Describe purchase process

MommysBestGames · April 2013

I've not yet added my credit card info to my account. It's a dev account, it doesn't yet need it. I've downloaded plenty of games, but not yet purchased any.

1. I've been reading on various forums of gamers concerned that apps/games could create purchases on a credit card without user consent. Is this true? Can anyone describe the process?
2. For instance, when you click 'buy' to purchase something in a game currently, it shows you the price and confirm button.
You have to hit yes before it charges you. Is there way an app could apply a purchase to your credit card without user input?
3. Why does the Ouya require a credit card to download games? What's the actual reason?
4. Is there any way to not require this?

Thanks. I'd like to explain this better to other people but I'm not confident currently in the system either. I want to be confident and understand it, but I feel there's still some misinformation going about.

Killa_Maaki · April 2013

1.) No, not possible. It's the background OS service that handles this, and it DOES display a confirmation dialogue (The ODK just makes calls into this OS service)
2.) No, again. It's the OS that handles this, not the ODK
3.) Probably to make purchases much easier. You just have to hit 'Yes' and BAM you've got the game. It could also deter some piracy, if buying the game (e.g. just clicking 'Yes') is easier than pirating the game.
4.) Don't know, presumably.

KonajuGames · April 2013

I'm curious why the Verge review mentioned making purchases often with no confirmation.

JeffRand · April 2013

KonajuGames said:

I'm curious why the Verge review mentioned making purchases often with no confirmation.

I think they meant that there isn't a second press required to confirm the purchase. With only one press required, it leads to people accidently making purchases. By requiring a second press, preferably with a different button, it would reduce unintended purchases,

Ayrik · April 2013

The confirmation pop up is a second button already. Of course, it should default to no.

KonajuGames · April 2013

Ayrik said:

The confirmation pop up is a second button already. Of course, it should default to no.

So the Verge review was wrong? Confused...

Dreamwriter · April 2013

Verge released a video showing what they were talking about. They did have a confirmation popup - but the price text was red on a red background so they didn't know how much money they were paying (but they did know they were paying money). That happened to me when I was using the debug settings in the IAP code, so maybe Canabalt (the game they were talking about) accidentally shipped in debug mode.

Here, you can see what they are talking about:

Edit: Damn auto-embedding, the section I'm talking about starts at 5:50

Ayrik · April 2013

Actually, once you open a purchase window with the test flag, every purchase window from then on will be red, even non-test builds of other games. It's weird, but surely that's what happened, it could have been from any game prior.

goodhustle · April 2013

There are two things going on that I can tell:

1. There is a real bug with the IAP confirmation dialog showing up in red related to devs shipping IAP code in test mode, see http://forums.ouya.tv/discussion/1109/iap-prompt-turns-red-with-no-text-in-my-app-infects-other-apps#latest

2. Someone somewhere may have decompiled the SDK and found the calls to the server that communicate user intent to purchase, and says you can spoof those calls. If you're a malicious dev on any system then it's up to the platform folks to be smart and catch you, and I don't see why this observation is relevant as it applies to any platform with code that sends purchases to a server.

MommysBestGames · April 2013

1. The all-red "can't see how much it costs" seems pretty bad. Ouya team is this getting fixed soon? My concern is hearing gamers making fun on the store, that's it's not secure and that there's no confirmation for purchases.

2. From what I've seen, I think there is confirmation, but like Ayrik said, the confirm should default to NO so that it actually matters that there's a confirm screen.

Between sometimes not being able to read the price, and easily accidentally clicking purchase, I think this needs work before it could be recommended to normal gamers. Good thing there's still time before June 4th. :)

Ayrik · April 2013

Yeah, it would be nice, since the test flag is no longer supported, if the red box could just go away altogether regardless of the test flag. For now, though, the apps/games with the test flag on in the store should be taken off.

jclardy · April 2013

I think being selected on Purchase is fine...as long as they clear out the controller input buffer when the dialog loads - so that if it is taking a while and they hit the button again it doesn't automatically confirm the purchase when they were just trying to look at it.

But the interface should definitely be more upfront about it - on iOS the app can request the IAP items which it then has to display with prices (So if you change the price on the server it is updated in app) - leaving it to the confirmation pop-up is a bad idea.

Also the store should display what IAP are available. Especially if there is only one "Full Game" purchase, and display the actual price of the game. I know they want you to try all the games without thinking about the price, but it seems a bit shady and deceptive to me to pretend that everything is free until the very last moment.

Ayrik · April 2013

No, I think it needs to default to no, just in case. This is actual money coming out of people's wallets, and I for one, do not want to deal with refund requests just because they can easily accidentally spend money.

The display of price is completely up to the developer. I agree that they should list the price, but I don't think they need to reject games that don't list the price, since the confirmation popup does the trick.

I completely agree with your last paragraph.

bluecollarart · April 2013

@Ayrik "No, I think it needs to default to no, just in case."

Definite agreement there, I've seen quite a few people worried about this issue! You don't want to accidentally hit a single button and lose money!

Dreamwriter · April 2013

If a game does the interface correctly that wouldn't be possible. Games really need to setup their own buying interface, and only when the player has agreed in the game's interface to buy it for a listed price should it call the OUYA purchase system. And then it should default to Yes, because the player has already made his decision and is just making the final agreement to pay the price.

I really hate games like Final Fantasy 3 that just call the OUYA purchase system without even telling you the price beforehand.

Piers · April 2013

@Dreamwriter at what point in FF3 did you hit the paywall? Where in the game specifically and about how long did it take you to get there?

Killa_Maaki · April 2013

Piers said:

@Dreamwriter at what point in FF3 did you hit the paywall? Where in the game specifically and about how long did it take you to get there?

AFAIK the way FF3 works is you play as long as you want until you die (just judging from gameplay vid I saw), and then it boots you back to the main menu with no option to save your game. Then, from the main menu, you can buy the game but it doesn't show you how much it is until you click the purchase button and it pops up the confirmation.

Dreamwriter · April 2013

Naw, it lets you save and whatnot, and has a real pay wall. Takes about an hour to an hour and a half to get there, you have to finish the intro dungeon, make it to the second town, get the air ship, go to the castle, talk to the king, maybe climb the west tower (makes it easier anyways even if it isn't required), then finish the cave to the north and beat the boss. You talk to the crystal, see the opening credits, and then it says you must pay to see more, Buy or Cancel. Buy does the same thing as Purchase on the title screen, just brings up the system confirmation which tells you the price. If you cancel at that point it takes you to the title screen (which could suck, since the last time you can save before that is before entering that cave).

I prefer it if things like that bring up a real in-game menu that shows the price, where choosing to buy brings up the confirmation.

MommysBestGames · April 2013

I agree in theory that pay walls/IAP should show price before bringing up the confirmation. But wouldn't that get messy for the game to know that, and translate prices to local currency? Or is this a reasonably query the game can make and then show it in-game?

Killa_Maaki · April 2013

MommysBestGames said:

I agree in theory that pay walls/IAP should show price before bringing up the confirmation. But wouldn't that get messy for the game to know that, and translate prices to local currency? Or is this a reasonably query the game can make and then show it in-game?

Hm.... that's a good point. AFAIK there is no real simple query for this (although I did find a currency localization for .NET here: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/17909/Simple-Class-to-get-Currency-Exchange-Rates which uses Yahoo to query the current exchange rates), although such a thing would be nice.
I guess now that I think about it, I don't mind if the price isn't shown since this could be a bit of an issue, unless ODK is expanded to include currency exchange functions.

KonajuGames · April 2013

There could be an issue if the price returned by Yahoo is not the same as the price charged. IAP for OUYA currently only provides a USD price. If you are wanting to display a local price (if you could find out the local currency code without asking the user), you would have to display it as "approximately EUR 0.85" or similar, noting that it is not an exact figure and could vary depending on the current exchange rates.

Hicsy · May 2013

OUYA is an american company, why would they have a need to charge in other currencies? Steam doesnt... XBL didnt (and even now, just uses vague M$ points)

Google wallet... most major US online shopping portals... I could go on

there is no need to complicate things. At least until they know if they will start using gamecards or not...

Dreamwriter · May 2013

Apple supports local currencies for iPhone IAP. When you request the price of the product so you can display it in your game's menu, their API returns the price in the currency of the iPhone region, and you can also get the local currency symbol. I don't think they continually update the exchange rate, they just have a set of equivalent prices for each different region that doesn't change.

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