App Store aggressive monetization disclosure

I’m likely dating myself by saying this, but I remember the good old days of Doodle Jump, Angry Birds, and Tap Tap Revenge. There was a beautiful time when the iPhone first came out where there were so many cool games you could play. The best part: you could play them from start to finish without paying a dime.

Then the gaming companies swooped in.

I’m now at the point where I don’t play games on my phone because everything I have downloaded looks free but then they slap you with an insane paywall. It’s a sad state of affairs, but obviously, it works because the mobile app game industry has a $100B+ market cap.

I’m not dunking on game devs here. I pay for games on a console all the time, but I wish the positioning and pricing on mobile was more like console games where you pay a fee and play. Instead, it’s become a black hole where you pay for every little upgrade and feature, which can end up costing hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

To that end… what if there was a disclosure near the top of the App Store listing that indicates when a “free” app has an aggressive monetization policy? Just showing that an app contains in-app purchases isn’t enough in my opinion. Something more heavy-handed would help people understand what they’re getting into before playing.

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