As of today, Apple no longer classifies free-to-play/freemium games as "free" on the App Store, following years of conjecture and inquiry over this policy.
The controversy of free-to-play games, specifically how children can unknowingly be charged for in-game items, led to an investigation on the matter by the UK's Office of Fair Trading (OFT), according to a report on Eurogamer.
In April 2013, a director at the OFT said "we are concerned that children and their parents could be subject to unfair pressure to purchase when they are playing games they thought were free, but which can actually run up substantial costs."
That statement followed numerous stories of parents being charged outrageous sums for games their children had played, such as a five-year-old British lad who ran up a $2600 bill playing the free-to-play game" Zombies vs. Ninjas" on his parents' iPad.
One year later, Apple and Google met representatives for the European Commission to discuss the ethics and legality of the term free-to-play. A few months after that, Google agreed to remove the "free" label from the games it was selling.
As a result, Apple published notes about the potential costs of free-to-play games on its App Store, but now has taken a further step by no longer classifying these games as free.
Instead, the corporation has chosen to label its free-to-play games with the word "Get"; a term which avoids referencing its monetization model. Check out a screencap of the new buttons and terminology below:
