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Proper up-front never occurred because Apple refuses to implement a simple free-trial-period mechanism. And it is impossible to filter store searches in a way that tells you which apps would behave roughly in that way (therefore anything with IAP I just assume must be a gambling/gem-bags/garbage model).

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Really no video game lets you do a free trial. To me the start of all this was Google. Google completely changed the way we interact with services and technology. It’s amazing and completely “free”.

Back when games were distributed as a physical media, there were demo version you could get with a game magazine for free, or early downloads via Internet. Plus Google Play in the beginning let you try any purchased app for, what? 48 hours? I don't recall exactly now.

Demos are on the way back. A lot of indie games on Steam feature them.

Steam also made every game an effective demo with their return policy

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