Ban In-App Virtual Currencies from Apple's Appstore

The Apple AppStore has a great reputation of bringing users high quality utilities and games. In the past couple of years, a new business model has become apparent on the AppStore... the 'Freemium' business model.

The Developer releases a game for free, but, to progress through the game, the user must spend some sort of in-game currency. Commonly this virtual pseudo-currency can be earned in-game without any payment, but only over time, generally hours or even days. This cuts down the time that the user is allowed to use the application. Without this in-game currency, games are usually slowed to a boring chug or a complete stop. Most of the in-game content requires a gratuitous amount of in-game currency (EX in TinyTower, upgrading something simple like your elevator speed can cost hundreds of "bucks") which without spending real life currency, is nearly impossible to achieve.

The 'Freemium' business model also severely takes away from competition and overall fun for the user. No longer is the competition about who is the most skilled, rather the competition is about who has the most money. It is VERY common for these 'Freemium' games to have very little gameplay at all... something I refer to as 'All Pay and No Play' Apps.

It's sickening that these short-sighted, poorly made applications are allowed on to Apple's high quality electronics. They clutter the AppStore and at times blind users from the developers that are actually trying to push out a well designed application or game.

Step it up Apple, we want quality in all aspects of the AppStore. We want you to change your policy to ban apps from allowing the sale of in-game currencies.