This has come up in some of my conversations. The disdain is that a game won't be eligible for Family Plan and would need to have buyers pay x2 to x4 the price for the same game due to that. It got me to wondering why devs prefer a single app. These are the reasons I've discovered, but would like to hear others: Need to maintain 2 code bases Need to push 2 apps through the review process The app won't properly climb the charts, which is essential for discovery and sales You'd need to implement a way to transfer game save data from the free app to the full app Apple's guidelines say they'll reject apps that say "demo" since their philosophy is the "lite version" still needs to retain full functionality of the full one This seems... objective, as adding a button in the full version that produces sports stats into the form of a convenient chart seems to go against that, but it seems to be allowed Reduces piracy You need IAP/DLC eventually for expansions and added content anyways.
This seems like a pretty thorough list -- I'd actually be curious if there are any advantages to having the two versions? As a developer I could see it being more of a hassle to create and maintain two apps (though I personally haven't released on the App store just yet)... But also as a consumer it just seems nicer / tidier / less confusing for there to be just a single app as well.
