I guess this is why this forum is for gamers lol. People who want gaming to be gaming, so excuse us for caring about the state of well...gaming. Dedicated gamers aren't the reason we're here, but we suffer the most from it. Do you think every indie dev wants to make their game freemium in order to get noticed? There are still indie devs that buck the system along with us. And yes...we ALL understand that it's profitable, so we don't need any of these comments.
You're saying that Gameloft is anti-gamer? Releasing games for free and allowing a wider group of people to access the content you provide goes against the laws of gaming (as dictated to you, the chosen one)? I could understand if the games didn't allow you to access certain content unless you paid for it, but these games allow you access to pretty much anything with the only cost being your time? In a bizarro way these games are more like traditional games you would spend days and weeks playing rather than the new fad of pick-up 'N play(and discard) Sounds more like your're advocating for greed rather than gaming.
Look at that Touch Arcade front page article. Cave isn't going to develop premium games anymore because they couldn't make enough of a profit on it. They are now going to concentrate of social games instead. Another one bites the dust. "Social games" is code for Freemium, and likely the worst possible kind--games like We Farm and Smurf's Villiage, games that operate 100% on consumable IAP purchases. This is a little something that I like to refer to as "the rubber meeting the road." I don't understand why people are trying to stop this now. I tried to stop this two years ago. Might as well just embrace it. It can't be stopped. It's all over but the crying.
Is it profitable??? Maybe not for gameloft. Just checked the top grossing apps list (UK so dont yell at me if US is different), and the top gameloft games were their 3 recent premium releases: Modern combat 3, Gangstar Rio and Tintin. Dungeon hunter 3 was a bit further behind, then order and chaos, then six guns further still, who knows what happened to real football, oregon trail, brothers in arms 2 free+ etc. Hopefully they will notice this and go back to the way they were, its not like they were struggling for sale
The real petition for Gamevil err... Gameloft to stop making freemium games is for you to stop downloading them on App Store.
These things that they have put out are definitely not games, and even if you consider them to be they're not good ones. They're definitely not immersive and throw real world problems back into your face. Uh...I'm pretty sure I'm advocating good games my friend. Just about all the games I bought on console were worth what I paid for them. And WTH are you talking about? The freemium games are the sit'n'go ones. We must be playing different games on this platform. The reason you spend days on them is because they won't let you access stuff without waiting a day or paying for it. They don't have any sort of soul in them at all. I'd rather shell out a couple of buck for a really good 1-2 hour game than play a free crappy one for a ton of days. Honestly, I didn't even know how to respond to the BS you typed. I've been playing games since cartridges. I used them to get away from real world problems. I got immersed in them and enjoyed what I paid for to the fullest extent. I'm not a self entitled prick who won't support the effort that a developer puts into making a good game. I never have been and I never will. I can easily have more fun and become immersed in a Game Boy Advance than a Gameloft game. Why? It's not a game. It's a husk that is meant to suck your wallet dry because it plays into your subconscious' compulsive buying habits. Gameloft's games have no soul, no content, nothing. If you can seriously compare Urban Crime to GTA 3, GTA: Chinatown Wars, and even Gangstar 3 then we can talk some more.
ePetitions NEVER go anywhere. GL won't change it's model just coz a few people on the interwebz complained about it. They'll do it if and only if freemium games earn them less money than premium ones. So not really sure what the point is behind this petition crap.
If your neighbor has a lemonade stand and you sit and watch them raking in dollar after dollar every day would you not covet that? Would you not say, hey I am going to try a lemonade stand too cuz I want some of that? Maybe offer up a different flavor? Add a cookie with your lemonade? Top three grossing iPhone games are free games to download. Top grossing game is also the top free game ironically. Littered throughout are all free games. They might not be Game loft games but they are free games. Do you blame a company for giving that model a shot? If Game loft itself is not in the top 10/25 that is where they strive to be. This is a new thing for them and they are experimenting how to get there. When the whole unlock via IAP came out and everyone was enraged about it as if Game loft was jumping out of their devices and literally poking them in the eye, people stopped unlocking the game and guess what? Game loft released full versions of the games. Now they are trying this. Just like people didn't purchase the unlock the full game IAP when they tried that, if people just don't download their games or purchase ANY IAP - THAT is how you will get their attention. Petitions like this to a big company like Game loft to them are - oh its the whiny bored kids trying to do something with their afternoon. Raw numbers are what they will pay attention to. Less number of downloads for a game littered of IAP are less opportunities to sell that IAP. No sales of the IAP on games that were purchased is less revenue than if every download had a price attached to it. This is a new thing for them, I am sure they will figure this out on their own after they give their little experiment some time to return some data to them. Then they can decide whether or not it is working for them or not. (disclaimer: this post is not for or against any side of this argument but an attempt to explain how the business world works)
Lol, this was self-made. If the majority of iOS gamers always wait until the price for a GL game drops to .99$, nobody should wonder. Simple as that.
