When it comes to making money from apps, developers have the option to either charge users for the app upfront, or make the app free and rely on ads, or rely on in-game purchases, or sometimes through recurring subscriptions. However for BlackBerry developers, they will now have one less option.In an email that BlackBerry has started to send developers, it seems that starting from the 1st of April, all paid apps will be removed from BlackBerry World. The goal, it seems, is to only host free content. “Beginning April 1, 2018 BlackBerry World will move to a free-only storefront. The result of this change means that BlackBerry World will no longer host paid content and all purchasing mechanisms will be disabled.”
This means that developers who are developing for the BlackBerry platform will no longer have a way to generate income, at least not via official methods. Instead BlackBerry claims that all payment mechanisms will need to be supported by the developer themselves, which can be rather costly for some to implement, although the upside is that there will no longer be a need to split any revenue generated by the app.
It is unclear why BlackBerry is transitioning BlackBerry World to a free-only platform, but no doubt this will not go down well with many developers who might choose to abandon the platform entirely.
Filed in . Read more about Apps and BlackBerry.