Android and Google Wallet - mandatory for one time purchase?

Question

Is the Google Wallet online payment system on Android phones mandatory for e.g. movie, songs or game levels purchases in a similar way the Apple’s In-App-Purchase is on iOS?

According to the information here “Developers offering additional content, goods, or services for an application downloaded from Android Market must offer an authorized Payment Processor as the payment option“.

1. Our understanding is that if user has installed an application, which plays movies and users pay per single movie view application needs using the Google Wallet otherwise it can be removed from Google Play. Is that correct?

2. Similar situation is within game if user wants to pay for the additional level. Is that correct?

For subscriptions it is not required to use the Google Wallet (again the similar situation is on the iOS).

STeN

Answer 1

I had an app that had LogiaMobile billing integrated and was rejected from Google Play for that very reason (it was in Sept 2011). The app tried to bill users when they wanted to download videos.

Find a good explanation about the policies in this Techcrunch article

My advice would be to always integrate Google In-App billing (now v3 is far more confortable to work with).

I hope this is what you were asking for :)

Answer 2

'Google Wallet' is a confusing name, because it may refer to different thing. First there is the Google Wallet app that lets you pay with your phone via NFC. You certainly don't need this to buy things from the Play Store and it is supported only in the US, and only on a limited number of devices. Google Wallet also refers to Google's online payment system (aka Google Checkout). You need to register your credit card with that in order to make purchases on Android. It serves as the 'authorized Payment Processor' in most case. Other ones being carrier billing on supported carriers.