Yesterday we caught wind that this “new" Dark Meadow [$5.99] that we’d heard rumblings about wasn’t new at all, but instead originally was planned to be an update that converted the existing app into a free to play game. Predictably, even with the vague offer of “exclusive upgrades" for existing owners, news that Dark Meadow as we knew it was going away fired up our community like few things can between the actual article comments and the Dark Meadow forum thread.
Thankfully, it seems Phosphor Games has made a last minute decision to cancel the complete free to play conversion, and instead will be keeping the existing Dark Meadow and releasing a new free to play companion version. Per a Phosphor representative on our forums:
Our intention was that we’d have one version of the app, so (future) leaderboards, etc could all be shared by same community. We always planned on turning off ads and gifting premium players, so we didn’t see any negative to what we were planning.
BUT it sounds like the community really wants them to stay as separate versions. From reading the forums, one large issue is it sounds like a lot of users have completed the current version, deleted it (as it is a large file size), and would like to check out the next one, but there is a good chance they won’t have save data, and they’d have the hassle of downloading the current one just to have a save game, then download the newer one, etc. All an annoyance we’d rather not give our fans.
SO we are keeping the Premium version of Dark Meadow separate from the Free one, and both will get all the new features. So anybody who previously purchased the game can update whenever they want, and they will just get new stuff. …Read More
So, that’s good news. But, it still is a little strange that keeping two version seems like such an eleventh hour decision, as this sort of community reaction to plans to load a previously-paid game full of micro transactions couldn’t have been easier to predict.
So, put away those pitchforks and burning torches, as it sounds like Phosphor Games is doing the right thing after all. Since this update was scheduled to land this week, I’m guessing it’ll be a bit longer before we see the new free to play version as at the very least this decision means another trip through the Apple approval process.
