EA Sports Releases Free-to-Play 'FIFA 14' for iOS

[dumastudetto]

I feel if Apple's App Store had a demo/try button like the Android and Windows ones do, we would see a notable decrease in freemium releases as there appears to be simply no way to try apps before you buy them.

Companies are making far more money from freemium therefore they are all racing to embrace the model. Apple is happy too since they are taking a cut from all this additional iap revenue. This is extending beyond games now into all other kinds of apps. It appears to be the future everything is heading towards. And Apple has no financial incentive to put a stop to it.

 

[Melodeath]

I downloaded this app, opened it, and played a quick match against the cpu. I just opened the app again and can't for the life of me figure out how to start a match. Am i missing something? Was the one match just a free demo and I now have to buy Kick Off mode?

 

[madaraowns]

Game is not bad on my phone, but did anyone tried this trick for playing on Origin for free ? Well game is for PC.
http://gamehostia.com/fifa14-key-generator-pc-2013/

 

[Khedron]

More of this freemium IAP CRAP. When is Apple going to allow us to, at the very least, EXCLUDE IAP apps from search results?

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What about $5.99 for being able to kick a ball to the goal?

Exactly, it's all just a scam to climb the free chart and hope for accidental IAPs.

 

[Analog Kid]

Freemium isn't always bad. E.g., suppose it's a game that includes the first level for free and it costs $5 to unlock the rest of the levels?

(Doom itself was distributed under this model... not exactly crap!)

The problem is that exploitation has undermined trust in the model. I enjoyed FIFA 13, but I won't download FIFA 14 because I don't really understand how the IAP works for this game and don't want to get close to rewarding anything beyond the old shareware model.

If we all think IAP undermines our gaming experience, but we all keep downloading their games, then we've really only got ourselves to blame.

I've pretty much stopped buying anything from EA (and Gameloft, but that's because Gameloft games are generally pretty but crap). I'll admit I bought SimCity for Mac from EA in a moment of weakness, though...

What honest publishers should do is 1) only use simple, close-ended IAP and 2) make it as crystal clear as possible what the ultimate cost to complete the game is.

I think Apple could help a lot with this.
E.g.,
(1) support demo apps with a single "unlock" IAP and mark such apps clearly.
(2) For apps with a fixed set of IAP, list all of them, their prices and total price.
(3) Slap loud warnings all over apps that sell consumables, or better yet, ban them. If they are allowed, track and display the $ spent (filtering out people that don't really use the app).

I don't think 3 is really viable, but I like the differentiation between 1 and 2. Apple could set up specific APIs to "unlock the full version" and make that distinct from selecting from a menu of purchases then mark the apps accordingly.

That would also work towards solving another annoyance-- having free and paid versions of apps in my library sitting side by side.

edit: by the way, can we get rid of the term "Free-to-play"?
The whole problem with IAP is people are uncertain of the real costs... using a misleading term like this makes it worse... Apps with IAP are designed to NOT be free to play.

Agreed. I propose "Extortionware".