay for. (I'm only talking about mobile here, desktop games market is totally different.)

That is, when I got bored I had browsed Play Market for a while and I'd say - subjectively - options where you buy a game and that's it - you enjoy the whole thing, as advertised, right to a solid logical ending, without anyone persistently asking you to take your wallet out again (to remove ads, to buy some in-game advantage or to access further gameplay) are astonishingly rare.

Crap, even Baldur's Gate is now with in-app purchases and DLCs. (But, again, not on desktop!) Guess, that must be something related to stereotypes and cliches, not real business models.

</rant>

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