So instead of whole products sold at a one time price, there will be more and more subscription based services micro-transaction slop. 10/10 California. Never change.
But right now we have games that you have purchased for a one-time price, the developer revokes your ability to play it years later, and you have no recourse.
Why would you be entitled to infinite support? For a game with an online component? Why does the game's purchase price extend to infinity instead of "for as long as the developer supports the game"?
You aren't entitled to infinite support. You are entitled to keep using the thing you paid money for. If the publisher can't support the online service, they're obliged to make the game still playable by either releasing server code or offline modes.
If you sell a product for money, you don't then get to later take the product away and keep the money.
You still can sell X months access, if that's what you plainly state is being bought.
I don't think you could sell "for as long as the developer supports the game" specifically, since that'd be an illusory promise (no actual obligation if the product can be revoked immediately), making the contract unenforceable and the customer entitled to restitution (a refund).
"infinite support" is pretty much just "leave the customer with the product they bought working". There doesn't need to be any ongoing costs.
It's not endless support but more "Don't stop me from playing the game". For example, win xp is no longer supported. You can still use it.
For a lot of games the current situation is essentially the same as "The OS is no longer profitable enough, so the developer prevents you from using it"
It's not about paying Google. People can buy gift cards with cash and do that; that's not the problem, especially not for commercial use. It's everything else that they're imposing or could impose on a whim and whose device it is they're putting restrictions on.
Last I heard, Google doesn't employ law enforcement. I can auth to the people we vote for and any laws they make such as bank KYC against specific criminal activity. Nobody gets scammed via an apk when it's infinitely easier to put up a webpage or socialmedia profile
I'm actually working on a project that targets dual screen android handhelds. It will be kickstarted with a free demo. Android side-loading is the ONLY way to deliver that application to backers. I'll need to go thru Google's developer surveillance process (but u right, I already was going to because the demo and the full release will also be in the Play store.)
Oh and to answer your question about B2B iPhone apps, YES. Not my department at my last job but i know the application needed to go thru apple approval process and app store distribution. And it was difficult to keep in sync with a back-end on its own release schedule. That's why I'm pretty sure everything ended up getting turned into some sort of web view.
reply