Just read this over at the Android Developers google forum:
My app had a one-day sale on all platforms and app stores. The price went from 2.99 to free for just today, but now that the sale is over, I need to revert the price back to 2.99. The bad news is, the developer console will not let me change it! I have to pull the app until I can get this resolved. What can I do?
Apparently, google has this clause in it’s developer’s agreement:
You may also choose to distribute Products for free. If the Product is free, you will not be charged a Transaction Fee. You may not collect future charges from users for copies of the Products that those users were initially allowed to download for free. This is not intended to prevent distribution of free trial versions of the Product with an "upsell" option to obtain the full version of the Product: Such free trials for Products are encouraged. However, if you want to collect fees after the free trial expires, you must collect all fees for the full version of the Product through the Payment Processor on the Market. In this Agreement, "free" means there are no charges or fees of any kind for use of the Product. All fees received by Developers for Products distributed via the Market must be processed by the Market’s Payment Processor.
So, basically, once the app is free, it will always be free unless you create a new “full” version package and put it up on the market. The solution in the above scenario seems to be that the developer now needs to pull down his previously published app (which is now free), change the package component name and then republish the app. Of course, this means that he loses track of all the data and customers currently associated with the app.
I’m not sure whether this is good or bad. From customers’ point of view it looks good and from developers’ point of view it looks bad. I also don’t know whether this also applies to reducing the price and then increasing it as I can’t put up paid apps in the market yet (though this seems to be allowed as I’ve seen reports of apps increasing their prices). Let me know what you think about this clause (and any clarifications about non-free but fluctuating prices would also be welcome)
Seems like he’d have been better off leaving his initial app alone and publishing a second free version for just the sale period. Of course, that still leaves the problem of everyone who grabbed the free copy not being associated with the main app. :/
I doubt that this clause applies here. The wording says that you can’t sell your app if you INITIALLY allowed to download it for free. This is not what happened in this case: the product was initially sold, only in a second moment it was distributed for free.
That’s not quite what the developers agreement says. What it says in paraphrase is, “You can not retroactively charge someone for your app if they downloaded it when offered for free.” You can however start charging for your app any time you want, you simply cannot decide to charge someone after the fact who already owns it for free.
I agree with what Scot McPherson says. I think you are misunderstanding what it says.
If at any point in time you offered it for free, you cannot expect the user to pay for it at a later stage is what it is saying, I think.
Right by offering it for free, and the user “bought” the license to use it, you cannot revoke their license to use it. It would be like Pink Floyd increasing hte prices of their albums and expecting everyone to pay up the difference or lose their right to listen.
Scot, MR: I might be misunderstanding the clause but the fact is that the dev is not being allowed to make his app paid now. I guess the onus of keeping track of who has to pay and who doesn’t should be on google. So, even if the dev made the app free for one day and then made it paid afterwards, then google should ensure that the paying as well as non-paying customers keep getting the updates in future but as it stands now, it is not being allowed. Probably filing a bug with Android folks for this is in order..I don’t know though where it would be filed as market is a proprietary app and not part of Android per se and google is renowned for their (lack of) support request answers..
I think the headline is a bit misleading. If you’re suggesting that people not briefly switch to a free app after having a paid app, then that is one thing. The title as it reads suggests that devs shouldn’t make free apps for a short time period, as in no free apps period… This is highly misleading and suggests that there is a big issue with the current system, which there isn’t. As for the article, I think you should perhaps suggest to people to come up with a set business model before releasing apps. To suggest that this a “bug” is exaggerating the circumstances, especially after your understanding of the Dev Agreement has been rightfully questioned.
David: All I am suggesting to devs is that if you plan to make your app paid again without creating a new one in the market, then do not make it free as there doesn’t seem to be a way to do it as of now. Nothing more.
No that is not what your headline is inferring, which is what I was referencing. “Stay away from making your Android app free for a short time” suggests exactly what I said, stay away from making free apps. As an outsider looking at the headline it is very misleading.
It looks to me as though the clause is aimed at prohibiting people from offering apps for “free” through the marketplace and charging them directly, avoiding giving Google its cut. Most online auction sites have similar clauses.
I don’t get the impression that Google is against you doing what you are trying to do, they just haven’t built the feature in. I would file a feature request on: http://code.google.com/p/android/
And ask for a specific feature to put things on “sale” for cheap or free for a limited period, before they revert to the normal price. Telling them that there is currently no way to do this without deleting and creating a new project, would likely encourage them to fix it.
I am sorry but most of us are sick of the bate and switch.
Bate us in with free version when we have to reget it due to some error then find out we have to pay.
I perfectly agree with google stand that free and paid have to be independent versions. Also I don’t feel sorry any developer caught out. The issue of not reading licenses lead to open source software being used against license as well. Hopefully anyone caught will learn to read fine print.
Really the app should not be called free if its temporary its either a trial or a sale not free if its only for a short time.
Maybe a request for a discounted/on special mode. Yes google would be still in there rights to have different fee system for discounted.
Note 1 cent sale price does not cause app to fall into free. So yes you can discount but you cannot set free. If you cannot sell a product at 1 cent why do you have it.
By the way a program that is going to increase from 0.00 back up to a price at a later date. I would see inside google right to charge a fee for each download. Since the application provide is advertising.
True free is a different matter. No planned profit so google does not charge true free fees.
Well, next time he’ll read the agreement. Dumbass
This agreement does not make any sense — if you read it, and want your app free while having a control, simply charge it for $0.01.
Such limitations which are easily to avoid, are actual a joke and only shows poor mental state of the author(s) mind.