Filed under: Gaming, Software, iTunes, iPhone, App Store
iPhone TCG to charge $9.99 for in-app purchases
Just the other day I was talking about how prices were all over the place for in-app purchases, and now here's a company that's just going all out with the microtransaction model (or macrotransaction, maybe, in this case). Urban Rivals is an online MMO trading card game, and they're going to start selling packs of the cards directly within the game. And the pricing is interesting -- you can buy one pack of three cards for 99 cents (same as the price of the game itself, though there will be a free version to play as well), or you can pick up 11 packs of those cards, 33 cards in total, for $9.99, almost ten times the price of the actual game.This is an interesting case: the game itself already has a working model outside of the App Store, so they've already proven elsewhere that people will pay for this extra gameplay, not to mention that players of the iPhone game can play right alongside players on other platforms. And there's an interesting twist with the game's currency -- outside of the iPhone, the game lets you either win currency which you can then use to buy cards, or buy the currency with real money and then buy cards with that. But Apple has apparently said no to ingame currency being sold for real money, so instead, Urban Rivals is selling cards during the in-app purchases, skipping the ingame currency completely.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether or not this will actually work -- just because the game is successful outside the iPhone doesn't mean it'll work on Apple's platform. But if in-app purchases of this kind do become a big deal, we might see other developers trying to come up with ways to sell content like this -- for developers who feel that the App Store's prices are too low, they may instead be able to come up with the funds they need through sizable in-app purchases.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rob47 said 9:55PM on 9-25-2009
This isn't new look at the crap Playmesh creates.
The initial app is free. But more of the ingame currency costs between $1 and $100 dollars
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Rob47 said 9:58PM on 9-25-2009
The prices will sky rocket when devs realise how lucrative the app store can be look at the price of the gameloft games.
How expensive do you think GTA:CTW will be when it comes out, considering the other versions cost £20-30, its going to be pricy and this will drive the average price of apps up.
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mabhatter said 10:36PM on 9-25-2009
exactly, the $9.99 app will let you play until your car breaks... then they'll be an option to "replace" the broken parts. Better yet they can emulate the real life experience having real toll roads and bridges between parts of the game. Of course cheating those will be violation of the DMCA and such... ha ha for a game about not following the rules.
LiqwidZero said 12:17AM on 9-26-2009
In Rockstar's defense (creators of GTA I-IV, Bully, etc.), they keep their games at reasonable prices, and they are real good when it comes to value.
I would expect GTA: CTW to be about $19.99 for the full game. (Not that bad a deal, especially when you consider that the game costs $29.99 on the DS.)
mabhatter said 10:44PM on 9-25-2009
This is not much different than the plays for Magic: the Gathering Online. They run the Online game just like the paper game and packs cost the same (retail $3.99) on both sides. In their online game you can even "cash out" your online cards for real ones when you complete full sets (oh the gottchas)
Like this game they have the ability to buy "pack credits" used for playing in tournaments with rewards and they allow them to be traded between players for cards.
This game seems to be following nearly the same model, but with lower entry prices. Of course iPhones were born to play TCGs anyway... especially if they have a method for matchup games between players at the same location... whip out the phone and play some rounds without having to carry around pockets full of cards!!! This is begging for a Penny-Arcade strip!
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kassie2k4 said 1:57AM on 9-26-2009
Most Free-to-Play MMORPG games have purchasable items and clothes and account services ranging from a few cents up to $30. Most of the games that use that model are Korean, and the F2P market is now the most profitable in the industry, from what I've read anyways. Blizzard might make alot of money on those WoW subscriptions, but there's alot more money to be had in the F2P market. I think the Free to play, pay for some optional, non-essential, exlusive items, is great, it opens the game to a wider audience, and the die hard people that make up 10% of the userbase, will spend more money on the game they love then the total userbase's subscription fees would bring in. Why? With subscription, you get $9-$15 from each user, once, per month. With the free to play model, you get more users because it's free, and the dedicated ones, will gladly spent $5-$15 here and there, perhaps many times in a single month if theres some good things that they really want.
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Allan said 8:05AM on 9-26-2009
Apps are just going to become advertising platforms. We'll be paying a buck to watch ads.
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Rob47 said 8:30AM on 9-26-2009
This isn't the Zune HD =p
maxtkaxz said 12:13PM on 9-26-2009
If you read the fine print from apple, for a app to be able to use in-app purchases it has to have a price tag (eg Free apps may not have in-app purchases.) So comparing the initial price of the game to the cards you buy later is silly, as I bet that the developers would have made the game free if they could. I have been facing similar problems in my in-app purchase developing in apps.
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Chris said 12:45AM on 9-28-2009
I hate to be nitpicky, but the quote "for $9.99, almost ten times the price of the actual game" is incorrect.
$0.99 * 10 = $9.90
Should read "more than 10 times the price of the actual game"
:)
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