In-App Subscriptions in Google Play

Google Play now supports paid subscriptions

Yay! :slight_smile:

Let’s discuss about how we Indy Developers can make use of that feature.

I am pretty sure that they aimed for that subscription because of gamehouse (was it gamehouse?) because there was an issue with their game subscription and the iphone as far as I remember…

Now THIS is a reason to do an add-free version of WordHero !!!

Pity I only have 1k users on Google Play and the rest on Amazon :frowning:

Yea, Wordhero - because it relies on a webservice which has running costs - could make a real benefit from it - but to be honest, is anyone out there who would make a subscription to it … I don’t think so.

Let’s make up a cool MMORPG - that would make sense I think, because these games already work with a subscription model and are living from pushing out new content all the time (they should)

Maybe many devs are attracted by this to make some more MMORPG … look at all these browser games out there :slight_smile:

This could also be good for selling content - for example, a blog subscription. I can definitely see it being used by media services (e.g. Spotify, Rdio, Netflix, Grooveshark, etc.) to simplify the billing experience.

For indie developers with games or other apps involving ongoing cost - especially apps involving push notifications or something which keeps the user engaged in the long term - this could be a good way to keep the costs under control.

I think the success of this feature will depend on how much it’s implemented by the major apps. I don’t think many people would pay for a subscription to an indie app unless they’d already become familiar with seeing the concept appear in a few big-name apps first.

Of course, it could also get very annoying if half the apps in the store suddenly start selling subscriptions… I don’t imagine people would want to have more than a few active subscriptions at any given time. There has to be a definite value proposition for the user before they’d opt in to an ongoing billing cycle.

Yeah, I think it’s a great tool, but will depend a lot on how much people get used to it. People won’t wanna pay a monthly fee at first if they’re not used to it. Just like they didn’t like paying for apps at first, and how they later didn’t like having in-app ads. But eventually those became so prevalent and ubiquitous that people accepted them.

We need some big dogs to adopt them, especially for games like WordHero :stuck_out_tongue:

This is also great news for me because my main business is an information business, so like David said, I could now create apps that deliver the content and charge people through Google Play. Great news!! :slight_smile:

Edit: I also thought this phrase from the official blog post was pretty interesting:

“[Today] the total revenue generated from in-app purchases exceeds revenue from traditional app purchases”

Yes, that is because more people get your game when it is free - that’s a better position to sell content instead of selling a game where users have to guess if they like it … so in-app-purchases are a true benefit.

The subscription service should simplify all those web-radios and such things - I am pretty sure those apps would be the first who start with the subscrition - if they have no fear.

Hopefully google get everything right - I have implemented the paypal subscription method last year in one of my web projects and there you have do some critical things for yourself - in case of problems you have to investigate all your transactions to solve the problem.
Maybe that could be a prob on android too, I hope they make a system which is practical for the developer also and do not flood them with extra work

Interesting point - I didn’t see that when I was reading the blog post at first. Definitely seems to indicate that IAPs are picking up in a big way. I wouldn’t have expected this to happen so quickly, to be honest.