In what is assumed to be a bid to adhere to new requirements of the European Union surrounding In-App Purchases (IAP), Google began asking developers last month to add a physical address, as well as a price range for their In-App Purchases to the Developer Console. Yesterday the physical address section of Google Play began showing up for developers to add an address, and today, the actual changes are showing on both the mobile and web version of Google Play.
The information for IAP and Physical addresses is visible in the ‘Additional Information’ section of the Google Play Store. The in the Google Play store app on Android, is hit and miss, with the information showing up on some tablets and phones, but not othere. If you really want to see the information you can surf on over to play.google.com in your web browser on your mobile, you’ll see the changes for sure.
The information regarding the In-App price ranges and physical addresses are hit and miss. Developer Ludia Inc. has added the information regarding IAP Price Range and Physical Address to their Google Play store entry.
While some developers, such as Electronic Arts have added a Price Range, but no exact physical location, instead opting to add: Geneva, Switzerland.
Some developers are still looking into the physical address side of things, Halfbrick Studios have not included any physical location at all. While it seems some Some developers with IAP in their apps, mostly smaller developers who don’t have an office address to direct users to, are still investigating the use of PO Boxes, and have not added any details.
These changes on the face of it are great for customers, but put pressure on smaller developers to add a physical address. The IAP price range seems like a fairly innocuous, though important addition. We’ll see how this develops over the coming weeks, as there will surely be developers out there who haven’t updated their entries. It’s going to be interesting to see how hard Google enforces these new policies.
