Although it may seem incredible the freemium games are on many occasions the most ingresos They report and, how could it be otherwise, once this fact has been discovered, more and more developers are opting for this model for their applications. This popularity of the format freemiumHowever, it is far from remains exempt from controversy, to the point that the British government has decided to investigate whether or not the games that are governed by it are falling into dishonest practices with consumers.
There is no doubt that Free they are preferred by users, but it is often not so clear what developers do to profit from them. On many occasions we are right in sight, since the trick is simply to place ourselves advertising on the screen. However, sometimes there are somewhat darker practices and we already told you, for example, that a study had shown that up to a third of the free applications of Android sell our data to third parties. On other occasions, the benefit is obtained, in a seemingly equally simple way, from the in-app purchases, that is, of the options that allow us to improve our user experience through micro-payments, but in this case it does not seem that things are as clear as they should.
A few weeks ago the news that a five-year-old boy had spent 2.000 euros in in-app purchases at stake for iPad It went through all the means of technology, making it quite clear the problem that the models represent for users freemium of the games or, more specifically, the problem that it represents for the parents of the users. Even though they exist methods to help us control these types of situations and that Apple , the company affected in this case, did not take long to react incorporating an explicit notice when an application offers this type of in-app purchases, the news generated quite an important controversy that seems to be reluctant to be resolved.
In view of this situation, the OFT (Office of Fair Trading) of the United Kingdom, the body in charge of regulating competition and monitoring compliance with commercial regulations, has announced that it will investigate this type of games to ensure that there are no " direct exhortations to children ”to make purchases. Although they have made it clear that in no case is it a question of banning the model, taking forceful action is not ruled out in case of not reaching an agreement with the industry. At the moment, in any case, the matter is simply under investigation, and we will have to wait to see if similar procedures are followed in other countries.
Source: Android Community.