Apple adds Pay Once & Play category, ups maximum app size

In its ongoing quest for complete transparency about in-app purchases, Apple has added the new Pay Once & Play category to the App Store.

Styled like one of the marketplace’s regular promotions, the section recommends premium mobile games that do not contain any form of microtransaction.

Examples included include mobile versions of Minecraft, XCOM: Enemy Within, CounterSpy, Goat Simulator, as well as original iOS games such as Threes!, The Sailor’s Dream, Leo’s Fortune and Oceanhorn.

Back in November, Apple removed the ‘Free’ section from its App Store – replacing it with Get – following a years of controversy surrounding free-to-play titles that contain pricey microtransactions. Prior to that, it added warnings about in-app purchases on game listings.

Meanwhile, GamaSutra has announced that the maximum size of iOS apps has been raised from 2GB to 4GB. This is the first time Apple has increased the limit since the launch of the App Store and no doubt reflects the increasing quality and complexity of mobile games.

The company has maintained its limit of 100MB downloads over mobile networks.