Google to list price range of in-app purchases, finally..

As of 30 september 2014 Google will start listing price ranges of in-app purchases for each app in the Play Store. :slight_smile: (like I already suggested here btw)

Google May List In-App Purchase Price Ranges In The Play Store Later This Month – Ryan Whitwam, androidpolice.com

As of September 30, 2014, we are implementing a number of new changes to how apps are listed and displayed on Google Play
…
We will display the price ranges for apps that offer in-app purchases and/or subscriptions on the app’s store listing page.

This is a good thing I think, because the shameless money grabs from the likes of Super Monster Boy and others will be much easier to identify. Certain developers will probably try to find sneaky ways around this, but at least their apps with 10 x IAPs of $109 will hopefully stick out like a sore thumb.

And maybe then app developers with reasonable and useful in-app purchases will fare better, which is profitable for both developers and users. There’s no details yet on exactly how the price ranges will be displayed, but I’m guessing it will look like something similar to the way user-ratings are displayed.

Why is it a good thing for developers? I have very high priced IAP because some users buy it - they don’t affect the gameplay for other users, but let me earn more from such users and thanks to that I upgrade my app with new features more often, because it’s worth it - so everyone benefits from it. Now it might affect my downloads. It might be good for users (might), but not for us, developers.

The first observations about the price range - Google Play seems to show the min price and max price of all IAP items of an app as a range.

And as there are no pure black and white colors in life, so is the story with this pricing feature:
Some individual developers may be qualified as “bad guys” trying to sell items for high prices, but there are also a lot of big companies selling items for high prices. Examples are the Gameloft games, car navigation software, etc.

So, we have to live with that feature, either good for some of us, or bad for others.
Regards!

-I think more in app purchase transparency is better than nothin

This price range is only slightly better than only just showing “app offers in-app-purchases”. Showing the minimum and maximum price is not saying a lot. But at least you can easily search for the max. IAPs which is cool.

So this is a step in the right direction, but I think Google really should diplay the amount of IAPS for one app. Like I already said, something like “10 IAPs of €0,99, 5 IAPs of €1,99, 1 IAPs of €9,99”. They could show it in a similar way as the bars for the user ratings. As for apps that have a few high priced IAP that are really worth it, can’t the developers just explain it in the description or show a pricelist in a screenshot?