exist Android In the ecosystem, paid games have always been a bit embarrassing. On the one hand, they often have no ads, do not rely on in-app purchases, and the experience is complete and simple. But on the other hand, players have to pay money first without knowing the content at all, which is a high psychological threshold for most people. Therefore, many products with good quality are paidgame, often unknown in the Google Play Store, and its downloads and discussions never increase.
Recently Google It was discovered that a new mechanism may be being tested to try to solve this long-standing pain point, allowing players to have more space to experience before making a purchase decision, and creating new exposure opportunities for developers.
Is the Google Play Store about to become a Buddhist? The “play now before you buy” mechanism for paid games will be launched soon
For most Android users, when they open the Google Play Store, they will almost see games that are free to download and full of in-app purchases. This type of work is realized through modeling, props or progress acceleration, and has become a mainstream model. In comparison, there are only a handful of paid games that choose a one-time buyout.
This kind of buy-out game actually has many advantages. For example, you don’t have to worry about being interrupted by advertisements in the middle of the game, and you don’t have to be led by various tuition fees. The experience is relatively pure. But the problem is also very real. You have to pay before you have touched the content at all, which is inherently risky for players. Even if the price is not high, the hesitation of “should I continue buying it?” has often dissuaded many people.
Although the Google Play Store currently supports subscription-based free trials, this mechanism is almost useless for buy-out games. Therefore, many developers have no choice but to create a separate trial version or Demo version to allow players to experience some content first. At first glance it seems to be a solution, but in practice there are many problems.
First of all, the trial version is usually released independently, and the number of downloads, ratings and comments cannot be accumulated into the official version, which is equivalent to cutting the community volume in half. Furthermore, even if players decide to purchase after trying it out, they will have to restart the game and experience points will inevitably be deducted. For developers, they have to maintain an additional trial version. The long-term cost is not low, but it makes the subscription system seem more trouble-free.
Some developers will also remind players to make good use of the refund mechanism that actually exists in the Google Play Store. As long as you apply within the limited time after purchase, you can get a full refund, which is equivalent to a short “trial period”. But the biggest problem with this approach is that most users don’t even know that this right exists, or don’t know how to operate it. The result is that the guarantees that exist in theory do not actually reduce the psychological pressure of players.
And this psychological pressure is one of the biggest obstacles to paid games. When players see the price tag, the first thing that comes to mind is not the game content, but “What if it’s not fun?” This kind of design that requires payment of costs before experiencing it will filter out a large number of potential users.
According to foreign media Android Authority From observation, Google seems to be planning to start from the platform level to create a more reasonable experience process for this type of game. The new direction reported is to allow players to directly obtain a limited-time complete game experience on the same game page, and the game progress can be retained. In other words, players play first, make sure they like it and then pay, without having to start over.
If such a mechanism is really implemented, it may be a positive change for both players and developers. Players can reduce the risk of cheating and are more willing to try works that they would not otherwise dare to buy. Developers can focus on game quality instead of worrying about whether to make another trial version or be forced to switch to a subscription system.
Of course, there are still many variables in the actual details of such functions, such as the length of trial play, whether it is applicable to all paid games, and how to prevent abuse, etc., which all require careful design of the platform. But at least it can be seen that Google is beginning to face up to the long-term neglect of buyout games in the Play Store.
Conclusion
Judging from the overall trend, the Android game market has reached a stage that requires rebalancing. Although free plus in-app purchases are still mainstream, it does not mean that buy-out games should be marginalized. For many players, what they want is actually very simple. They just hope that they can truly understand what they are buying before paying.
If Google is willing to go one step further in terms of platform mechanisms and build a more friendly bridge between players and developers, it may allow more high-quality paid games to be seen. As for whether this “play first, then buy” attempt will eventually become an official feature of the Play Store, it remains to be verified by time, but at least it has opened up a new direction for the entire ecosystem that is worth looking forward to.
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Source: KOCPC Chinese