In-app purchases has been the bane of mobile gamers since the system was introduced. While not all games with in-app purchase business models are bad, Eletcronic Arts (or EA) may have taken things a bit too far with the mobile remake of Dungeon Keeper.
Dungeon Keeper first started out as a PC game back in 1997 when it was released by the game developer Bullfrog. The game was considered a cult classic and aiming to capitalize on its initial success, EA released a remake for mobile devices. Unlike a large majority of games, Dungeon Keeper casts the player in the role of the villain. Despite the criticisms lobbed towards EA, the company was able to successfully translate a large majority of the game's original features into a mobile friendly format.
Dungeon Keeper is advertised as a free-to-play game. While true to a certain extent, many gamers have criticized the game as "unplayable" without actually spending cash. Shortly after the game was released earlier this month, gamers have rained down a barrage of negative ratings and reviews due to EA's implementation of their in-app purchase system. To make an in-app purchase, players will need certain amounts of the in-game currency called gems. Gems are available for free throughout the course of the game. However, gamers have noticed that the supply of gems from within the game is not nearly enough to make the in-app purchases required to make the game playable in a practical sense.
"It's free to wait, but not to play anything," said game reviewer Jim Sterling. "There's nothing to actually play."
Even the game's original lead designer Peter Molyneux was not happy with EA's adaption of Dungeon Keeper.
"I felt myself turning round saying, 'What? This is ridiculous. I just want to make a dungeon. I don't want to schedule it on my alarm clock for six days to come back for a block to be chipped,'" Molyneux told the BBC, adding "I don't think they got it quite right, the balance between keeping it familiar to the fans that were out there but fresh enough and understandable enough for this much bigger mobile audience."
Aside from the game's in-app purchases, EA has also been criticized for using seemingly underhanded tactics to gather 5 star ratings for Dungeon Keeper. The game currently has an average rating of 4.5 stars from over 85,000 users.
However, the real story is actually more complicated. Players will be able to rate the game after playing for a certain amount of time. Players are then given the option to choose either "1-4 stars" or "5 stars." For players who choose the "5 stars" option, the rating immediately gets posted on Dungeon Keeper page in the Google Play store. However, for players who want to give a lower rating, a prompt that says "What would it take to make Dungeon Keeper a 5-star game?" will appear. While the prompt seems harmless enough, there are only two options provided - "not now" or "email us." To put things simple, gamers have no choice but to award the game a "5-star" rating. They can change this later on but many gamers still view it as a sneaky tactic by a very greedy game developer.
