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Game In-App Purchases: A Conflict Between Developer Economics & Goodwill

In-App Purchases for iOS games. It’s a bit of a sensitive topic really, not many people like them at all, and quite a few people hate them and the impact they have had on the iOS games market. But today I want to explore the reason for their prevalence and explain why it has become an important part of the market for developers. I also want to reframe the discussion from one of “In-App Purchases are a problem” to one where we consider how they are being used and what developers could do to improve their implementation.

Below the break is Part 1: The Economics, in which I tackle the reason for their prevalence and importance in the iOS games market. Following that is Part 2: “Developers and Goodwill To Customers” in which I discuss how they are being used and perhaps what might be some best practices.

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Updated Editor’s Choice Section Hand Picks Best of the Best

Last week’s App Store update introduced Editor’s Choice banners on the iOS and Mac App Stores that highlighted that week’s best apps. In turn, App of the Week became Apple’s way of promoting cherry picked apps while offering them for free (similar to app deals found on Amazon’s App Store for the Kindle Fire). This week, Apple has subsequently introduced a rebranded “App of the Week” as the Editor’s Choice section in the iOS App Store, showcasing both iPhone and iPad apps. The Editor’s Choice section of the App Store aims to showcase the highest quality and the most innovative apps on their store, with the showcase being divided into new and previous picks. Apple recommends that you check back often to check for new applications.

The Editor’s Choice section for the iPad can be found here, while the Editor’s Choice section for the iPhone can be found here.

The Humble Indie Bundle V

Humble Indie Bundle V features five incredible, best-selling games plus their soundtracks (in both FLAC and MP3 formats). “Experience the fear and paranoia of Amnesia: The Dark Descent; the intensity and impact of LIMBO; the zany characters of Psychonauts; the future-retro, audiovisual concoction of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP; and, for customers who pay more than the average price, the exquisitely crafted action-RPG, Bastion.” If you bought these games separately, it would cost around $110, but they are letting you set the price. Pay a $1 or more and you can optionally get a key to redeem the games on Steam (for Mac and Windows). The games work great on a Mac but if you need to check system requirements, they are here.

The Humble Indie Bundle V includes lots of great titles and their accompanied soundtracks, giving you plenty of unique Indie gaming to keep you out of the summer heat. You can find links to all the great games below.

There’s fourteen days left to donate, so you have plenty of time to cash in your paycheck and donate to a worthy cause; donate to the developers, the Child’s Play Charity, or the Electronic Frontier Foundation. If you like this deal, Humble Bundle is also accepting tips. They have already sold over 26,000 copies in the first 30 minutes! Be sure to check out The Humble Indie Bundle V official launch video after the break and get amped up!

Note: The Mac edition of S:S&S EP will also be popping up on Steam sometime today, plus it’ll show up on the Mac App Store before the “summer solstice”.

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Quotebook 2.0→

Quotebook 2.0

Last year, I reviewed Quotebook, an iPhone app to save your favorite quotes, and organize them by tags, authors, and sources. I wrote:

Quotebook’s greatest strength is that it’s built for quotes, and nothing else. It doesn’t want or need to be a replacement for your notes and daily thoughts. The interface has been designed to make it easy to jot down a quote, and set correct attribution like author and source, or perhaps fiddle with ratings. The app goes one step further and makes it super-simple to import quotes found in your iPhone’s clipboard, and plays nicely with @author names, automatically opening a Twitter profile within a web view. That’s very nice of the developers — this got me started on saving some tweets I find inspiring. Quotes can be searched and filtered, shared on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, or browsed by author and tag using the buttons in the bottom toolbar. Pretty standard stuff for an iPhone app.

Months in the making, Quotebook 2.0 has been released today, and it’s a major update that makes the app universal, and fully iCloud-enabled so you’ll be able to keep your Quotebook archive in sync across the iPhone and iPad.

I have tested the new version, and it’s a solid update that you should definitely check out regardless of whether you’re a new user, or haven’t launched Quotebook in a while (in that case, you’ll get version 2.0 for free). iCloud sync has been implemented reliably, with fast sync times across devices and clear, and visible settings to indicate if iCloud is turned on or disabled. The app syncs full quote information, including ratings and tags. An export feature is still available to back up your database on a computer, and of course you can share quotes on a variety of networks including Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter (with iOS 5 integration). The iPad interface is simple and elegant, with a purposeful focus on content and a subtle leather texture that, I believe, is functional to the app’s core concept – being a notebook for your favorite quotes.

Quotebook is $2.99 on the App Store.

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Timer→

Timer

Designed for function and intuitiveness, Timer is a new app by AppCubby, makers of Launch Center and Tweet Speaker. Timer is simple – dramatically so – and it was born out of a need to focus on one feature: touch. David Barnard writes:

I’ll leave the in-depth discussion to past and future posts, but suffice it to say — HUGE buttons are incredibly well suited to quickly taking action on touchscreen devices. For all the love complex, nebulous gestures have gotten in recent months, tapping a HUGE button is still the ultimate — and often overlooked — gesture.

So that’s Timer in a nutshell. Twelve HUGE buttons designed to scratch my own itch.

The twelve buttons will start a timer upon tap, and they can be customized (tap & hold) to turn off the preset, change color, and alert tone. By default, twelve buttons are presets, and three at the bottom are  alerts you can set manually with the numeric keyboard. I have been testing Timer, and I am a big fan of the app’s extreme simplicity and focus on doing one thing right. I often need to set up the same quick timers – especially in the kitchen – and Timer is just faster than Siri and Apple’s Clock app thanks to its preset implementation.

Timer is $0.99 on the App Store.

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Apple To Acquire Italian Digital Music Editing Company Redmatica

As noted by Italian website Fanpage [Google Translation] and reported by TechCrunch, Apple has filed documentations with Italian authorities to acquire Italian company Redmatica. Based in Correggio, Italy, Redmatica specializes in “digital audio workstation” software – notably, the company is well known for Mac audio editing and mixing editors such as KeyMap Pro, AutoSampler, and ProManager. Based on Apple technologies such as CoreAnimation, Redmatica’s software integrates with popular desktop editors and tools such as Logic, Reason, MainStage, and even GarageBand for iPad.

The acquisition of “DAW” (Digital Audio Workstation) assets by Redmatica has been reported by Italian regulator AGCOM in an official document available here. The document notes how Redmatica’s worldwide revenue in 2011 has been under €1 million, with, surprisingly, no revenue (“fatturato”) coming from Italy. Apple, on the other hand, reported, according to the document, approximately €77,6 billion revenue worldwide in the fiscal year 2011 (2010/2011 as noted in the document), €19.9 billion in the European Union, and “over €1 billion” in Italy alone.

As for the DAW software, the AGCOM filing notes how Redmatica holds a share less than 1%, while Apple holds around 10/15% among “several and qualified competitors”. The document explains how DAW software may fall under the category of “business software”, as DAW applications allow for recording, editing, mixing, and playback of digital music, and are typically used by sound professionals, but also “prosumers” (“expert amateur users” in the document), musicians, and DJs.

The AGCOM document doesn’t say Apple has acquired Redmatica. Rather, provided a description of both companies, the nature of the acquisition, and the aforementioned numbers and stats, the filing goes on to note how Apple isn’t a big player in the area of DAW software, and thus the acquisition should be safe for competition. In the document, in fact, Italian law n. 287/90 (art. 16, comma 4) is mentioned as a possible factor that could prevent Apple from acquiring the company. Specifically, law n. 287/90 (art. 16, comma 4) notes how, in case of competitive disadvantages (explained in art. 6), authorities may begin an investigation (detailed in art. 14) for a proposed acquisition or merger (“operazione di concentrazione”).

The AGCOM document ends noting how AGCOM deliberated an investigation won’t be necessary; AGCOM’s conclusions have been forwarded to Apple, Redmatica, and the Italian Minister of Economic Development of Infrastructure and Transport. It is safe to assume that, considering AGCOM’s position, the acquisition will be given the final go-ahead by Italian authorities soon. It is obviously unclear how much Apple is willing to spend to acquire Redmatica’s assets, or how Apple plans to integrate its software in its existing suite of digital audio applications.

We have reached both Apple and Redmatica for comment, and we’ll update this story with more details when available.

Quip: A New iPad Twitter App With A Focus On Conversations

I have often written about the need for developers of third-party Twitter clients to focus on different, fresh experiences aimed at providing a new take on mobile tweeting. On iOS, as I have previously argued, apps like Tweetbot, Twitterrific, and Twitter’s official client have managed to capture a large portion of a devoted userbase split in those seeking a wide array of functionalities, a streamlined interface, or the free price tag. Quip, a new Twitter app by Glasshouse Apps (makers of The Early Edition), takes a unique approach at filtering the typical Twitter timeline by conversations, images, and retweets.

I have been testing Quip since its early beta versions, and the app has been no replacement for Tweetbot on my iPad. But that’s exactly Quip’s greatest strength and, I believe, one of its most valid points alongside a care for beautiful UI design and ease of use. While capable of being an average user’s primary iPad client because of its support for basic Twitter functionalities such as direct messages, search, and favorites, I think Quip works best as an attractive companion for catching up on Twitter and browsing certain sections/tweets that could otherwise get easily lost in a “regular” timeline. Quip doesn’t support Twitter lists, its search features are limited, and you won’t find the same degree of link and tweet manipulation options of Tweetbot.

Rather than contributing to the app’s possible detriment when compared to more advanced clients, however, Quip’s extremely specific feature set catalyzes the convenience of those Twitter-based functionalities that Glasshouse implemented. Read more