Hello,
I'm making an app where users can create a multimedia object and other users can use in-app currency (purchased via in-app purchase) to gain access to the object. They can also choose to subscribe to a creator to encourage and support their content creation. Tokens can be converted to cash and sent to creators.
It is unclear to me whether this violates app store rules. After reading through the App Store Guidelines and searching through the forums (this thread was close to what I was looking for), I have yet to arrive at a clear answer.
The Guidelines state that "tipping" content creators is acceptable, but this isn't exactly what I'm looking for in a creator marketplace. The Business section doesn't contain anything else that seems relevant, and this makes it seem like only voluntary tipping of content creators is accepted.
The commerce engineer in the thread linked above discourages using in-app currency, but that doesn't seem to work for my use case (the thread's creator wants to use the IAP mechanism). Furthermore, IAP cannot be created programmatically (i.e. by users) and is error-prone.
It must be stressed that I'm not trying to deny giving Apple its 15-30% share, since users must buy in-app currency using Apple's IAP (this is not a multi-platform app). Cash in the app's economy has only one entry point, and that is via Apple's IAP.
I have asked a similar question recently, but received no response. This is probably because I didn't phrase it well enough and didn't attach the correct tags.
Creating the infrastructure for a creator marketplace app is a lot of grueling work, and I would very much like to know whether my app will be rejected for it before I embark on this quest. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
tl;dr - Is the ability to make in-app currency purchases of creator content a violation of app store rules?
