Bloomberg reports Apple has removed Big Fish Games‘ subscription based game from the App Store. Big Fish Games was reported last night to be the first to make available a game that offered a subscription model inside, a feature that was originally exclusive to news apps. After last night’s report that the game was able to receive this new subscription feature, there was much speculation that this app wasn’t actually offering subscription inside — as one of our readers explained. The game’s founder Paul Thelen says, however, that his team worked with Apple for several weeks to make sure it met requirements regarding in-app subscriptions, and that Apple even approved the press release announcing the game.
The way the app worked was a user could purchase a Big Fish Games subscription for $6.99 a month to play unlimited games that the publisher made available through the dedicated app. Games were then streamed to the user’s iPad from Big Fish’s data centers. Apple reportedly took 30% of the revenue, just like the company does with news apps.
Oddly enough, Thelen says Apple didn’t provide any information as to why the app was removed. We’ll let you know more as this story develops.
- Apple opens up monthly subscription model to game publishers (9to5mac.com)
