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$99.00 for a Wagon of Smurfberries
Posted by: Junie Wu | March 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment
After receiving many complaints from parents, Apple has changed its policy for in-app purchases. The change is made to prevent some unexpected bills. Sarah Kessler points out another issue, “Whether it’s appropriate to market expensive virtual goods within games intended for young children.”
In-app purchases for children-typed games are a loop-hole that allows children to purchase goods (virtual) with the use of a parent’s credit card. Whereas offline, a child walking up to the cash register with a credit card would be denied the transaction. These in-app purchases discovered an untapped market that is now under debate.
Is it appropriate to market to children who may not understand the value of money?
If this question were to be reworded, “Is it appropriate to market a good that is well beyond the audience’s means and does not understand the value of money?” then we can tell this takes place in real life. The difference between the two groups is the children versus adults. Children are assumed to not yet know these things where adults are supposed to.
This way of generating sales is quite sneaky as the bill at the end of the month tends to drop some mouths. Usually this type of strategy would not work as the product continues its life cycle but because these games often have a short lifespan and does not face returning customers (unless for another version of the game), it works. Sales and revenue could decrease because of the new prevention changes. Therefore, marketers would no longer make these in-app purchases targeted to children as expensive since parents are made aware of each purchase. Perhaps as a result, there will be a switch as more marketers make games intended for adults.