What awaits free-to-play games after Google bans them from being called free?

The original version of the material can be found on Mobile Dev Memo, a website dedicated to the mobile industry, run by Eric Seferth himself, author of the book Freemium Economics. Google is going to no longer use the term “free apps” in relation to those games that are monetized using micropayments.

This is a fatal blow to paid games, according to Eric Seufert, head of marketing at Wooga.

In his opinion, such an innovation may radically change the situation with the availability of applications in the store and will have a strong impact on marketing. This will happen for two reasons. 

Blow to paid appsSince games with IAP can no longer be called free, it is logical to assume that they will fall into the top paid applications.

Only those programs that earn money from advertising will remain in the top of free applications. 

Although, how do we on App2Top.ru it seems much more logical to expect the appearance of a new top, which will be called “Applications with IAP”. 

Anyway, according to Sefert, once free games get into the paid top, it will hit the visibility of paid games very hard, because for obvious reasons they gain much less downloads than shareware projects. Instagram Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. As a result, we will get a situation where “Free-to-play games will dominate in the top of paid applications, and completely free utilities and social networks, like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, will dominate in the top of free ones. Pay-to-download applications will not have their own supply channel that provides them with the proper level of visibility. Ultimately, this may lead to a total rejection of this business model.”

It’s funny, but considering that the vast majority of applications within Google Play are already distributed for free, it definitely doesn’t look like a tragedy. Another thing, as we have already noticed a little above, is a much softer and more logical way – just to embroider the number of tops. 

Free apps are in the blackSince large marketing budgets will go to the top of paid applications, then new opportunities will open up before really free games.

The tops will be those applications that spend nothing (or almost nothing) on marketing and generate a predictable number of installations. However, their number is likely to drop significantly.         

We, in turn, do not really believe in this option, since no one is going to cancel the cross-grids. Yes, it is possible that traffic will be cheaper at first, but as soon as everyone starts investing in projects to generate advertising traffic, the situation will return to normal.

What do you think about the future of shareware games in Europe?

By the way, we recall that at the moment only Google and only within the European Union has agreed not to use the word “free” in general in relation to games with IAP.

A source: http://mobiledevmemo.com/google-free-to-play-app-economy/