Apple’s announcement that developers can now charge micro-transactions within free apps seems to have left developers with as many questions as it’s provided answers.

What are the implications for the Free and Paid charts?

Will Apple enable single binary submissions for free apps which contain the full game unlockable via micro-transactions?

Will the micro-transactions show up in the Top Grossing chart?

Considering the freemium model matured in the Korea, Kyu C. Lee, the CEO of Korean mobile publisher Gamevil’s US operation, knows more than most about such things.

We caught up with him to get his take on the new situation and how it could change the way developers and publishers approach App Store deployment.

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

Kyu C. Lee: This is a huge step forward that Apple is taking. But while Apple has enabled the ability to charge users from free to paid, it still hasn't enabled the ability to use any other intermediate currency, which will still restrict a lot of publishers from the true spirit of free-to-play.

Purchasing poker chips is now okay, but buying items using points is still not okay for free games. The question you have to ask yourself is ‘How does this change make things different compared to 99c game with in-app purchases?’

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

I'm still not 100 percent sure if you are able to purchase the full game through a single upsell. According to the documents, it says you may purchase "Functionality" so this should be able to be done in theory.

However, you will still not be able to change the name of the app, so it can't have Free or Lite in the title from the beginning. This may work out better for titles with higher quality, but maybe not for lower quality titles since the conversion ratio will vary. I'm also curious how this will work out, in terms of whether such games will be placed in Free or Paid categories, and how the customers will respond to it.

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

If you are not going to release a full version of the app and only the free version with a single build, this will definitely help. Also, looking at different platforms, piracy did play a big role in terms of the growth of free-to-play online PC games with micro-transactions in Asia.

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

If Apple leaves a free game with in app purchases in the Free category, we might see some changes in the Top Grossing, but I'm not expecting much in the other two categories. The biggest change you might see is more quality titles moving into the free charts.

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

We haven't decided yet. We're watching and waiting for the ability to introduce intermediate currency or the ability to charge a smaller amount than 99 cents.

What do you think are the implications for ad-supported free games?

The best way to take a look at this is to look at the online PC gaming market. In-app purchase and ads can always co-exist within a game, and there will be more publishers with free games who will be using both methods to drive additional revenue. But there might be companies moving away from ads if their in-app purchase revenues are large enough.

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

I don't think the average price paid for games will go down. This will increase average revenue per user in general, since it will have a larger reach compared to the 99c market.

Thanks to Kyu for his time.

You can keep up-to-day with Gamevil via its website and Twitterfeed.