Not sure what to make of this. Is the App Store being gamed, or are people being careless with their .99? Follow the links in the story to get the big picture. There are a lot of them.

I found this one in particular, a review page for the game on Touch Arcade, particularly enlightening. Not the review itself, but the comment thread below the review. From the comments:

There’s no way these downloads are legit. I think the app store is getting played right now. Not just by this game, but also Flappy Bird. The developer of that game was asked directly and didn’t deny it.

If download numbers are being manipulated in some way, that’s theft and Apple is the victim (assuming money is not really coming in and Apple is paying money out). And I can’t imagine Apple will allow that to continue. It’s a large ecosystem, and there are always scammers looking for edge cases they can exploit.

And as reader Brandon pointed out in the comments, if gamed download numbers are pulling money away from legitimate apps, then those app developers are being victimized as well.