http://www.computerandvideogames.com/37 ... eneral-RSS

Doesn't your heart bleed for them?

Aren't Zynga part owned by face book? And whose profits one of the disputes after the floatation of Facebook?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Zynga's "games" appear to be based on getting the player to just repetitively click on things and getting you to return in a few hours time to do the same. That sucks you into the buying into a virtual currency to add the rarer items to whatever it is you are supposedly "managing".

I was annoyed when they bought "Draw Something" because they turned up the advertising to over 9000 and the app started crashing frequently especially on older hardware, where as it was fine before.

It's the only social game I regularly play, and it now bugs me every time...

I think they're too big. Some competition would be healthy.

^^^Ditto - I stopped using Drawsome after that. I first played Zynga games when i had the 3GS but stopped. I much prefer games to be upfront about how much you pay. The only games I will pay more for are the big Fish games involving adventure and I spy. They remind me of the old point-and-click games like Monkey Island where you needed to obtain items and use them to do various tasks.

This gets me looking in the App Store to see if a game has in app purchases. If it looks like I’ll need to buy things like “coins” to progress, the I’m less likely to get a copy. A lot of comments on games with such features leads me to believe that in many cases, you can only progress past a certain point if you do buy some form of in game currency.

Now, I have nothing against in-app purchases if they offer some kind of useful extra functionality. It gives the option to buy the app cheaply and not use them if you don’t need them. Such things should enhance the product on purchase, not inhibit if not purchased.

The games I buy from Big Fish used to be pay upfront (as for most apps). They've now gone to a version where you download the app, play a few levels and then it'll ask you to pay to unlock. It means you get to trial a game first before shelling the full amount. This also stops duplicate downloads and entries in app store eg one trial version and one full version, which I'm happy with. I'd be very upset if they then made me pay more for an item that I needed to complete the game.

What does amaze me (but perhaps shouldn't) is that the "real" reviews telling you stuff about in-app purchases are usually deeply hidden. They give 2-3 stars whereas other reviews are five stars, rave reviews with no meaningul content. The recent simpsons game was a bit like this.

It does depend on whether you need to make ongoing payments. I do not mind paying for additional maps or civilisations as in Civ V but just buying coins to help you accelerate your character in the game is frustrating. Almost bordering on racketeering, of you can only get a certain item one in a million attempts or spend some coins which you can only get through buying.

Zynga continue to annoy me.

They now not only use in-game advertising, but they've started using notifications to push it in my freckin' face at all times of the day and night.

I don't know if the customers with the paid-for app get this, but I really do not appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night by a notification telling me there's a special offer on in-game purchases of bombs! Yes I know I could turn my phone off or whatever, but that's really not the point. It's just too intrusive.

I really enjoyed this game before they sold out

Hahaha! That's exactly what made me delete the frikkin' thing and I'm sure I paid for the full version too!