FEB. 21, 2011 • The Federal Trade Commission will review the marketing and delivery of mobile applications that charge users for products and services through App Stores like Apple’s There is concern that in-app purchases are easy for consumers to misunderstand, resulting in unwanted charges.

Impact: Games as a service (GAS) is often portrayed as the new golden cow of game models. There are always inadvertent costs to any business model, however, and the more people are attracted to free-to-play titles, these costs loom larger.  GAS may be great for circumventing traditional piracy, and returns of boxed retail stock, but making it too easy for consumers, especially under age consumers, to purchase virtual items has its risks. We can expect the industry will be encouraged to self-police itself with more blatant signposts before purchases are made. However, government introspection is also a good opportunity for publishers favoring a heavy-handed approach to prodding consumer to buy in-game to rethink how they integrate virtual item sales into their services.