At the end of last year, we launched a program designed for all Android developers who chose to integrate the AppCoins SDK for in-app purchases in their apps and games — the Developers Incentives Program.

The program consisted of distributing up to 125,000 APPC every week to the participating developers, and the number of APPC each developer received was proportional to the number of IAP transactions made per game. The developer with the higher number of transactions gained a more significant portion of the 125, 000 APPC, but in the end, all participants won APPC — and that’s what’s so great about the program.

This incentives program allows all the developers who integrated our billing solution to monetize and get rewards in the form of APPC.

The reason why we decided to create this incentives program was to allow all the developers who integrated our billing solution to monetize and get rewards in the form of APPC, and the truth is we had a great adoption rate.

However, a couple of months into the program we realized that the system had a few flaws and that some of the developers who joined the program, we’re taking advantage of this by decreasing the value of items inside their apps, and then making transaction themselves, leading them to increase their earnings. On top of that, we found out they were automatizing this process by creating bots to make in-app purchases, as another way to bypass the rules.

As soon as we realized these set of irregularities we decided to put the program temporarily on hold so that we could work out these issues, and improve our security features to make sure this would not happen again.

Since then we have worked out a solution that consisted in developing a system with a number of rules that are not only able to identify transactions which are not made in a legitimate way, but that are also able to mark them as “fake”. These “fake transactions” may exist but they are not accounted for, and as such, the developer who owns the game or app to whom the fake transactions belong to, does not receive any APPC. In addition to that, these transactions are not included in the APPC Explorer charts and do not appear in the home view.

The solution consisted in developing a system with a number of rules that are able to identify and mark actions as “fake.”

We are happy to announce that this new security system has been implemented and that the Developers Incentives Program is once again up and running, and new Android developers are now able to join!

To join the incentives, all you need to do is follow these steps:

Create a developer account on Catappult; Integrate AppCoins billing (documentation here) in your apps, and ensure the app is correctly functioning; Upload your app on the Catappult developers portal and follow the steps to distribute your apps in all stores; Generate in-app purchase transactions - the more, the merrier!

Furthermore, we decided to include new rewards to the program, and as such, from now on developers who choose to join receive:

10,000 APPC Upfront When Integrating

Integrate Catappult’s billing system in one app and receive 10,000 APPC*.

*Only applicable to apps/games with more than 5,000 downloads in Google Play.

Up to 125,000 APPC for Your IAP Transactions

Earn up to 125,000APPC per week proportionally to the number of IAP transactions per game/app.

We are confident that with these new set of rules the Developers Incentives Program is now more safe, transparent and secure than it has ever been before. Most importantly, this new system will help us stay on top of future threats, and prevent the past issues from happening again.

You can find out more information regarding the Developers Incentives Program, here.