BlackBerry® World™ Development

[SlipperySurgeon]

Ok, I know question may seen dumb however.... 

I have items in the app store.

In my manage products these items are listed at "releases" "up for sale" - I know the items are up and working and people are downloading them - non of my items are listed in the "virtual good" column.

So you can see my confusion here. My items are already in the store, then what is the virtual good?

Thanks!

[billfoust · Accepted solution]

A virtual good is an item that intended to be purchased in-application and therefore not something that can be downloaded to your handheld.  It can mean different things to different applidations. The best analogy though might be 'credits' or 'virtual items' used in a game. You could use it to unlock new levels, purchase the rights to a song, or practically anything that you want to sell the user after they have downloaded your application.

[ITFCJim]

Virtual goods are items that can be bought from within your application (i.e. extra levels for a game, extra features)

[SlipperySurgeon]

Ok Great.
Thank you both for the reply!

[silver20]

Would it be appropriate to use this for selling actual commodities, digital or physical? Someone used the example of selling a song, what about images, ebooks for a reader, even physical items -- i.e. if my app has a nice hand-painted background and I want to offer prints of the original, can I offer that for purchase using the "virtual goods" system?

Or do I have to link to a system outside App World for that?

[ITFCJim]

You are allowed to sell digital content such as images and eBooks, but you're not allowed to sell virtual currencies / in-app credits or any physical goods and services through the in-app purchase system

[silver20]

? No consumables (in-app credits)?! Thought that was the big money maker over at Apple. A way to keep the initial cost low or zero and then use consumable in-app purchasing to effectively pay for how much you use the app, or even make it a subscription app... It asks you each month to purchase another month subscription, otherwise expires.

I've got a communications app that could cause an ever-increasing deluge of volume on my server, but diminishing income once most people who want it have it, so if it's a one-time cost it would either be a "succeed then go broke" thing, or else have to be priced so high few would buy it. That's why I need some kind of subscription or prepaid-credits system.

So, no-one's using it for consumables?

[Ebscer]

You can have consumable virtual goods in order to have something like a subscription. What you are not allowed to do is to allow the purchase of virtual currencies that would be an intermediate step in the app. In app things such as new levels, items, or avatars can only be made through direct in-app purchases.

[silver20]

So if I were charging $1 per 20 uses of the app to send a special type of augmented message, effectively prepaid message credit at .05 per message, that would be OK or not?

Basically a use-count-expiring subscription rather than a time-expiring subscription.

Thanks for your input, I've been reading over the subscription API and payment service stuff trying to figure how to do this. Sounds like virtual goods is the way to go since subscriptions via RIM are just for broadcast content, not the app itself.