Monetization Rant - Heroes of Dragon Age

[spelk]

I must be getting very old.

I'm struggling to find games I want to play any more on my tablet.

In the last few weeks a number of big name games have landed on the tablet, that you would have thought would ignite my enthusiasm and have me clapping the devs at their uptake of the platform.

However, even though they're showing the previously available shonky titles how to do things properly with style, they're still mired in the free to play/monetization swamp of nagging deceipt. A state which is becoming all too common in every aspect of our lives, but now pervades the vast majority of offerings on the mobile gaming (and app) market.

Don't install anything by Mobage. They are as hokey as they come. Big tit screenshots, heavy Internet suckling loading screens to deliver the turn of a digital card/figurine asset, to bang a couple of top trumps numbers together, and do it all again - only this time with begging for gems/coins/spacebucks etc.

Now, this here thing by EA that's just been released plastered with the Dragon Age IP.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ea.game.dragonage_row

Its a very stylish, very streamlined, party based knock together. It absolutely wipes the floor with the likes of Mobage's offerings. It's just good to play something that isn't a shambolic knock together. But.

It's riddled with pokies towards paying for more. More time. More money. More characters. Pay more. Just one more. Why not use the characters that have dropped to be consumed as XP in one of your better characters. Why not double up any duplicates and make a stronger character. Then pay real moolah for more spacebucks for more characters to virtually chew up.

This game has the makings of something good, in terms of a quick party based knock about. It's presented and coded well from what I can tell. And is almost a joy to use. And its Dragon Age!

So even if it were £20, I'd buy it. But allow me to run the game, and acquire the characters in the course of playing the game. No need to make me wait actual real time to get another crack at a quest - just so you can offer up a 69p charge to get some gems to extend time. No need to make me pay £1.60 for a booster pack, to get some more heroes, why not make it part of the full priced game? Charge me for DLC content, packs of missions and new characters, charge me £5 or £10 for the DLC packs. If they're worth the entertainment value, I'll gladly pay, finally having found a game I enjoy.

However, making the base game free, and then spend endless nags and limitations to goad or force me into paying real money to carry on, just doesn't set the right atmosphere to enjoy the game.

Suddenly, the game is trying to trick me into paying real money, its trying to addict me into paying more and more micro-transactions, it wants me to think of these as trivial amounts not worth considering, just stick another coin in the slot. Go on. If you want to take on another quest, right now, and not wait another 3 minutes. Its giving off an air of devious trickery amongst every finger tap I make. I have to be on guard. I have to not enjoy or get addicted to it, otherwise I might be zombied into pushing endless micro-transactions into their pockets.

Well it ruins the gaming experience for me.

I don't want free to play tricksters on my devices. I don't want ad laden apps that call back my geo data and push out my details to 3rd party marketeers!

I just want to play quality, full price games on the tablet.

I understand casual folks might put up with this, just to have something to do, but I've got so many games, and so many platforms, and I'd like every experience I push my spare time into to be a good one, without being pestered for money constantly.

For me, Free isn't cheap enough to have to put up with this harassment.

I want to like the games I'm playing, not feel decieved or cheated after every tap I make!

So there. I guess the whole world, and gaming itself is outgrowing my old man expectations - and I'm not moving with the times.

[BanzaiCat]

You make valid points.

The business model is actually quite good, from an earnings standpoint. If they do it right, they'll make a butt-ton of money. Take Candy Crush Saga, for instance; offering power-ups and the ability to skip a level for $0.99 or so each means they make close to $900K per day. It's difficult to argue with the success of it when it makes that kind of moolah.

That said, one thing about this model that really gets me is when a game that costs money has this crap in there. At least with a game like Candy Crush, it's free to download, and you can still play through levels (yes, I've played it, got through 200 or so levels without paying a penny) without spending anything. But getting me to buy a game and then giving me buy options in-game pisses me off.

Warhammer Quest is a great example of this. I bought the app a few weeks ago just on its ratings merit and how fun it looked/good reviews. I didn't see anything about in-game purchases; as you mentioned, to get an extra hero you have to drop two bucks. Want a new adventure? Five bucks. I agree, they should put all this crap into one game for one price, and I'd also pay more for it if this were the case.

The newer version of Oregon Trail is especially egregious. My daughter bought it for five dollars, I think, and then she was immediately bombarded by in-game purchase offers. That wasn't the OT I remember from my middle school Apple days, obviously.