With the cool and damp weather we've been having, I haven't had much ambition to get outside. That means sitting in the house. Watched a couple of classic movies (real movies, the Back to the Future trilogy) and played a bunch of games on my tablet. And that is what I'm going to talk about tonight.
There are a ton of games out there for the mobile market no matter your preferred OS (unless you are a Blackberry holdout or a Windows Phone believer). And a lot of them are free but it's getting more and more difficult to find those games that are actually free. There is a new model that has become more and more popular and the title that's been given them is freemium. Vanishing are the games that are ad supported or that you pay outright for, this model is making millions of dollars for these companies. And that means it is the way of the future.
There are a couple of different models with this. The first is that all of the basic game play is free but add-ons are extra. Those add-ons are often the next level of the game or outfits/pets for your character to make them different. And I don't have that much of an issue with this style. It gives the user the opportunity to decide if they like the game enough to continue or if it isn't worth it. It also gives the developer the opportunity to make money for their continued work on game development. The second model is very annoying though. The way it works starts out much the same as the first, the basic app is free and game play is free. Where the part is that cost money is with the power-ups, and that's what makes them annoying. We aren't talking about minor power-ups, we're talking about major things that drastically change the game. You know what I'm talking about, things that make a player almost invulnerable for a period of time based on how much they paid.
To me, these really take away from the game. I get that the developer wants (and needs) to give some incentive for people to pay for them but come on. Why does it have to be so drastic that in 1 day someone can go from being a new player to one of the top players in the world? And why don't these developers see that once someone has shelled out a couple hundred (yes, that's right) to beat the game, they won't give out any more? I just find it so irritating that there is this ability within these games! And this isn't coming from my cheap point of view either. Watching how quickly some of these people advance in a matter of days, it's easy to see that they are spending at least $100 just to accomplish that. Now top that off with something that is really showing how some of these people are thinking. In trying to find something that is a little less over the top, I looked at reviews of one game. The first comment was someone threatening the developer because someone within the game swindled them out of some of their stuff. They wanted a refund from the developer because that stuff had cost them so much money to "earn." Wow dude, wake up! That stuff isn't real and it isn't the developer's fault that you were swindled out of it. And if it cost you that much money in a game where the only thing that will cost real money is power-ups, you didn't earn any of it, you bought it! Go to the police.
So, you don't think this model makes the developers a lot of money? It makes them a boatload of it! One of the most popular games out there is based on a fremium model, Candycrush. I don't play it but my wife and youngest do. Every day one of them will reach there limit and have to wait 24 hours or pay to continue. King (the makers of the game) are not hurting for money at all.
I'm not saying that these developers shouldn't be compensated for their work. I'm just saying that claiming something is free like they do, then making that free play boring and pointless, isn't good for anyone. Why are we stuck in this model where paying a ton of money in these games is the only way it's actually fun?
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