Let's take a look at a real-life case example. I've got a Windows Phone, and so does my wife. We each have our phones tied to our own individual Microsoft accounts, and we each purchase our apps separately for our individual phones. Since my phone is a Windows Phone 8 (my wife hasn't upgraded yet), I can pass my phone to my daughter so that she can play the apps that I've purchased and have pinned to her Kids Zone. So far, I'm satisfied with this setup.
I also have a Surface tablet that my wife and I both use. We each have an individual login tied to our individual Microsoft accounts so that we can check our own email, calendar, and notifications. However, if I were to buy a Microsoft Store app for the tablet on my account, it's not available on her account without re-purchasing, even though it's already installed on the tablet and only one of us can use the tablet at a time. With traditional Windows computers, installing an application on one computer can and usually does allow that application to be used by other people on the same machine, even when logged into other accounts.
Furthermore, I'd like to set up a login on the tablet for my daughter which is not tied to a Microsoft account. This is possible, but I'd like to be able to purchase apps for the tablet on my account and have them be available to my daughter on her (local) account.
My suggestions:
- Allow applications that are purchased by the primary (Administrator) account on a device to be used by other accounts on the same device. This should give some flexibility without opening up a loophole that would create rampant application oversharing.
- Allow users to group their individual Microsoft accounts into "Family" groups. Then offer a Family price for applications (both W8 and WP8) that will unlock those apps for everyone in the family group (and perhaps a price to upgrade on already bought app to the Family price). I think a Family price that's double the individual app's price would be fair, and I think there may need to be limits on who can be in a family group (off the top of my head: same last name, perhaps a limited number of accounts can join). The upside for Microsoft and App developers is that there's more incentive for everyone in a family to be on the same platform, therefore more apps will be sold.
- Alternately, if at least two accounts in the same family group purchase the same app, then it unlocks for the rest of the accounts in the family group.
- I agree with Inteller that purchasing a W8 or WP8 app should ideally unlock the same app on the other platform.
I write this post as an avid Windows platform user and promoter, and as a software developer.
I think your suggestions are perfectly reasonable, with only one exception, but I'm going to take it that your suggestions were thrown out there as suggestions open for discussion to be polished, and not iron-clad finished products. :wink:
With tablets (and for the sake of argument, desktop and laptop computers running Win8), those devices are not the same as phones. A phone is typically carried by one person, while those other devices are typically shared among more than one. I see nothing wrong with sharing apps on a device between users, and was unaware that you couldn't do it under the current model. This doesn't mean that I think we should all go out and bypass it - but that perhaps your suggestion is something Microsoft should consider. I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and say we should break the law because what it is now is wrong, but I'm saying perhaps reexamine the model to better reflect the use of the devices. But then again, I haven't been arguing anything about Windows 8. I've been arguing Windows Phone.
Microsoft already has a "family" setup on their accounts, though I'm not very familiar with it. I don't think it has anything to do with app purchasing, but has to do with tracking your childrens' online history, restrictions, and such. Since they already have that in place, though, I wonder how hard it would be to set up your suggestions on purchasing. The limitation that you suggest for same last name is the one exception that I said I don't agree with. The reason for that is because of families where there have been divorce/remarriage where parents and children don't always have the same last name. My step-daughter's children don't have her last name. But that's a minor point. What I would suggest for restrictions would be something like, two parents (with no ability to track each other's online activities), and x children, where x is some number to be determined, I'm not sure what that number should be... But as the children in the account, they need to accept the condition that the parent accounts have full access to their online activities. This would be a deterrent to say, the next door neighbor, from signing up as your kid. The only reason I'm even familiar with this is because I just recently set up Microsoft Family Security (or something like that) on my step-daughter's computer for her and the grandkids.
As far as offering a single price and a family price, there's a win-win. Because the developer isn't having to give it away to the whole family for the same price as if one person buys it, he's getting an extra something out of it, yet the family is getting a discount. I'm not sure that I'd go along with just a husband/wife as being enough to justify discount, but let's leave it on the table for discussion for the moment. I'll definitely accept it for a famly - buy 2, get a family of five. Or whatever.
I'd go with buying on one unlocks on the other platform, only on a couple of conditions, and leave it open for discussion should other points come up. First, leave it up to the developer. If I want to do it, sure. But don't force it. Sure, it's probably in my best interest to do it, but if one platform is a big hit, and then I develop the other platform, why shouldn't I get something extra from that extra work? But if I develop the two apps to work in conjunction together, and I decide to let them go for one price, that should be up to me. The other condition - Microsoft puts the framework in place to support it. Why should each independent developer keep reinventing the wheel? Let's see... Hundreds of thousands of hosted sites, databases, web services written to check to see if a person bought an app on the other platform, so the app will unlock on this platform.... Or write it all once, host it in one place, just like the Trial API. There's no need for all of that work to be duplicated so many times by so many people. Sure, I could make one of the apps free, and charge for the other, but why shouldn't the user just buy it on whichever they were on first?
This weekend, we had to tell our grandson that he could no longer use my wife's Trophy, that he could only use my 822, which I am not nearly as free with allowing him to use. This is because I was going through my wife's purchase history, setting up my old Trophy for her, as her loudspeaker is bad, so we're going to switch her to my old phone. What did I discover? That there have literally been hundreds of games installed on her phone. But when we look in the phone, there are a half a dozen there. So the sneaky little devil has been installing games that he knew we wouldn't allow him to play, playing them, then uninstalling them. Can't do that in the kids' corner, huh? Well, at least he owned up to it, so I didn't get mad at him. I told him that I was proud of him for telling the truth, that he was forgiven, but even forgiven sin has consequences, and the consequence is that he isn't allowed to use Nana's phone anymore. Of course, I'm sure his mom's purchase history looks the same, and she probably doesn't care, but we try to set a better example than he gets at home, but that's a whole different rant...... At least spending every weekend with us, they get good exposure to a good example.
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