Credit: Mark Brown Twitter
Apple has finally decided to provide relief to its users by providing games with no in-app purchases.
Every Apple user is confused and angry over the in-app purchases for free games. Moreover Apple has even faced problems such as lawsuits from customers and the United States Federal Trade Commission over this issue. However now it seems that Apple is going to listen to its users since the company is featuring games that do not have any In-App Purchases on the front page of the App Store.
Moreover the App Store’s weekly refresh this time has a section called ‘Pay Once & Play’ and it features great games that do not require the users to pay anything for extra content through In-App Purchases. According to MacStories, this is currently being featured in the UK App Store and is likely to expand to the US Store. The section includes titles such as ‘Thomas Was Alone’, ‘Hero Emblems’, ‘Minecraft’, ‘Blek’, ‘Threes’ and ‘Goblin Sword’.
Wow. Front page of the App Store. pic.twitter.com/8LLat5s1vj— Mark Brown (@britishgaming) February 12, 2015
Even though these In-App Purchases are great for an added revenue source for Apple and developers, Apple has finally decided to get rid of it. This new section in the App Store is organized in Recent Releases, App, Store Originals and Blockbuster Games. The games that have been included in this section vary in terms of popularity and developer.
It seems that Apple has brought this change due to all the complaints and problems it faced over the years due to these In-App Purchases. The main problem was over the advertisement of freemium games as they were advertised as free downloads while effectively hiding major gameplay features behind in-App Purchases. These In-App Purchases landed Apple into a lawsuit in 2011 with the FTC and Apple had to settle for $32 million as children racked up hundreds of dollars in purchases without parental knowledge.
Due to these problems Apple even brought changes to the way freemium games were displayed on the App Store and changed the button to download freemium games from ‘Free’ to ‘Get’. It is also unclear whether this new section in the App Store will have regularly updates or become a permanent fixture of the App Store’s front page but it is a good sign for all the users and many have expressed their feelings about this new section on their Twitter accounts.
This new feature in the US App Store include a slightly different set of apps from those that have been seen in the European App Store. MacRumors reported that a few titles such as ‘Threes!’ and ‘Thomas Was Alone’ will not be seen in the American version. However the US users will see new titles such as Dark Echo and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Well finally all Apple users will not pay for any extra content for free games. This new section will also give relief to all users and will save up on costs for users as they will only have to pay once to play these exciting games.