"...we also need to create things people care about.” - Walter Driver, Scopely Chief Executive | Wall Street Journal Online, Sept. 2, 2015 Is this guy for real? Many of us who've played The Walking Dead: Road to Survival have experienced the frustrations of dealing with Scopely, a company that's only out to take your money without providing you with the gaming experience that you're paying for. And for those of you who don't pay to play, think of all the hours you've dropped into a game behind a dev that could care less about you. HOW SCOPELY IS CHEATING YOU Poor odds on "winning" characters or gear that you're spending real money on; I mean, if I pay money, I should get "something" that's not garbage, right? An endless array of Scopely generated bots, designed to beat your team (especially) during raid competitions and sucker you into buying energy refills Tech support or better yet, a lack there of; here's a company that should invest in some money to hire competent employees or better yet, outsource to another country--we'd all be better off Loss of game progress, items, research, without fair compensation or reimbursement... WHAT THEY DID TO ME Before you prejudge me, know that I am a higher level player, having invested months of grinding and hundreds of dollars in the game before I wised up. So here's where things went bad. Like a good little boy, I spent my time completing levels and upgrading characters, many of which I spent countless "pulls' and coins to get. After dropping continues to pass level 13 (the first time), I log back in the next day and I immediately see I'm on level 1. Wow. No big deal, I contact Scopely support and they respond promptly after 3 days of me panicking. By this point, I've expended enough world energy plus paid refills to get me back to level 7. Their reply? Clear your cache, restart, check again, uninstall the game, reinstall, and it should be fixed. OR... the classic, "if you're linked with Facebook, all your progress will come back when you log in. Without really listening to my repeated pleas, they close the ticket. And I have to start over with another Scopely moron whose only value of support are poorly-crafted form emails. OK, I START OVER. CAN'T POSSIBLY HAPPEN AGAIN But it did. I reach stage 19, log back in and... lo and behold... level 1 again. After the first time, I started taking screenshots in case the issue happened again. So I sent those to Scopely. After three more days of waiting for tech support to get back to me, I received a "thanks for bringing this to our attention, but since it's isolated, there's nothing we can do for you." WHAT??!? "We've passed your issue along to our developers and they'll look into it." WHEN??!? On top of that, I've lost items and research. I've researched Elite Training three times! That's over 1.5 million food and 13 days wasted, and I STILL DON'T HAVE IT!? No replies from Scopely since. HOW TO FIGHT BACK Scopely is no different than any other company. Bad Social Media means loss of profits. Imagine one potential paying gamer reading your post on Facebook, or your tweet, or your Google Play review, and not downloading another Scopely game designed to cheat you out of money... what's the potential loss there? Maybe a few hundred over a year? No big deal. But imagine 1,000 potential paying gamers reading your negative review and passing on the dev... that's tens of thousands a year. Post a negative review on Google Play or Apple's App Store Post a comment on their Facebook page and be sure to write a review Tweet @scopely using #scopely so others can find what you're saying Hit up some reputable blogs like Touch Arcade and let other gamers know to stay away REFUND YOUR PURCHASE AND, all is not lost for you, my friend. If you've given money to Scopely or any other dev that hasn't given you what you've paid for, take your money back. Go to play.google.com and login Click the "My account" link on the left Select a Scopely transaction and click "Report a problem" in the dropdown menu Select an option and enter an explanation Profit. Google will refund your money in most cases, almost instantly Scopely had an award-winning game in the makes here with The Walking Dead. But Robert Kirkman and Walter Driver are sleeping on beds of your hard spent money, and laughing all the way to the bank. These guys don't want to listen, so it's up to you to make them.
I mean... That's the thing. These big Branded or AAA (I can't believe I'm saying that for mobile but you know the type. The candy crush, the angry birds, etc) the freemium free to play stuff... Most of it is out for your money. If you have to regularly invest more then say a couple dollars in the game say... Per week, that may be a problem.z and hundreds of dollars? On a few months? Rsally now?
The Walking Dead is highly addictive--it's actually a very well done game. But I'm only willing to pay for what I get, not what I don't. Odds are one thing but losing progress that you've earned is totally different.
Yes, but I didn't make the term "pay to play." Devs realize that gaming is highly competitive. I mean, the point is to win, isn't it? So those who want to advance faster or farther are willing to pay--and that's why devs are designing more and more games this way now. Even Microsoft is doing it with Windows 10.
Actually... I'd strongly disagree. Free to play is designed, for these games, to make progress slow. Extremely slow... Unless you pay money. It's literally pay to play, just disguised as 'hey you can 'technically' play but it's super slow'. That's a huge part of mobile I hate and is why I can never be ok with mobile 'beating' or taking over consoles. If it happens, I know a lot of people will quit gaming and gaming as a whole will go into some very dark times.
Free to play and pay to play are different sides of the same coin. So I think we're actually saying the same thing. But the point of the post is not to dispute the semantics of paying money on a free game, it's to potentially remedy what happens when you're not fairly compensated when you do, and hopefully cause the developer to start putting support behind their product.
I guess what I mean is, why should they bother? It's shitty of them, I agree with that completely but if they really don't care, which it seems they don't, then they won't fix it. There's plenty of other people who are putting in money and as long as they're ok, as long as the general populace is happy, no use in fixing it. I know, this is an extremely pessimistic thing to say but it's kinda how I see companies like this...
I couldn't agree with you more. But if I can help someone with the post, I'll feel better about the whole situation.
This will also take over console sooner or later, don't worry. But I think there is always going to have premium games.
I'm ok with game developers doing pay to play--the same concept applies to leasing a car vs. buying it. But when I lease a car for $x/month, if something doesn't work, the dealership takes care of it. So if I drop $50/month on a pay to play game, I believe the developer is responsible for any issues that come up that would affect my experience. Or, at the very least, compensate me for the issues in some way. I'm not asking for full refunds with Scopely, nor did they offer anything even remotely close. What they offered was nothing. Aside from a "sorry about your issue but we'll look into it." How long should someone wait to receive the goods they've already paid for? A few weeks? A few months? It's been longer than that it my case.
Horrible customer service I have had a few issues with the game, as well, that scopely's customer service refuses to handle. I've taken my issues to Google play, and they were able to at least refund the money spent. That doesn't make everything okay. We shouldn't have to deal with another company to alleviate the frustrations of in-game issues. Scopely built a great game, they need to listen to their players and address our concerns. Get'um Maha!
I'm happy I'm not the only one, and sad that I'm not the only one... This company needs to get its act together or stop making games.
