Hey everyone! Here’s the specifics of what I’m asking:
I’m making a mobile game that will have in-app purchases. If a player buys something, and then gets a new phone, how do I let the app know which things he or she has already bought?
IF you know of any good tutorials of this process, please post a link as well.
Also, I’m looking at this app currently only being on the Google Play store for now.
Thanks!
Google Play Services should keep track of your player’s purchases on their side. You don’t need to do it yourself to make anything related to In-App Purchases.
You can read official documentation (2) if you have questions regarding Mobile In-App Purchases.
You can Restore Purchases to get player owned items.
Thanks for the response! I’ve actually reviewed that documentation. Let me throw a scenario at you:
Let’s say that I have an in-game currency pack for sale for $1.99. I know that the currency pack would be labeled as a consumable. The currency is then used to unlock different skins. The skins are NOT directly purchasable with real money. That’s the real question that I could have been more clear about. Is it possible to have a “free” in-app unlockable tied to Google Play as an IAP? I hope that made sense.
No, you can’t do that. You can make a workareound of course, but system is not intended to work that way. I think better way is to avoid necessity of keeping track of it by creating strict logic. Or if you want for it to be tracked, you’ll need to store data separately. That’s the best way of handling it, I guess.
IAP is a system specifically made to work with real money, in-game currency is not a real money, so it can’t be accepted as payment there.
Sorry for very late comment, I wasn’t able to answer sooner.
Google Play offers secure and reliable way for developers to save any type of data with Saved Games system. You can use it for your convenience.