I personally am pretty turned off to in app purchases. Most games are only getting worse. I cannot count the number of times that I have been approached by my 5 year old asking for me to "type in my name so I can have _______" while playing angry birds, jetpack joyride, or where's my water.
The problem is that he doesn't realize that there is real money tied to that. To him, I just enter my iTunes password and the level/swag/etc that he wants magically appears. Most of these games are geared towards kids, and they may or may not understand this. IAP is a great way to disappoint children!!!
But I felt like the authors of this game realized how predatory most IAP are and while they didn't specifically say its disgustingly exploitive to children they did say they were trying to design a game that wasn't exploitive. After reading their article I'd say they are just giving away too much. I think the free to play X levels then pay to play more is not predatory IAP. It was bread and butter of the shareware scene for the better part of a decade during the pre-internet era. And that's what we're in right now with mobile that time period where the difference between amateur and professionals is invisible. So I think they're model is right they just aren't applying it correctly.
I was hanging out with my old lady's 10-year-old niece the other day (technically I suppose my niece... whoah) playing iPad games, and it was amazing how often, without even really thinking about it, she ended up on a screen to buy something, or linked out to a website (the iPad launching the browser) to buy something. Being a good kid she just asked me how to get back to the game, but it was a real eye-opener as to the tactics being used by app devs now. I fully see the need to make money, but "tricking" people into purchases is not cool.
The problem is that he doesn't realize that there is real money tied to that. To him, I just enter my iTunes password and the level/swag/etc that he wants magically appears. Most of these games are geared towards kids, and they may or may not understand this. IAP is a great way to disappoint children!!!