Better IT

In-app selling is hot and there are many good arguments for In-app selling, but the problem is that its harder for the consumer to get a feel for what he gets for his money, and some of the compagnies that sells In-app stuff does it for a maximized profit: Im not a communist; its allright to make a business out of In-app selling, but there are different degrees of focus on making a profit. When talking about games there are different degrees between free games and games where You have to pay for every level You want to advance.

Real Racing 3 is a splendid game, but as it is almost impossible to earn as much gold as You need to make it to the end, Your only option is to pay real money for most of the cars. There are 35 campaigns with around 35 races each and You get virtual dollars for every race You win. When You have won 25, 50 , 75 and 100% of a campaign You get some virtual gold, but it costs gold to repair and upgrade cars and some of the cars costs up to or above 900 gold coins, which is around 150$ – and that only the price for the car – You have to pay twice the amount to upgrade the car.

The amounts I mention in this article is not quite precise because the version of the game I have access to is in Danish and one gold coin is exactly worth one danish krone when I buy for 65 kr., which is around 12$ or 9 euro. The biggest package of gold I can buy in the In-app store costs 649 kr. and it gives me 1000 gold coins which costs 134 euro or 183$. So to buy one of the most expensive cars in the game for 900 gold coins, You have to buy the big package for 134 euro or 183$.

For every campaign that You finish You open an option for new campaigns and new cars – Cars that You seldom can afford in the game and in many occations You have to drive a certain race with a certain car, which means that You are stuck in that campaign as long as You dont buy the car.

Situations where You earn gold: When You level up You get 3 gold coins and when You finish 25, 50, 75 or 100% of a campaign You get between 5 and 15 gold coins as far as I remember.
Situations where You use gold: To save time in reparing Your cars which typically takes around 2 hours and costs 10 gold, to buy new cars which costs virtual dollars or gold and costs from 50 gold coins to 900, It costs one gold coin to double the amount of fame or virtual dollars at a race, or to pay Your mechanic to repair Your car after a race but You have to pay for it in front, and he only repairs it if You win – If You dont do that You will typically wear the car out on  5 races, upgrading the cars also costs gold – You often have to pay twice the price for a car to upgrade it fully so if the car costs 134 euro or 183$ – You do the math!!

Just the amount of things You can earn virtuel gold on compared to the amount of things You can use virtual gold on clearly shows that this is a certain way of getting rid of our hard earned money.

In the classic economy You pay for a product, and then You can use it for free as long as it lasts – In this new In-app economy You pay for the use of the product as long as You use the product. As long as there are a certain equality between what You get in the two economies for a certain amount of money it is allright: But it gets bad when You get to pay around 1000$ to play a game to the end where You in the classic economy could pay 100$ and play to the end without paying more:

See for example Battlefield 4 where You pay 500 kr. which roughly amounts to 100$ for the game where You can play for years and level up to the top without having to pay any more, compared to Real Racing 3 where My estimate is that the average player end paying around 1000$ before You can race the last race!

HayDay and Boom Beach is splendid examples of games where the In-app  purchases has the right weiht compared to the time people spend playing it, where CandyCrush is a little less well balanced and Real Racing 3 the worst.