Until now, games have only been available one at a time, requiring users to download individual applications. Bloomberg reports:īig Fish Games, a Seattle-based game publisher, won approval from Apple to become the first to offer users access to dozens of titles for $6.99 a month. You must have internet access for this to work (like all other remote desktop apps). This is not some new business model for the app store.Īpple will now begin letting video game publishers offer their titles to iPad users via a subscription model, a revenue stream for publishers and purchasing option for users that was previously only available for digital publications. This is just locked down to their own server and their own flash games optimized for touch. This App is not doing any thing special that other subscription services don’t already do on iOS. This is nothing more than a remote desktop app (like iswiffer or many others) that let you play flash games. Update: There has been some doubt regarding Bloomberg’s initial report and whether or not this is a new App Store policy introduced by Apple. Updated: Apple opens up monthly subscription model to game publishers We’ll let you know more as this story develops. Oddly enough, Thelen says Apple didn’t provide any information as to why the app was removed. Apple reportedly took 30% of the revenue, just like the company does with news apps. Games were then streamed to the user’s iPad from Big Fish’s data centers. The way the app worked was a user could purchase a Big Fish Games subscription for $6.99 a month to play unlimited games that the publisher made available through the dedicated app.

The game’s founder Paul Thelen says, however, that his team worked with Apple for several weeks to make sure it met requirements regarding in-app subscriptions, and that Apple even approved the press release announcing the game. After last night’s report that the game was able to receive this new subscription feature, there was much speculation that this app wasn’t actually offering subscription inside - as one of our readers explained.

Big Fish Games was reported last night to be the first to make available a game that offered a subscription model inside, a feature that was originally exclusive to news apps. Bloomberg reports Apple has removed Big Fish Games‘ subscription based game from the App Store.

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