Would a less exploitative model for freemium games be to allow in-app purchases up to a pre-set maximum? I.e. you can play this game for free, and also be assured that you'll never spend more than $80 on it.

I think this would definitely help in some situations. I don't think it would make sense to set up a hard limit though.

Imagine that once the user starts the game for the first time, they are asked if the app should track how much they spent on in-app purchases and let them know if they are at that limit.

If they are about to make another purchase and it will go over the limit, the user is shown a message with the total amount spent so far and that this purchase will push them over the limit.

This would stop the "trigger finger" effect. It would cause the person to break from the heat of the moment with the game and instead of making the question one of - "I want to buy this so I can get ahead in the game.", it becomes - "I already spent X amount on this game, do I want to spend another xx amount.".

I think if someone has a lack of self control, there isn't too much that can be done from blowing a lot of money in this in-app purchases. But I do believe that for the average person, having that second level of intervention (ie. the message with how much they have spent) provides enough pause to really decide if they want to make the purchase.

Does this make good business sense to add this feature? As a game developer, likely not. I don't know how this would benefit a game developer aside from "doing the right thing".

As a game developer, I would welcome industry standards that force games to have labels indicating the maximum amount of money a player can spend in the game.

Saying a game is "free" and then charging for in-game goods is disingenuous. Saying it's $1.99 and then having $100s of shit to buy inside the game is also disingenuous. It should say the game is "free" with "no limit".

If you have a free game with a single expansion pack, then it should say "free", "up to $5" for the expansion pack.

This kind of information is magnitudes more important than the stupid ESRB ratings we have for console titles.

I would personally try many more games if they had these labels. I would also be more comfortable developing "real", one-time fee games, if the competitive landscape were straightened out like this. As it stands, freemium games make boatloads of money and the industry will continue to shift in that direction until something is done about it. The only thing I can think of is to make the consumer more aware in advance.

I suspect we're exploring well-trodden ground here, but perhaps one-time unlockables would be better than consumables because there's a natural limit (you can't unlock the same thing twice). IIRC AoEO mostly worked this way.