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Comment by mkaziz | Hacker News Reader

This is the best news I've heard in a long time, but how do they filter the "disable ads" IAP vs the "oh you spent 3 hours getting invested in this game, but you can't reasonably proceed further until you buy xxx"?

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There is in fact a whole range of software types to distinguish here:,

- apps that are entirely free

- apps with ads

- apps with removable ads

- apps with premium features

- apps that are demos (unlockable to the full app by paying)

- apps that sell cheats (99% of IAP games, the ones that disguise their cheats as "energy" or "coins" or "gems")

Check out http://honestandroidgames.com/ They will tell you what type of game (free, free with ads, paid, etc)

I love the concept of the site. Sadly the interface is absolutely horrendous, as it makes no attempts to help the user find things, since one can't mark games one isn't interested in, or has already; and one can't restrict the display to cross-sections based on attributes describing for example the freeness type, or the needed permissions.

I'm not sure how Google Play works but on the App Store developers specify whether your product is consumable or non-consumable and the products must be cleared for sale before users are given the option to buy them.

So ideally this would be worded as "apps with consumable IAP will no longer be labeled 'free'".

Are there any drawbacks? Would this miss some of the cheaty games?

Surely they can distinguish between one-time IAPs and "consumable" IAPs.

Came here to say this. I guess that if devs want their games to be listed as free they'd need to have two versions of the app, a free ad-supported version and a paid ad-free version, instead of using IAP.

I have actually seen devs do this, but I can't remember any exact cases.

I feel like its pretty common to see both. I see the advantage in using the IAP though since you get to aggregate your ratings and reviews in one place.

Angry Birds was that way at some point, IIRC. Haven't looked in a long time though.

i for one would rather they block apps that are full of ads but the screenshots show none. those drive me crazy.

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