Apple Offers Timed Subscription Plans For iOS App Content

With in-app purchases becoming an increasingly important revenue stream, Apple announced today the wide availability of timed subscriptions for in-app content, allowing game makers a new way to distribute their downloadable content. The subscription plan was first offered last week as part of News Corp.'s iPad magazine The Daily, and is now available to all app publishers who want to offer weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly or yearly access to in-app content. Game makers could use such a subscription plan to offer complete access to extra level sets, offer regular access to weekly song releases for a music game, or simply meter basic access to a games for a set period, for instance. Apple will take its standard 30 percent share of subscriptions made through the App Store or the app itself. App makers can keep the full proceeds from subscriptions made outside the app, however, so long as similar subscription options are also available from within the app. The move comes at a time when subscription-based access to game content seems to be getting less popular in the game industry. Many massively multiplayer PC games have been switching away from the genre's traditional subscription model to a free-to-play model supported by item purchases. Last November, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick rejected the idea of offering subscription-based content rather than discrete DLC for the company's popular Call of Duty games.