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Android's in-app billing makes a dent: Dungeon Defenders free on Android Market
Dungeon Defenders: First Wave cost $3 when it first came out. This week, the iOS version will cost you ninety-nine cents. But if you want to play the Unreal Engine-powered tower defense game today, you can have it for free -- developer Trendy Entertainment is now leaning on Android's new in-app billing system to pay for the whole thing. We can't give Trendy all the credit, of course, as Glu Mobile's Gun Bros and Tapulous' Tap Tap Revenge 4 are doing the same thing, but to our knowledge both of them were free to play from day one. Free-to-play gaming has been a controversial proposition in the console and PC gaming space -- most publishers would just like to sell a game once, and call it a day. On phone, however, where apps are expected to be cheap, it could indeed make more sense to charge users for items and upgrades than to have users "buy" the game. Either way, we penny-pinchers are pleased as punch with the idea. PR after the break.
TUAW's Daily App: Gun Bros
Freemium has earned kind of a bad name on the iPhone -- a lot of people see it as a nickle-and-dime kind of thing, where if you don't pay out a buck or two to the game every once in a while, you don't get to have a full-featured experience. But there is a way to do it right: have a full game before the microtransactions, and then use those transactions to make the experience better, in an optional way. That's exactly what Gun Bros does. The free game that you get on the App Store is a more than excellent dual-stick shooter with some really nice RPG and social elements added into the mix. And even without spending any money, you can have a fun and full experience playing the game.
