I'm of the understanding the DLC transaction works like this- 1. User clicks "Upgrade/Buy/Whatever" button. 2. iPhone prompts user to enter in their iTunes password. 3. iPhone phones home to Apple, queries whether or not said account owns DLC. 4 a. If account owns content, it gives you the "This is free blah blah blah" prompt. 4 b. If account doesn't own content, it bills you $x.xx 5. Content either downloads or unlocks depending on how you package it with your app. I don't really think that skipping this whole process is as simple as changing around a few things in a hex editor.
Yes it would be very hard to get a around but couldn't you some how buy the DLC and make a dummy account that will work for any account or do something like the betas have idk but totally agree it will be quite difficult also how will devs update there app do you just update the DLC
From my understanding, the Apple portion is just a paid key to a pre-existing door in the app. Find that spot, and the door can be opened without the key. I'd love to be wrong though.
To combat this, you'd have to actually make the user download the content, rather than flipping a bit to unlock things that are already there. Now if someone can pull that saved data and insert it, that's a completely different story. Is there a MB size limit for DLC via edge/3G? (Not having an iPhone I have no idea if you can grab DLC via these methods, so forgive me if this is a dumb question...)
It is a good idea.... in theory but there are alot of problems with it like Updating the in-app purchase Top-Grossing Top Paid and Top Free Reviewing (will you review the free or the full)
Paid app in-app purchase hasn't stopped MMO/trivia/news/other devs from releasing a gajillion different paid versions, and this change likely won't stop lite vs paid versions either (IMHO). If Apple doesn't change how the top lists work you'll have little to gain by releasing a free app with in-app purchase unless you're truly offering a subscription service (magazine or whatever). As others have pointed out, the prospect of being stuck in one potentially mega-over-crowded list with open-season reviews isn't going to go over well with most devs, especially us little guys. If Apple really wants to get rid of lite and multiple-paid versions they need to explicitly and officially put an end to those. Right now they're just suggesting that everyone play nice - it's not gonna happen.
The top grossing list should already include DLC but they could also count DLC unlocks as "1 paid download" (for all I know they might do that already). But that would be ripe for abuse by certain "games" that sell you nothing but points - instead of tiered pricing they'll just sell multiple $1 DLC with bonuses the more you buy.
I thought more apps would be 99 cents and then charge for more levels. Why do only a few games have DLC?
And that won't happen now that free versions can be upgraded? Guess it will become the standard because there are 9k games $0.99 or $1.99 and only 1k games that are more than that. http://148apps.biz/app-store-metrics/?mpage=appprice
The pessimist in me thinks that we're all going to be forced into the free model, overwhelming the free lists, and killing the paid list. Devs will lose because it'll be harder to be seen. Players lose because there will be less apps to choose from visually. Everyone loses because the review system will revert back to 2008's nonsense. The optimist in me thinks we have a new model to play with, and a way to force players to upgrade to 3.0.
I think you guys might be looking into this a bit too deeply… Take a step back a moment, and all they've done is allow DLC in free apps. That doesn't mean you'll be able to release a non-functioning app and expect people to pay to update it – it'll get rejected. You'll still need to create "fully functioning apps" within their own right, as you currently need to do for lite apps. I don't think this is going to suddenly bastardize the paid app store. Sure, devs will be able to allow upgrades to the full app from within the free app, but that's not much different to what already happens when a dev includes a button inside his app linking to the paid version. Although developers still would prefer to choose the latter method as their paid version would get a higher rating on the paid charts by linking them to purchase it, rather than upgrading them from within the lite version. I think you guys might be scaring yourselves a little too much, I don't see this changing the app store much at all. People aren't all going to completely redesign their business models overnight. But this announcement is good news for those devs whose apps and games are designed around this business model in the first instance.
Well we'll soon find that out. Really soon. Eliminate has already taken this route and will be free with an option to upgrade via dlc. Let's see how that works for ngmoco.
That will just follow the online MMO model.. we already know that works but most games are not played online.
