Google is reportedly putting pressure on Android developers to adopt the Google Wallet service in favour of other third-party offerings like PayPal, with a warning that their products could be pulled from the newly re-branded Android Marketplace/Google Play.
Google is demanding a higher percentage of transactions through the Google Wallet service than others are taking but several developers have stated that they are aware of what Google is trying to do.
“On Android it used to be laissez faire, you could use any payment provider you liked,” said Zipline Games’ Todd Hooper. “It’s probably naive of developers to think they could keep choosing different payment providers. If purchasing on Android is all over the place, that is worrying.”
The drive towards a unified payment system on Google Play, even with Google taking 30% of each transaction, may assist in creating a better user experience, something that developer Bionic Panda thinks is likely. The company reportedly had some users leave when they dropped PayPal for Google’s solution but saw “…an overall lift in conversion and monetization on a per-user basis”.
Source: Reuters