Capcom's Smurfs' Village is a big hit, racing up the App Store charts. But its triumphant perch atop the Top Grossing charts led more than a few to question exactly how it was able to best the perennial favorite, Angry Birds. It turns out that Smurfs' Village is making a killing on selling Smurfberries, the in-game currency that helps you speed along tasks or buy objects in the shop faster than if you just spent berries earned only by leveling up your village.

However, a glance at the Smurfs' Village product page in the App Store reveals a number of furious users claiming that Capcom's game is a scam. Outraged parents say their children racked up huge iTunes bills by buying Smurfberries without understanding that they cost real-world money.

It seems the problem stems from a feature within iOS. When you download a game or buy an In-App Purchases, you are prompted to enter a password. But once you do this, that password remains "active" for 15 minutes. You can make additional purchases and downloads without the need to re-enter it. This makes sense, especially if you are downloading multiple apps and don't want to keep entering your password over and over. But it does leave open a loophole that would allow a player unaware of how In App Purchases work to spend a lot of money in a freemium game like Smurfs' Village.

In response to the situation, Capcom released the following statement:

"Capcom has been in the videogame business for more than 25 years, so the last thing we want is to be misperceived as taking advantage of children. We find consumer complaints of children inadvertently purchasing in-app content lamentable. Unfortunately, once a customer downloads an app their account remains active for 15 minutes. During this time it's possible to download in-app content without reentering the password. This is not unique to our app, this is a function of iOS and we have no control over it. Since this has come to our attention we've added clarifications and warnings to the App Store description. If parents think their child may have purchased in-App content by accident, they can request a refund from Apple."


To be completely fair to Capcom, this statement is true and Capcom has done no wrong here. The active password is a feature of iOS. It is not being exploited by Smurfs' Village. This is something that players of any freemium game must be aware of, although I would argue that freemium games could always do a better job explaining how real world money translates into virtual goods. There is no reason to assume everybody knows precisely how freemium games work.

If you are worried about this happening on your iTunes account, you can go into the Settings section of your iDevice and turn off In App Purchases, thus preventing any downloads within an app. This was designed for parents. Hopefully, this situation will make more parents aware of the feature in iOS and serve as a learning opportunity for how publishers relay information about In App Purchases to gamers. Perhaps we need more roadblocks so people know exactly what they are being charged and why when they are accessing the shops within all freemium games.