i know if you read the reviews. you will see a bunch of people pay thinking they are buying the full game and how many ipods/phons are sold.. they will make a good chunk of change off that.. thats there own ignorance tho.. so regardless.. greedium is paying there bills it would seem. chris.
Hey guys I'm going to create another thread whining about freemium! Everyone join and make fun of moderaters and admins and ngmoco!!11!!!1! I hate how they're giving me free crappy game and forcing me to buy DLC just so I can play their crappy game some more. I mean really, it's a terrible game that I DONT want to play but I just HAVE to have more powercells and shit! Why would I want to pay for a game I DONT want to play???? They should give it away for free and live in the streets like the ass holes they are. Trying to make a living off the app store, bah it sickens me.
I never have and doubt I ever will, just have some patience instead of whining. No Rolando3 is sad though lol
Guys again we are getting off tracked here and I'm getting tired of repeating myself over and over again. Educate yourself and see the big picture. I won't be playing any ngmoco games, since I find them midiocre to average/ inferior clones of games 'everybody wants' but why am I 'whinning' about it when I wouldn't even be playing it? Because it's existence and success will be detrimental to the future of AppStore gaming. Why? Because if successfull their precedence will be followed by a Lot of developers and I would rather pay for a game I can own and play on my own time and place without the need for a persistent Internet connection than get a game for free but inhibits me from a lot of things, playing on the bus included. Now about the talks of piracy, it's bull to claim that this move is a piracy measure coz it is not, it's a money generating model that is making tons and tons of money for facebook integrated games like pet society, farmville, mafia wars, poker etc etc. I wouldn't mind the Rolando 2 model if piracy is the only issue here but the fact is this elaborate direction is all about milking money period.
Since I play Epic Pet wars and a few others... I get free Eliminate Energy Packs out the wazoo. Plus, Plus+ keeps accidentally deleting my account (screwing my skill and level that I have earned in eliminate) so they keep giving my a buttload of credits to say sorry and they reinstate my account to the level I was at. I just have to play back to get my skill level back. It is funny to play at level 1 with 0 skill(to start) but with a maxed out vaporiser and infiltrator armor that I got before my account deleted. I somehow got to keep my weapons and armor etc.. Yeah....I'll never buy anything, don't need to evidently.
Another question. In WE RULE, ngmoco's latest innovation, you see people on top of the leaderboards with level 20+, why are they there? Is it because they are skilled?
A better question is who honestly cares about leaderboards in a game where the goal is little more than have fun in a medieval sandbox and build a cool looking kingdom? If you want some ultra competitive leaderboard game to compete in, why in the world would you play We Rule instead of a game that requires some form of skill beyond "I'll put flowers here because they look pretty?"
The fact that there is a leaderboard in this social networking sandbox game means it encourages competition. Or is this the new innovation we are talking about? The start of a new era in AppStore gaming? You will be on top of the leaderboards if we spent the most money! For those curious, In WE RULE THAT iS THE CASE.
I don't like freemium, nor do I think ngmoco's games are 'good' or unique, but you have to keep in mind people can different opinions. They may suck to you, but to others it may fit in perfectly with how they spend their money. Also, you have to realize that these devs don't make games for the hell of it, they make it to earn a profit, and make a living. That's why gameloft does it, thats why EA does it, thats why indie devs do it. Other companies outside the app store also try to make a profit with ridiculous prices, so companies in the appstore are no exception.
They make it to earn a profit? Then put the game for sale for $6.99 (like NOVA was) and let people pay ONCE and play as much as they want.
I agree da Shiz wiz and I posted those words are well: every dev big or indie are in the biz for the money but as a consumer I have the right to speak up against a bussiness direction that I don't like and educate other consumers on why as well. It is something not limited to the AppStore, console consumers are doing this as well, we can't just shut up and put up, we have to make this companies LISTEN!
da shiz wiz, did you know that the theif that just broke into your house and stole all your valuables is in it for the money? It's true! Everyone's in it for the money! What NGmoco is doing isn't "business," it's a scam used to rob the stupid and the addicted.
Well then prove you're not the stupid or addicted and don't buy the damn DLC. Less money for them, so they may consider going back to traditional methods. Plus the example you used of the thief doesn't work here. I can't stop a thief (pretend all this high tech security shit doesn' exist) from stealing my stuff. I CANNOT STOP HIM. I CAN STOP myself from buying DLC. No one is forcing me to buy it. Ngmoco is not going to by house and pissing on my carpet in order to make me buy DLC. Honestly I just don't get what's so hard to understand about that. SG understands that and is simply voicing his complaints (repeatedly ), you're trying to show that freemium is evil through opinionated views. Not a single cold, hard fact has come out of you.
*Sigh* Maybe the 133 to 26 vote against Freemium is enough to show that people hate it? Maybe the fact that it's dropped out of the top 100 grossing shows that it's not working and NGmoco STILL isn't changing it? Maybe the fact Eliminate is now averaging about 1000 players at a time? Maybe the fact that Touch Pet Dogs food and Eliminate energy has been cracked (check your PMs)? It's pointless. Now, let's listen to your facts!
Know what every argument that ngmoco's band of defenders ( hodapp included) is made obsolete by COD zombies. 1. Devs are 'forced' to drop to 99 cc - COD is 9.99 but is still manage to sell strong 2. Piracy. I would bet that cod is one of the most pirated apps in AppStore land but it still manages to make millions. Why? Because a big chunk of the market doesn't pirate apps. 3. dlc- Cod sold in app purchase as well and guess what the dlc that I bought- I owned not rent.
I think everyone should take a step back before saying any (or anymore) stuff you'll regret. So we don't like freemium, me included, but let's not yell at each other. Just don't support the stuff, and you'll be doing something far more effective than insulting each other. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy insulting people just as much as everyone else, but come on, we're arguing over ngmoco. You should all feel ashamed...no milk and cookies for any of you.
*Sigh* The problem is, you have all the data, but you're doing a terrible job interpreting it. First of all, the poll is simply "Have You Spent Any Money on NGmoco Games Using the "Freemium" Payment Option?" not "Do you hate Freemium games?". 133 to 26 shows a 15% payment rate on their freemium projects, which is well above average given the 2% customer conversion rate that Neil Young quoted in the TechCrunch post. If this poll is at all accurate, ngmoco is making more money off TouchArcade users than typical Eliminate/TouchPets players. The reason you're not seeing any TouchPets or Eliminate sku's on the top grossing list is because Eliminate revenue is now split between 4 skus while TouchPets is split amongst 17. It's hard to gauge how much any of them are making, since so many of the different point values have been in free and used for in-network promotion for other ngmoco games users don't have any reason to stick to any specific sku to do their purchasing through. 1000 players online for an iPhone game is still a good number, you can find Eliminate matches almost instantly to this day. Just because there are 1000 players online doesn't mean there are 1000 players total still playing Eliminate. To support 1000 players online most of the day, there needs to be many times more players actively playing the game in their random 2 minute chunks as they have energy or free time. As much as you'd like to write off Eliminate as a complete failure, I'd like to remind you that Eliminate launched concurrently with Command & Conquer Red Alert-- A $9.99 game from a well established franchise. Eliminate had better staying power and charted higher on the top grossing chart than Command & Conquer. If the vast majority of people really did prefer to pay $10 once as opposed to play a free game and pay if they feel like it, why did Eliminate chart higher and longer than Red Alert? I know the witty rebuttal here will inevitably be "hurf blurf hodapp ngmoco fanboy" but what you're doing is misinterpreting data and making silly assumptions based on it. There's a valid argument to be made here, you just haven't stumbled across it yet.
A agree with hodapp's post above me and in all my post I never argued ngmoco's financial success with this model! Heck they bought freeverse right and got the funding too. In fact their success is what makes me restless given the appstore's metoo nature.
