How do I reinstall the Play Store?

Is the Play Store free to download for free?

It's a question that crops up from time to time, on various gaming forums.

And to be honest, it always seems to get a mixed reception. You've got some people who say that Android is free, and therefore the play store is free. Then you've got other people who tell you to think of it like MS Office. The office, you'll remember, isn't free, but it's something you have to pay for if you want to use it.

So, in a round-up of posts on various gaming forums, is there an overall consensus on the legality of the Android store, and if not, what are the pros and cons of the debate? Let's take a look at some of the more memorable threads and see where they stand. You have to pay for every other device - but not the other way around. While many people seem to treat the Play Store as being free, the most clear-cut way to view the situation is to consider it like this. You can use Google services like Hangouts, Maps, YouTube and Blogger. You pay to use them. There's an extra fee on top to use these services via an app, and you can pay a monthly or yearly fee to remove this. If you install a game and you don't pay for it, it won't appear in the Play Store, it won't get updates (and you won't be able to access your saves, Achievements or leaderboards).

So, for every game on your phone, you have to pay a one-off fee to get it onto your device and to get updates from Google. If you also want to use your phone as a desktop machine, you have to pay to use that, too.

But with Android, the flipside is that you don't have to pay for the store to download the games. And because it's open, you don't have to pay again to use your phone as a desktop device. You don't have to pay a monthly fee to remove the ads, either.

That's the general summary, but there's more nuance.