Hey,
I searched through the forums for ‘microtransaction’, ‘micro’, ‘purchasing’, and some variations, but didn’t really find anything overly useful.
So here it is.
Summary - I wish to monetize a 300,000+ install base above and beyond what we’ve already charged. Microtransacting additional features is how I plan to do it.
Where do I start?
I’m wondering the same thing. I have a free app that I’d like to monetize.
Unity doesn’t natively support in-app purchases but I’d like to get a few pointers on how to create a plugin to support them.
I’m considering the same sort of thing. I’ve read through the Apple in app purchase doc and it is not trivial.
As I recall, Dreamora suggested the SDKs from iLime or Urban Airship might be a better solution if you don’t care to write all the support required for in-app purchases.
Both support Push and In App purchase.
I see…
So, in summary, its hard 
Well, that’s not such a big issue, but before I walk away and do a huge pile of work, is there any chance of Unity attempting to help streamline the process in future versions?
If not, hard work… If they do, I might be tempted to wait
I’ve doubts that anyone who has problems to integrate the InApp Store Kit is able to develop and provide the required backend that you must have to store and manage the sold in app products as you need to provide them to your users at any time again later. Apple does not do anything for you in that respect.
You’ll note I said ‘Start’… Until you mentioned it just then, I was not in fact even aware of the InApp Store Kit of which you speak
But that’s okay, I’ll figure it out one way or another 
(Failing that, I have more hardcore coders around here than my kiddiescripting self)
Ah well I guessed that was what all the talk was about as you aren’t allowed to sell stuff in your application through any other way than the InApp Store SDK
I’m thinking it should be possible to modify the Unity-built Xcode project to include the StoreFront code that UrbanAirShip provides. http://urbanairship.com/
Does anyone see any reason why the UrbanAirShip code couldn’t be used in the Xcode project Unity builds and then activated through the Unity plugin native code integration?
@randyedmonds - Urban Airship looks great and their rates a very reasonable for the service, IMO. I’d also love to know if this will integrate, though considering the amount of other mods we can do (Enhancement Pack, Scoreloop, AGON), I’d be surprised if it wasn’t possible. (Makes sense to me anyway).
One use for in-app purchases I’d like to explore is simply offering a free app with AdMob, then offering a $1 upgrade in the app to remove the ads. I don’t know what the conversion rates would be, but it would be an interesting experiment.
I’ll admit I haven’t read through the App Kit stuff yet, but it could be as simple as getting the message and setting a Prefs file.
My understanding is that Apple can tell when an app on an account has had an In-App purchase, allowing multiple devices on the same account to take advantage of this same purchase.
For my above experiment, there wouldn’t be anything to re-deliver to the user, and even after a delete/re-install, it would be automatic as long as Apple detects the account and delivers the message to set the Prefs file. (Again, this is irresponsible speculation, without reading the docs. But this is my understanding of it so far.)
The method you’re talking about here (using in-app purchase to “unlock” built-in content, aka non-consumable purchases) doesn’t require the need for services like Urban Airship or iLime. Even if the user switches devices, you can still query the iTunes Store to see if they have already purchased the content.
Services like Urban Airship are primarily useful if you’re trying to deliver actual downloadable content to the user, though I’m certain they offer a few extra benefits, especially if you want to sell consumables (in-game health packs) or subscriptions since those transactions need to be tracked by the developer.
Thanks for confirming Jerrod, that’s what I was hoping.
If anyone figures out how to do this (natively or with a third party plugin) count me in as wanted to know how too! 8)
Here’s the reply I got from Steven Osborn at urbanairship:
We’re meeting with one of the local Unity guys early next week. We
don’t have any terms or timeline yet.
Steve, did the Unity plug-in ever find a developer or gain any ground with
you guys? We’re looking for a solution we could put in directly through
Unity without getting into coding outside the app.Unity forum thread:
Thanks!
This is seriously so vitally important. And I think such a feature would justify the price gap between iphone basic and pro.
Not that I have pro :roll: But this feature would be a HUGE incentive to make the leap.
Would be interesting to hear from the Unity team about their thoughts on this subject
I plan on using the micro-transactions as a subscription system for a project I have planned for next year. A plugin is a bit much, as I would just have 1-2 items (1 month, 3 month subscriptions), but I am interested to see what people come up with. I plan on having a system set up which records the purchase and updates my own database of accounts with that purchase event, thus lengthening the subscription time.
For others who are thinking of bigger stores, those 3rd party plugins look nice.
There’s a talk happening next week over at the local Apple HQ about in app purchases. No way I’m smart enough to implement them without some third party plugin but I’m hoping to go along to the talk just to get the deets from Apple themselves.
I’m sat in the ‘In-App Purchase’ talk from Apple right now and I just thought I’d mention a few things.
1: All in-app purchases need to be approved by Apple. In a case there there are 1000 (the max items) they will review ‘some’ of the purchase items.
2: You cannot do an in-app purchase for virtual currency. This sucks as I wanted to do something like ‘buy 100 coins for 99 cents’ sometime in the future.
3: They mentioned that they are open to feedback and are interested to hear if people want the minimum purchase price reduced. I’d prefer to see something like 10 cents or something so you can really quickly and cheaply purchase an item for a game at low cost.
4: You have to do a lot of checking within your app or server to make sure you are delivering the right content to the right people. Users with multiple devices or a device with multiple users will need you to check the right people are getting the content.
5: Some people must be bored as I see Field Runners being played 
6: And some people must be lost by all the objective C that’s being thrown up on screen because they are writing on the Unity forum
I suggest someone that wants IN APP PURCHASES jump through all the hoops to code it, then sell it as MIDDELWARE to everyone here until UNITY has an implementation themselves.
You would have the feature you want plus the bonus of money.
Because everyone comes to you, you become the guru on this functionality.
Assuming you kept it running, I would happily purchase it to save myself the headache of coding it and keeping it going.
Thanks.