Asshole App Marketing
10/12/11 13:22 Filed in: Computers & Tech
Okay, I’ve got the flu so I’m not going to bury the lead. I am sick and tired of the way some app creators are choosing to market their products. Unfortunately I fear that they are taking their cues from the cell phone industry who have done quite well with hidden fees and costs.
I recently downloaded an Atari game, an update of the classic asteroids I loved as a kid. The point of this game is to destroy asteroids and collect crystals which you can use to buy upgrades for your ship. Unfortunately this is not the only currency in the game. Space bucks which must be paid for with real money are required to advance through the game. You can use crystals to purchase them but at a rate of 100,000 crystals to ONE space buck. In order to achieve that you would have to play the first 50 waves 3 or 4 times. Ok so what’s my problem? Well you need at least 10 space bucks to do ANYTHING in the game past the first 50 waves. This would be fine if it were a scheme that allowed you to play the game for a while and then purchase it once you decided you like it but this is not the case. In order to unlock everything in the game you’d have to spend much more than the complete game is worth. You see they are hoping you get hooked and spend a little at a time until, before you realized it you’ve spent more money for the game than you would for an XBox 360 or Playstation 3 game, which has better graphics and when you buy it you get the WHOLE GAME. Well Atari I enjoyed the first 50 waves and then deleted the app. I would have payed for the full game and played through it all if you had the decency to simply sell it to me for a fair price.
Another game that employs this same marketing scheme is Contract Killer:Zombies. You get to a point early on where you can’t advance because you can’t earn the cash to purchase the weapons you need. What a waste of time. If you want to give me a demo which allows me to purchase the game if I enjoyed the demo, that’s cool. What you’ve done here is what I call Asshole App Marketing.
Having said that I am not against in-app purchases if done properly. Some times an app has a few different functions and so you pay for a basic set of functionality and then other functions are available if you want them but you don’t have to have them if you don’t need them. This is a smart and efficient use of in-app purchases. An example of this is TC Helicon’s VoiceJam. You can buy the lite version for 99 cents, and then upgrade to the full version. When you do you unlock a full feature set. However you can also buy effects for the product to add chorus and reverb. I haven’t done this because I take the output from my iPad out to a mixer where I can add these effects myself. Others might want to use these features and so they are available if needed. This is a fine business model.
This Asshole App Marketing seems to be more prevalent in gaming apps, but I am sure it exists in all types of apps. The idea seems to be to get you to pay much more for these apps than they are actually worth! Once again the consumer pays more and gets less, just like taxes, cell phones, mortgages, insurance, the list goes on ad infinitum. My little tale of woe is a microcosm representing the macrocosm of business practice all over the world. Until we start boycotting these products and services nothing is ever going to change.
I recently downloaded an Atari game, an update of the classic asteroids I loved as a kid. The point of this game is to destroy asteroids and collect crystals which you can use to buy upgrades for your ship. Unfortunately this is not the only currency in the game. Space bucks which must be paid for with real money are required to advance through the game. You can use crystals to purchase them but at a rate of 100,000 crystals to ONE space buck. In order to achieve that you would have to play the first 50 waves 3 or 4 times. Ok so what’s my problem? Well you need at least 10 space bucks to do ANYTHING in the game past the first 50 waves. This would be fine if it were a scheme that allowed you to play the game for a while and then purchase it once you decided you like it but this is not the case. In order to unlock everything in the game you’d have to spend much more than the complete game is worth. You see they are hoping you get hooked and spend a little at a time until, before you realized it you’ve spent more money for the game than you would for an XBox 360 or Playstation 3 game, which has better graphics and when you buy it you get the WHOLE GAME. Well Atari I enjoyed the first 50 waves and then deleted the app. I would have payed for the full game and played through it all if you had the decency to simply sell it to me for a fair price.
Another game that employs this same marketing scheme is Contract Killer:Zombies. You get to a point early on where you can’t advance because you can’t earn the cash to purchase the weapons you need. What a waste of time. If you want to give me a demo which allows me to purchase the game if I enjoyed the demo, that’s cool. What you’ve done here is what I call Asshole App Marketing.
Having said that I am not against in-app purchases if done properly. Some times an app has a few different functions and so you pay for a basic set of functionality and then other functions are available if you want them but you don’t have to have them if you don’t need them. This is a smart and efficient use of in-app purchases. An example of this is TC Helicon’s VoiceJam. You can buy the lite version for 99 cents, and then upgrade to the full version. When you do you unlock a full feature set. However you can also buy effects for the product to add chorus and reverb. I haven’t done this because I take the output from my iPad out to a mixer where I can add these effects myself. Others might want to use these features and so they are available if needed. This is a fine business model.
This Asshole App Marketing seems to be more prevalent in gaming apps, but I am sure it exists in all types of apps. The idea seems to be to get you to pay much more for these apps than they are actually worth! Once again the consumer pays more and gets less, just like taxes, cell phones, mortgages, insurance, the list goes on ad infinitum. My little tale of woe is a microcosm representing the macrocosm of business practice all over the world. Until we start boycotting these products and services nothing is ever going to change.
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