We’ve talked often here at Kumulos about the importance of choosing an app monetization scheme that works best for your business and your app, and also the difficulty involved in that choice. With trends constantly changing and with different types of payment and monetization going in and out of fashion nearly every week (at least that how it can sometimes feel), app developers are hard pressed to select the correct one for them.
One of the most popular is definitely the free with in app purchases model. It combines the user drawing aspects of the free model, but adds the potential to gain a decent income through in app purchases if your app is well designed. This design is typically used with games as they have the addictive quality that will bring people to their app store purchase, but it’s not unheard of in other types of app like, for example, buying upgrades and extra features for the app.
This type of monetization is successful yes, but it also has brought a big, or perhaps little depending on how you look at it, problem with it.
Due to many of these in app purchasing schemes not requiring the iTunes password before finalizing the payment, children have been racking up extortionate bills on their parents iTunes accounts because they have bought hundreds of in-game items whilst playing a mobile game. Not too long ago an 8 year old bought £980 (roughly $1500) of virtual donuts in a Simpsons game, and a 5 year old spent £1700 ($2611) in Plants vs Zombies.
Obviously this is a problem for the parents and a headache for the publishers and developers of these games. The games are clearly doing their job right as they’re incentivizing in app buying, but with children having no real concept of money, especially virtual money, they are literally bankrupting their parents with in app buying. For the publisher, Apple, it’s a headache because they have to investigate each case and refund the money if it is found to be an “unauthorized” purchase. And for the developer it’s a pain because regulatory bodies like the Office of Fair Trading in the UK have got involved to look into whether these apps (and others) in app purchases are “misleading, commercially aggressive or otherwise unfair.”
Do you remember a short while ago we talked about “Dark Patterns” and “UI anti-pattern”?
These unauthorized in app purchases are a classic example of UI anti-pattern. It seems unlikely that the developer for say, Zombies vs Plants, sat down and designed their in app buying to lure children into spending thousands of dollars on extra weapons to fight zombies (no doubt twirling their mustache and laughing maniacally as lightning flashed overhead). It doesn’t mean, however, that they’ve not been careless in their design. Despite it being initially great for business, no user should be able to rack up a bill of thousands without at least being asked for a password.
Not only is it irresponsible of the developer to leave that open to happen, it’s also dangerous for the customer. Sure, it’s just been kids so far, but that no passworded gate is also easy access for hackers and criminals who may want to access your iTunes account. If your device is stolen, who’s to stop them doing just as the kids have done and drain thousands out of your bank account?
This is why we at Kumulos like to bring these topics up, to remind app developers that good design isn’t just about having an easy to use, great to look at app, it’s about getting all the nuts and bolts of the underlying system working as well. You have to make sure that your app is secure, and that UI anti-pattern is minimal to non-existent or it could come back and bite you.
