If you are getting irritated with the ads for in-app purchases while playing your favourite game on your Android mobile, Google will soon give you an option to keep playing games ad-free. You have to spend a small amount as monthly fee for availing this facility. Called Google Play Pass, the fee for this would be $4.99 per month. This new feature on Android Play Store will be available in the US from this week and in other geographies subsequently. There are over 350 games and apps from the Android Play Store included in this ad-free package.
Google is also offering some concessions with the Google Play Pass. Under this offer, the first one year, the subscription will be collected at $1.99 per month. You can also enjoy a 10-day free usage of Google Play Pass.
Since there is bound to be an immediate comparison to a similar $4.99 service launched by rival Apple, it is being clarified that the Apple Arcade service by Apple is meant to include games only. The Google Play Pass has apps and games in it and more importantly, there is no exclusivity claimed in the Google model.
Google is also ensuring that there is a smooth and seamless transition. This means if you are playing games downloaded free and now subscribe for Google Play Pass, the ads will be automatically removed and the in-app purchase also stopped. If you don’t want to subscribe and buy standalone games or apps to play or use, you can continue to do so. You need not invest in the bundle to play/use that game/app.
A third of the Google Play Pass inclusions will be apps and the remaining, games. Stardew Valley, Monument Valley, Limbo, Risk, Star Wars: KOTOR, Mini Metro, Old Man’s Journey, and Eloh are some of the more popular games included in the list within this new subscription.
An interesting feature of this new subscription from Google is that it can be shared between five members of the family. There is no clarity yet on how Google plans to compensate the developers on making the apps ad-free. Google may come up with some kind of a formula based on how much time the users spend on the app or a game and pass on the amount to the developer.
The success or failure of this subscription model to play games and access apps without the intrusive ads and in-app purchases can only be gauged after a few months when Android phone users start subscribing to it. It might turn out to be quite a money-spinner for Google if it succeeds and the developers won’t complain either.