Fieldrunners 2 HD - (by Subatomic Studios, LLC)

[pavarotti2007]

They were always going to add IAP regardless of whatever AtomicAlec comes on here and says. It was already prepped for IAP even when they weren't there with how unbalanced it was and the difficulty of the easy mode. Now it is still unbalanced but will have the IAP plus a top end premium price. It's a good game but the dev is shocking. They say one thing, do another and then try to back track on what they initially said. All the time trying to 'win back the fans trust.' Such BS.

How stupid do they think people are? They get flooded with emails pleading for IAP?? So they expect us to believe that people pay £1.99/£5.49, have no universal support, it has far too many bugs, then 'everybody' is pleading with them to add IAP so they can spend more on consumable IAP? Course they do.

Oh, and they have been fixing Fieldrunners 1 for iPad for about 20 months now. GOOD JOB GUYS!!!!!!!

[PraetorianX]

Originally Posted by pavarotti2007

They were always going to add IAP regardless of whatever AtomicAlec comes on here and says. It was already prepped for IAP even when they weren't there with how unbalanced it was and the difficulty of the easy mode. Now it is still unbalanced but will have the IAP plus a top end premium price. It's a good game but the dev is shocking. They say one thing, do another and then try to back track on what they initially said. All the time trying to 'win back the fans trust.' Such BS.

How stupid do they think people are? They get flooded with emails pleading for IAP?? So they expect us to believe that people pay £1.99/£5.49, have no universal support, it has far too many bugs, then 'everybody' is pleading with them to add IAP so they can spend more on consumable IAP? Course they do.

Oh, and they have been fixing Fieldrunners 1 for iPad for about 20 months now. GOOD JOB GUYS!!!!!!!

yeah, with that track record - i'll be avoiding their crappy games forever

[Emeric]

The devs have my full support.
It might not be the case with the Touch Arcade community, but it's actually true : players DO ask for iAP. And Freemium. It scares me a little bit, but it's a change in gamer's habits. Most or recent "iOS" players prefer a free game where they can choose or not to invest money &/or time, rather than a prepaid complete but unknown game experience.

Exemple of mail I receive:
"I love your game. I hope the sequel is gonna be free."
I don't get the logic, but still, some people want that. And as a developer there is something good to do with iAP. It gives more flexibility to the player to choose what he wants:
- Try the game: free
- More content: small fee for content
- Fan support: small fee for exclusive content

Anyway, I know I won't be heard here, but seriously, gamers here should be able to tell the difference between a zynga/glu/gameloft freemium game and FR2 adding "convenience-type" iAP.

[Connector]

Originally Posted by Emeric

The devs have my full support.
It might not be the case with the Touch Arcade community, but it's actually true : players DO ask for iAP. And Freemium. It scares me a little bit, but it's a change in gamer's habits. Most or recent "iOS" players prefer a free game where they can choose or not to invest money &/or time, rather than a prepaid complete but unknown game experience.

Exemple of mail I receive:
"I love your game. I hope the sequel is gonna be free."
I don't get the logic, but still, some people want that. And as a developer there is something good to do with iAP. It gives more flexibility to the player to choose what he wants:
- Try the game: free
- More content: small fee for content
- Fan support: small fee for exclusive content

Anyway, I know I won't be heard here, but seriously, gamers here should be able to tell the difference between a zynga/glu/gameloft freemium game and FR2 adding "convenience-type" iAP.

I could see a lot of people that want a game to go freemium. There are alot of people that are not willing to pay for games, and alot of teenagers and kids with no moneny that want freemium games, so I could see a lot of letters about that. About getting email for inapps, I could see people wanting inapps to unlock levels and such. Can't see anyone asking for inapps to add a coin system or something like that though. Kind of getting sick of the coin system lately. But I guess it works, cause there is awesome someone who will buy those inapps.

[AtomicAlec]

So, most of you folks seem to have heard the news about IAP already. I'm glad it worked out that way - I really wanted to get this story out there so everyone could get the discussion going before the actual update comes out, since it has neat content that I didn't want overshadowed by the IAP stuff.

I said it before and I'll say it again: It seems really, really crazy that people actually want to give us money for coins in-game.

The world is a strange place. The last email I received requesting IAP was from about 20 hours ago. Nuts, right? Why would you want to experience our game in a different way than we designed it? But if someone wants to pay you money in order to do that...

What are we supposed to make of that besides simply saying "yes"?

This is AFTER we tried adding coin bonuses for liking us on Facebook and Tweeting your score. I mean, we want to keep making games. The only way that's possible is if our games make enough money to cover the expenses of the last one as well as initial expenses of our upcoming projects (and bug fixes in the current game).

I'm honestly glad to be going through these things with you guys. It would be strange to experience all this without having these unique channels for communication. Very cool to have a place where I can talk directly with our fans.

The long and the short of it is that we haven't changed the game in ANY way. It's the same old Fieldrunners 2 it always was, except now a few people out there will buy coins, too.

Our team isn't really in to IAP when we play games in our spare time, so we totally understand your perspective. However, the fact that there was DLC in Mass Effect 3 didn't stop me from playing the main game. I still got Borderlands 2 even though they have a bevy of DLC coming out for that as well.

I think you'll all be pleased to know that no changes have been made - the game you know and love is just like you left it. Except this new update also adds an interesting new weapon, cross device iCloud support, 50% shorter load times, and tons of optimizations. It's really better than ever, and we've made ALL of these changes based on feedback from our fans.

Bums me out to see people here saying that they won't support us. I don't want this to make you feel that way. People were trying to give us more money which would allow us to make more awesome games. Should we have turned them down? I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts on this, since we want to give you all the best experience possible - your feedback is truly crucial.

On a side note, the original Fieldrunners for iPad has been fixed and just entered QA, so that's kind of cool. Expect that update to go out after it exits QA

Let me know if you guys have any questions!

Originally Posted by Emeric

The devs have my full support.
It might not be the case with the Touch Arcade community, but it's actually true : players DO ask for iAP. And Freemium. It scares me a little bit, but it's a change in gamer's habits. Most or recent "iOS" players prefer a free game where they can choose or not to invest money &/or time, rather than a prepaid complete but unknown game experience.

Exemple of mail I receive:
"I love your game. I hope the sequel is gonna be free."
I don't get the logic, but still, some people want that. And as a developer there is something good to do with iAP. It gives more flexibility to the player to choose what he wants:
- Try the game: free
- More content: small fee for content
- Fan support: small fee for exclusive content

Anyway, I know I won't be heard here, but seriously, gamers here should be able to tell the difference between a zynga/glu/gameloft freemium game and FR2 adding "convenience-type" iAP.

Interesting, this definitely lines up with our experience. Glad to see other devs in similar situations.

Also: Wow, I am a huge fan of Squids! The turn based physics gameplay, gorgeous artwork, and interesting story really sucked me in! I haven't tried the sequel yet, but I need to get it soon Congrats!

[pavarotti2007]

Originally Posted by AtomicAlec

Our team isn't really in to IAP when we play games in our spare time, so we totally understand your perspective. However, the fact that there was DLC in Mass Effect 3 didn't stop me from playing the main game. I still got Borderlands 2 even though they have a bevy of DLC coming out for that as well.

What you're offering is not DLC though is it? I'm all for IAP for extra content/DLC etc as I don't think devs should update their games with new content for nothing. So paying for new maps etc is great but coins? Optional or not, this game is £5.49. Any IAP imo should be for content. A better way for you guys to cash in a bit more would have been just to add an IAP of unlock all or something similar. Consumable IAP in a game with this kind of price tag is not good.

You have said in the past that the price tag was high because you felt that it needed to be priced like that so you could keep making games and because it was a premium game with no IAP. So now that you have the IAP stream of income, will the initial price of the app change? Or are you having the best of both worlds?

Take a look at Tower Madness, the IAP model in that game is great. Maybe you'll learn something. I gladly paid £5.49 for that game, then paid 4x69p for 4 map packs and then a further £1.49 for the recent map pack and it was well worth it.

[tabs]

I really don't care about iAP because I never really needed them. I don't like iAP that are basically forcing you to purchase them with notifications and such though.

Anyway, since I don't mind the inclusion of iAP, I just hope the iPad version bugs can finally be addressed. That's all I am asking for after paying for this game for it's PREMIUM price. Thanks!

[Sojourn]

I think the frustration from a lot of players (or at least posters in this forum) is coming not from the argument of IAP as an inherently good or bad thing, but from the experience we've had with the game so far:

1) The game was previewed on TA. Hype built. Lovers of the first game were excited for FR2. iPad owners were reassured that their issues would be addressed once FR2 was released, as all resources were being poured into the sequel.
2) The iPhone version launched, to great acclaim. iPad owners were disappointed -- not only was the game not Universal, but the iPad version wasn't even ready yet. But it was coming soon. So we held on.
3) iPad users kept hearing how awesome the iPhone version was. "Soon" turned into two months of waiting for the iPad version, which was especially difficult for users like myself, who were holding out for the iPad version to stay "spoiler-free". Meanwhile, the original FR for iPad did not get updated (for Retina or bug fixes).
4) The iPad version finally launched much later than originally announced. Many users, myself included, bought it instantly -- only to find it mostly unplayable. Constant and consistent crashes, lost progress. Frustrating, not only for a game that was relatively expensive, but moreso for a game we had been so eagerly anticipating, and had been told was delayed due to exhaustive QA testing.
5) Since then, it's been a month and a half, there has been one update that has fixed some but not all of the crashing, FR1 on iPad still hasn't been updated, and now we're finally getting a new update (which is already half a week late according to your forum post last week, Alec) that instead of just fixing the issues keeping all of us from enjoying the game we purchased, are adding a controversial new feature.

Here's the thing, and I want to make this totally clear -- I think you guys have put a tremendous amount of work into FR2, and it's a beautiful game that you should be very proud of. I don't want to take that away from you, because I can only imagine how much time and especially care you have obviously poured into this creation of yours. I can see it in all the little details of the game, and I love it because of that.

However. I am frustrated as a customer because I haven't gotten to fully enjoy all that care, all those little details -- because my game keeps crashing. I've been waiting for a month for an update to fix it (more), all the while being reassured that it would be put out as soon as possible . . . and instead, I'm getting an update with IAP. I don't begrudge you adding it like so many here probably will -- I probably won't use it, and I respect that you've designed it so I don't have to -- but I wish the update that would have let me actually *play* the game had come out a lot sooner, instead of feeling like it was delayed so this new payment structure could be added. A version 1.15 would have been much appreciated before 1.2. I know you have limited resources, and you're limited by the update approval process, but we've all seen developers push out bug fix updates much faster than one month later to fix basic usability issues.

In any event, I've been checking my App Store updates multiple times a day to see if FR2 is in there -- I'm really excited to give it another whirl. The times I've played it without it crashing have been pretty great -- but it's always crashed at some point. I'm excited to see that come to an end with this new update, and I hope this helps to explain the reaction you guys are getting here in the TA community. I'd love to hear your thoughts (including other TAers -- hopefully I explained the situation accurately and fairly)!

[Baracus]

100% exactly this - well said.

[acokla]

good game. I love to play it