4 ms·
The bogus business model of in-game purchasing needs to be called BS on too. Yes I know it works in other countries, but that's usually in intense games where
by richardjordan 14y ago
The bogus business model of in-game purchasing needs to be called BS on too. Yes I know it works in other countries, but that's usually in intense games where the engagement is high and long term.
My household probably counts as a high dollar in-game purchasing one. We probably boosted the numbers of some game developer.
Reality: a kids game had a $99 purchase option for hearts on the screen and my then 7-yo daughter not really understanding this was real money, spotted her mom putting in her password for App downloads and copied it to make about $400 of in-game purchases. This is nothing but a scam. There's no legitimate reason a game targeted at that age-group has a $99 purchase option other than to try to trick kids into spending money they don't know is being spent.
As the OP says - the quality of their product is terrible and once novelty wears off, apart from a few people with addiction issues their business model collapses.
Hate Zynga. Hate Groupon. Hate that they made such a big splash as tech IPOs yet will ultimately crash and the harm will spread to tech startups in general as the markets learn to distrust tech IPOs again.
- dominostars 14y agoRight now 17 of the top 20 grossing iPhone apps are freemium. Are you suggesting that these apps are only able to succeed because of accidental purchases?
- jquery 14y agoI would argue they are succeeding due to greed and ignorance, the likes of which will necessarily cause a crash and hopefully subsequent rebirth of true gaming.
- cageface 14y agoThe consequences will be more widely felt than that. Right now mobile gaming pretty much is the commercial mobile app market. When that implodes it's going to take the rest of the app market with it, at least temporarily.
- saraid216 14y ago> Hate Zynga. Hate Groupon. Hate that they made such a big splash as tech IPOs yet will ultimately crash and the harm will spread to tech startups in general as the markets learn to distrust tech IPOs again. I agree and would add Facebook to this. None of these companies seem to understand the transactional nature of value: of providing enough that people are willing to give it in return. Even going off of nothing but statements from their leadership, there's so much arrogance and condescension that even if they were providing value, I'd be leery of their products. Steve Jobs was widely regarded as an asshole, among many other characteristics, but he was also widely regarded as an inspirational figure who gave a shit about quality for quality's sake and valued Good Things like beauty and harmony. These guys? Zuckerberg's great value is the death of privacy. Pincus proudly states that his company is evil. Mason... I don't even want to know.