Hey guys, curious, what services are available that offer IAP’s for PC/Mac/Linux games?
I haven’t found a single one yet and I’ve been looking for quite some time. Every IAP I’ve ever found is for Mobile and mobile only.
Or should I said DLC… And if any aren’t available, how could I potentially make one?
I mean I know it has to be possible, otherwise PC games wouldn’t have already had them to begin with.
I don’t want to rely on Steam, I’m sure Steam has it. Unless I could use the Steam API for a potentially non-steam game. (I want to put it on Steam), but no guarantee it would even make it through GreenLight. So I’d like to have a backup plan. I’m sure it would have to deal with some sort of Database system (which I am fine making). But the exchanging of money is what worries me, not sure if I want to get into that can of worms developing without knowing what it is I am doing towards vulnerabilities from hacking, so which is why I am trying to avoid making one my self.
I’m sure it’s not really as hard as it would seem to make a basic system. But much rather use a premade service if one exist for this.
Windows 10 is an attempt by Microsoft to create a single platform and a single store across all devices. Since they’re trying to bring the store to all devices I figured they might be trying to bring IAPs to all of them as well and I was correct.
Have you tried PlayFab and/or GameSpark? I don’t know if they handle transaction processing for you, but I’m positive I’ve seen stuff about dealing with purchased goods in their APIs.
I’m honestly surprised there’s not much or anything out there for this. There’s plenty of free PC games, seems like an untapped market for the most part, at least for Indies.
They have APIs to assist with the process of handling IAPs but they do not support desktop platforms. PlayFab supports Amazon, Android, and iOS whereas GameSparks supports those and Windows Store too.
What are you talking about? A lot major PC titles have DLC’s… So yes - they do have a place in PC games.
I just wasn’t sure if a DLC was considered an IAP as they both result in generally buying something. So I wasn’t sure if they are the same thing.
Battlefield does it, GTA does it, Ark does it, star wars battlefront does it, .and so forth.
I don’t think they should be used for everything, just certain things.
When most peolple think of DLCs they think of meaningful content packs. By comparison IAPs are usually very simple things like a costume, an item that boosts some aspect of your game, etc. Some games push the boundary between the two but most of them are along these lines.
Are you aware that the “recent user reviews” rating on the steam page of Ark dropped down to only 39% positive (from a lot higher, since overall ratings are still at 69%) with over 12k reviews being counted towards “recent”, and the reason for that is mainly the release of paid DLC? I don’t know how connected to the PC gamer world from a gamer perspective you are, but most of us hate DLC with a passion. And I don’t see acceptance for them growing, if anything I see people being more and more fed up with this bullshit being shoehorned in at the cost of other things:
Ark only got bad ratings from it because it’s still considered an Early Access. How can someone really charge more for an expansion when the game its self isn’t even (considered) done {On Paper} at least. That would get me mad too…
I don’t really like DLC either, I in fact really dislike them my self.
In fact I really truly believe there’s a time and place for them.
1: Ark gets me mad because it was an incomplete game to begin with, they made enough money to build the game 200 times over, so why should they charge me to get an extension to a still incomplete game.
2: StarWars BattleFront gets me mad because it was still technically like a Beta when they released it, with a couple of maps, like really?
BUT, if a game has been out for awhile, is {Completed} and they give you I don’t know 20 maps, and they want to a year down the road release 10 more maps, I don’t mind buying them. Because then it’s just an extension to the game I had already played and enjoyed.
But releasing incomplete stuff and demanding more money for a continued to be incomplete product, that doesn’t fly with me and I believe they should be sued for it honestly. {Ark}
I’m not really wanting to make one, I was just overall curious about it. I see AAA games use them, so I know it’s possible. But yet, I don’t really see anything but major companies doing it or rich indies who’ve made millions. So I fare to say it’s a rather complex thing to build. At least in terms of Security of peoples Credit Cards, etc.
Which is why EA is still around and steam has a lot of “mostly negative” reviewed games on it.
Games I played usually used steam for dlc purchases. On PC platform steam has overlay, which can be brought up while the game is running, and if you REALLY wanted to, you could perform purchases from there. That applied to pretty much ALL titles with dlcs - from saints row to DOA/etc. Street fighter games used similar overlay approach with GWFL when GWFL was still a thing.
One of the purchase heavy games I can think of is Sims 3/4 (I think it had about 12 expansions), so you could check those out and see how they did it. My memory is a bit hazy, but I think it had some sort of online shop, the thing is I’m not sure if the shop was at sims website, or available in-game. Also, all EA titles usually have some sort of microtransactiosn in them (even Dead Space 3), so you could check out those too.
It is probably much more common than you think. I know at least one MMO-ish game that was commercially successful and was selling stuff even while the game was still being developed.
@Ryiah : Yeah crazy huh? I’m sure the people who made Ark made easily over a million dollars.
And isn’t the company who made Ark: Indie? Or well - once upon a time Indie at least haha.
I can’t even play the game, not that my PC isn’t strong enough, but it’s sooooo laggy I can’t
stand it. I go to hit a Dino and it teleport’s 20 meters away (every time). Including people.
Horrid Interest Management apparently. It apparently works okay for my brother on the Xbox.
Not sure if the Xbox Version is using Xbox Live for the networking or what though.
Just saw a post from one of the developers on their steam page,
From that sounds, it sounds Indie to me, just a group of experienced people who made it, not so much studios making it.
But I’m sure once they hit it off, they got more studios involved.
On the PC side steam is definitely the easiest way to do IAP and DLC. DLC can be bought in the store just like just like a normal game, and for IAP the SteamWorks API provides a call that brings up the steam overlay to deal with the payment of the IAP then fires a callback with the response to the game when complete.
That is the easy part, that hard part is creating content that people what and think is above the cost of the game. I find for paid games most people do not want to deal with IAP but i can be ok in cheaper titles like Rocket League.
For DLC just make sure it is quality content, DLC should be treated like the digital equivalent of expansion packs. We have all seen EA shit on for having too much DLC and making it crazy expensive for anyone to experience all the content a game has. Also seen them shit on for withholding content to make it DLC. But in the other side of things we have seen companies like From Software and CD Projekt Red produce some really amazing content for their DLC that is very much worth the wait and its price tag.