Here’s a question we don’t consider enough: what happens when a studio pulls the plug on its micro-transaction fueled games? The answer is obvious and a bit unsettling. You don’t get to play anymore, and all those ad impressions you handed out, all of those extra games you downloaded in exchange for precious in-game coin, and all the real money you spent just disappears into the ether.
Unfortunately, we bring up this subject as a result of a recent ngmoco decision. The studio has announced plans to “shut down" Epic Pet Wars [Free], Epic Chef Wars [Free], Epic Crime Wars [Free], and Titan Wars [Free] on Jan. 16, 2011. After this date, these games will “no longer be playable."
Epic Pet Wars was one of ngmoco’s first major acquisitions as part of a larger acquisition of developer Miraphonic in 2009. At the time, ngmoco’s Plus+ platform was a fledgling one and the studio presumably wanted to flesh out its offerings utilizing Miraphonic’s comparatively massive player base. Now it has dozens of Plus+ games, most of which support in-game purchases, and many which enjoyed boosts on the top download charts thanks to in-game offers from Wars games.
Games with expiration dates are a new-ish concept, though we should realistically expect all our cloud-based, online-focused romps to come to an end at some point. Business is cold and hard and if the numbers don’t line up? Well, this is what happens, though I can’t imagine anyone, especially the fans of these latest casualties, can be happy about it.
UPDATE: ngmoco has issued the following response:
“Withdrawing support for our games is not something we do lightly. The Epic games made a lot of people happy and will always have a special place in our hearts. We work hard maintaining and growing communities on our other games and will continue to do so. But, when the flow of players becomes low for a prolonged period we have to take these decisions so we can dedicate time to making new experiences. The harsh reality on our Epic series of games is that towards the end they did not have the level of engagement required to continue competing for users’ time in an App Store that’s giving players new choices daily.
We are thrilled to confirm that the creative team at Miraphonic is currently working on a new, top secret project that they have been busy creating from the ground up and we look forward to releasing news on this exciting project very soon."
A Jeff Minter game - I'm on it. Jeff's games always remind of the Tempest/Stargate days of arcade addiction.. which is a good thing.
The controls look horrible.
Hope it's a good game but I certainly won't try it out even if it's only .99 cents.
I think it has to do more with the fact that I don't understand the excitement about retro gaming...
nah the controls are awesome! once they click they feel just perfect.
though i much prefer playing with my forefinger than with a thumb as shown in the video. really fun game.
you must be younger than 20 then? this game truly is amazing, and i really feel like i'm back in the 80s playing in an arcade. I love modern games, but some games that try and feel retro with that high score appeal just don't do it right. This game does it *perfect*.
in regard to the controls, they are different from what we'e seen before. All you have to do though is imagine that you are spinning a trackball. The controls work great.
The controls are actually much easier to use than the original Asteroids. Amazing game. Probably spent close to $100 on iPad games, and this $1 title has provided more enjoyment than the other $99 combined.
This makes me very happy, not just because I nearly beat Jeff at Hellgate on the Vic-20 at a Commodore show about 27 years ago.
Dimitris: the retro appeal is to do with gameplay: speed and skill, something that games like Blue Defense! and Tilt to Play have bought into the modern era. Unfortunately no Defender or Elevator Action (Spy vs. Spy) on iOS yet
This game is great. Just play for a while in Deep Space mode and the controls will click.
I admit it, I used to HATE Asteroids. It was one of those games I wanted to love, but just never got on with the controls. If it had these controls I would have loved it!
Has this article disappeared from the homepage?
What a complete fail.Minotaurs don't wear pants!How fake.
;-)
I agree with "the controls are good". 300,000+ on my 2nd attempt so they must be pretty intuitive. This is easily Jeff Minter's best game ever. Even he admits that the old games live fondly in our memories but were seriously hampered by the hardware they had to run on. If his next game(s) on iOS are this good, it will be quite an achievement and I'll be more than pleased to buy them.
ain't gotten used to the controls yet, but I just love the style! Retro is just pure gold!
Brilliant game. Love it! Now, how can I see my scores without having to launch Open Feint?
10 cups of tea and a good chunk of game time later, I have a few thoughts if I may be so bold:
1) A bug - Sometimes when I double-tap the centre of the screen when 'game over', everything freezes and I have to reboot my device to get the game running again.
2) I still can't find a way to view my scores, unless I log-on to OF and unless I had a good enough run to be in the top 25. Would be really nice to have somewhere in-game where you can view your personal top 10 scores, no matter how crap they are...
3) Jets - I'm..um..not very good at this one, lol. The controls are a bit 'pat your head rub your stomach'. Would it be possible to have an option to use the main game controls instead?
4)Maybe a slider to control the glow/blur effects? Or a simple on/off button.
Otherwise, utter bovine brilliance! : )
Did you forget to mention that it's only available on iTouch 3G and up? I gave Jeff Minter my dollar and now I can't play his awesome-looking game on my stupid 2G Touch.
I have a 3rd generation 8GB ipod touch running iOS 4.2.1 and it says mine is not compatible either! I don't know why... according to the app store page I should be fine.
edit: I guess mine really is 2nd generation, even though it's one of the models that was released at the exact same time as the 3rd generation.
Asteroids redux with 80s graphics and need at least a 3GS ??? c'mon Jeff you can do better...
Jeff is Mint[er]. I loved all his games back in the day. His ideas were always different but very well implemented and executed.
The problem is the same today as it was back then. Some people just don't want to try something different, the excuse? It's just a this or that clone. Rubbish, Jeff always has subtle and obvious differences and one big thing I always liked was his control systems. He always tried to make a different way of controlling a character, ship or whatever.
I off to get this no question..
good to see jeff on the ios platform its been too long since i experienced the shroomy madness that llamasoft is so good at