iPhone devs welcome new in-app payments rules

However, they have also pointed out some of the wrinkles in the new policy, in interviews with industry site PocketGamer.biz.

For example, Gamevil USA CEO Kyu Lee hails the move as a “huge step forward”, but questions whether the resulting games will be placed in the Free or Paid categories on the App Store, and points out that virtual currencies still aren't allowed.

“Purchasing poker chips is now okay, but buying items using points is still not okay for free games,” he says. “The question you have to ask yourself is 'How does this change make things different compared to 99c games with in-app purchases?'”

Meanwhile, TAG Games MD Paul Farley thinks the changes will have an impact on the entire games industry, not just on iPhone – although the latter will feel the impact first, with more publishers following ngmoco in making games entirely free to download but funded by in-app payments.

“The inevitability is that the price of all games will drop to free,” he says. “In the short term, it could mean we have a premium App Store by default with EA, Gameloft and maybe a few others sticking to $5-$10 fixed prices and targeting the paid chart, and the rest following ngmoco's lead and going free-to-trial.”

Meanwhile, Digital Chocolate CEO Trip Hawkins points out that the changes may help to cut iPhone game piracy, as “a game server can determine if a customer is a legitimate paying customer or not”.

He also highlights the way the changes bring iPhone more into line with other gaming platforms.

“This is very important and a big step by Apple towards better alignment in terms of how virtual worlds and social games combine free trial with monetisation.”

Story originally published on Mobile Entertainment