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There are other factors to consider. Zynga had copied ideas from competitors, wasn't Cityville a Sims rip-off? Not only that but competitors were ripping off Z
by orionblastar 14y ago
There are other factors to consider.
Zynga had copied ideas from competitors, wasn't Cityville a Sims rip-off? Not only that but competitors were ripping off Zynga ideas as well.
I understand the need to constantly change the game to attract new customers and sell new items to the existing customers. I had played Playdom's Marvel Avenger's Alliance, but recently quit because the bugs were very serious and each new thing they added created problems in the PvP mode as well as more bugs. In order to be competitive in that game you need to buy gold to buy rare items on sale for a limited time. My problem was that they have a "Maintenance"/Refresh bug and after I bought gold and paid $20 that I was not given the gold by the game. I filed a tech support ticket with Playdom over it and gave them my Facebook account name and Paypal address. They just ignored it for weeks. Eventually I had to file a complaint with Paypal for not receiving goods that I paid for and was awarded $20 in my dispute with Playdom. Then a few weeks later Playdom had my Facebook account banned claiming "unauthorized credit card use" but that was not the case, it was failure to deliver goods paid for. After trying to resolve the issue with Facebook and Playdom, I eventually quit and removed the game from my profile. I refuse to play any more Playdom or any of its competitors because of bugs so serious that you don't get what you paid for, and they refuse to give you what you paid for or refund your money. I heard from other players that Zynga does that as well. Basically it comes down to this, if they ignore the request for a refund for 30 or 60 days, Paypal or the credit card/debit card company cannot issue a refund after a certain amount of time after the transaction.
I have never in my life seen such buggy software as these so called online social network games. I have never seen such sh*tty tech support as these online social networking games. I'll bet that this is what affects their profit margin, once users get burned in buying premium content they will either play the game without buying anything else, or they will like me quit playing from that company or all companies.
- djt 14y agowhat was it that had you pay $20 to purchase in the first case? I havent paid to play a social game so I'm really curious as I havent played any Facebook games before.
- orionblastar 14y agoNope I spent hundreds before that, and was a customer for life. Playing for almost a year. Any company with shtty tech support and pss poor customer service is going to lose customers by making them unhappy and then spiral their stock out of control into a bankruptcy. That includes Facebook themselves, who even after proof that I didn't get gold in the game for my $20, sided with Playdom in banning my account for a day for "unauthorized credit card use" of my own Paypal account. Here is another thing, Paydom's TOS says I must file a support ticket with them, I did and nothing happened and they ignored the problem, Paypal's TOS says I have to resolve disputes with them which I did by creating a ticket, and then Facebook got upset because their TOS says I have to resolve disputes with them. Which one gets priority? Playdom and Facebook refused to do anything and then banned my account anyway even if I did nothing wrong and I was the one who was punished for a bug in the game that doesn't give me gold I legally paid for with my own account. That is all kind of messed up there and if this is what happens to a typical user who needs a refund due to a bug in the game not giving gold or whatever they paid for, then this whole industry is going bankrupt into another Dotcom bubble burst. You never do this to your customers, never!
- orionblastar 14y agoI had to buy gold to buy things in the game I needed. Like ISO8 Goo to do special missions to win a special limited edition super hero, buy better weapons, or ISO8 gems to make my super heroes better. It is hard to explain, but in order to play the game better you need to keep buying stuff. Zynga games are like that as well. If you don't buy stuff then you suffer in the game and other players can beat you up better.
- djt 14y agothanks for your reply! Do you find that you get more enjoyment out of these types of games rather than on or offline games where you pay up front without "pay-2-play"?