Xyologic has announced that almost 40 percent of game downloads on Apple’s App Store are now free. About 80.8 percent of all app downloads in the month of March were free, with 99.9 million free game downloads over that period.
Many of these play-for-free titles are supported by extra supporting apps that are downloaded. However Apple was worried that such methods were being used to inflate rankings in the top 25 apps and they’ve cracked down on it.
It may make Apple s platform possibly less attractive vis-a-vis Google Android if developers can t find a suitable alternative to offer walls, said the report. This is the biggest interference by Apple into the app economy in recent months. Its effects, at this point, are unclear.
Of the 150 top free games on the App Store, 94 games are supported with micro-transactions, meaning that Apple must work carefully to preserve these developers. Other important revelations include the fact that 4 percent of game apps account for 40 percent of all downloads and almost all of the paid games on the App Store are priced below $3.99.
Source: VentureBeat
