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Tag's Farley: Micro-transactions in free games could result in a premium App Store by default

Will everyone shift their 99c games into the Free chart?

Tag's Farley: Micro-transactions in free games could result in a premium App Store by default
Continuing our responses from developers concerning Apple's announcement about the ability to charge for virtual items and new content within free games, we hooked up with Tag Game's MD Paul Farley, to get the developer-turning-publisher's take on the new playing field.

Pocket Gamer: How significant do you think the ability to charge for micro-transactions within free games is?

Paul Farley: This will change the way games are consumed forever. Not just initially on iPhone but across all platforms.

I don't think we shouldn't underestimate the repercussions this will have on the wider games industry, which is already slowly moving to a download retail model. It may take ten or twenty years but I am convinced the free-to-download and then pay for extra content model will become the norm across the entire industry.

How significant do you think the ability to submit one binary which contains a combined free and paid app is?

Until this change a developer needed to submit what has become known as a free or Lite version to promote their full paid game. The upsell link to the full game would then connect to iTunes for the paid download. Now the upgrade path is much simpler - within the single application.

The potential downside is that if everyone moves to a free-plus-paid download model, the already crowded Free apps section on iTunes becomes even more crowded. This means even less visibility for each title.

How significant do you think this change is in terms of stopping iPhone app piracy?

It will help, but I doubt it will eradicate it completely. You wouldn't expect many gamers to pirate software that retails at 59p but the evidence says otherwise.

Obviously no one will bother to pirate free software but I'm sure some hacker will find someway around the downloadable content locks. The big question is how easy will that be for your average Joe, and will they bother for content that is so cheap?

Do you think this will change the Free, Paid and Top Grossing charts?

If all that happens is developers change their Lite applications to include micro-transactions to get the full content rather than upselling via iTunes, the impact will be minimal.

If, however, more developers take the kind of risk that ngmoco is with Eliminate [making it a free app and charging for non-essential extras - Ed] then we could see the Paid chart cease to exist as all content floods into the Free chart.

There still doesn't seem to be any clear indication of whether downloadable content will count towards the Top Grossing chart so that isn't so obvious right now.

Do you plan to release free micro-transaction supported games now?

Yes. We will watch very closely how Eliminate performs upon launch. Our next large original title is Astro Ranch, which has been built with this model in mind from the start.

Whether we go the whole hog of only releasing a free app with downloadable version, or play it a little safer by also launching a fully featured paid version has yet to be decided. I imagine many developers will take the latter option, which is little changed from the present set up. Still, we do now have a very interesting additional option.

What do you think are the implications for the average price paid for games?

The inevitability is that the price of all games will drop to free. The last companies to change to this new model will be those who are most risk adverse, and have the most to lose from a changing of the guards.

In the short term, it could mean we have a premium App Store by default with EA, Gameloft and maybe a few others sticking to $5-10 fixed prices and targeting the Paid chart and the rest following ngmoco's lead and going free-to-trial.

But, ultimately if you have a great game and you don't screw your customers by abusing micro-transactions, I feel the App Store still provides developers with the best environment to compete on a level playing field.

Thanks to Paul for his time.

To find out more about Tag Games, check out its website and Twitterfeed.

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.