Sorry Gov, but stealing IAP is strictly against the TA forum rules, so we've got no choice but to give you a timeout from the site. Please remember that TA is full of developers, who don't really want to read about people stealing from them. Right... back to the Dead Effect discussions....
Well, good move, Devs... To be sure that everyone will update, you changed the update description and removed the free to play "feature" that was at the very top... When I saw the F2P word I thought, yet again trying to screw people over but at least they don't hide the fact they're screwing you. That was giving you back a bit of respect. not anymore
Hmm... guess I seem to be one of the few people who's enjoying the update. The only negative things I can say is that I don't like the ads, but I can deal with them (I've only seen one at the end of a stage in story mode and I've played through 3 stages - I haven't seen any ads while playing any other mode) and the daily freebie things don't seem to be working for me. It always gives me the first day, even though I've played every day for the past 3 days. Other than that... I'm loving the new gameplay modes (right now, BioHazard is my favorite) and the controller support. The new weapons look pretty damn nice too, though I spent the 300 gold (thank you for that by the way) on the health regen upgrade. Also, playing with the MOGA controller is fantastic... and having the auto-fire feature is fun to turn on and just mindlessly blow away zombies. I hope that going free does help to bring in more revenue. I really do want to see more games from InDev Brain. The only thing I can really say about it is that if it's ever a problem in the future - a warning on your FB, Twitter or main Dead Effect site would be VERY appreciated. It seems that in the past here on TA, whenever developers gave a week or so warning before the update hit (usually right when they submitted it) and told their customers here that their game would be going free, but that if they had a saved game on their device when they updated that they would get something special, it usually went down a LOT better. Just... food for thought, I guess. =oP
Thanks,it's my weapon(the weapon Contest Who i design my double chainsaw(nothing to' do with DEAD RISING)but i'm think when i update from 1.1 to 1.2 for my rewards i choose auto regen healt,if you die,you lose all you're purchased weapons?
No, you'll be able to purchase weapons in-between levels and before you start any other gameplay modes (like Survival Mode, ect...) and then you'll always have that weapon as well as be able to upgrade it. There's 4 stats [Damage, Magazine Size, Reload Time and Accuracy], each with 5 upgrade levels, so you'll be able to upgrade each weapon 20 times.
Nothing justifies stealing like Gov apparently did and I would never do, but it is kind of ironic that devs can basically steal the original game that you purchased and a lot of the people that usually are against moves like this don't seen to be as critical as they usually are (probably because they did still have it on their device). No matter how much I love a game I still cannot let a dev slide on this. And I do wish Apple would put a stop to it.
We believe this mistake occured accidentaly. The previous list had some grammar mistakes and weapons which aren't in update. We fixed it right after the iOS version came out and we noticed it. The Android version comes out after iOS so we had some time to fix it. This is the fixed list for Android which was also used for iOS by accident we believe. We are only developers, we develop, but we don't make submissions. It's a survival daily bonus and works with only survival missions. We see, it's confusing now, because in this update there are daily missions too. When it comes to informing people, all we can say is that we are developer - our job is to make the game. Deciding on important matters and informing people about big changes such as this is up to our publisher, they have more experience in this aspect.
You yourself said you struggled with the decision to go F2P so surely you would have had or should have had influence on how to go about the transition. You PLANNED very carefully how to give a bonus to paid customers and explained it many times how you had to have 1.1 installed and played through at least one chapter to get it. Not everyone would have gotten the warning but at least many of us would have so we could have downloaded it again prior to the update. I still believe the only way to do this is a separate app. But a warning would have helped eliminate some of the frustration. So basically you didn't think AT ALL about users that may have temporarily deleted the app. And I haven't even seen you apologize or offer any consolation to those in that position. Apple should ban pay model changes, but just because you can do it doesn't mean you should and you need to think of ALL of the supporters that helped you from the beginning. I have supported devs who have done the right thing by releasing a separate freemium app. As a programmer, I know how things can be tweaked like currency values, in-store prices, etc. It's a pain to maintain two apps, but it's far from being massive hours of work. I want indie devs like yourselves to be successful, but to be successful you also have to be willing to what it takes to please your early supporters -- whether it's a warning or a separate app. Obviously, you didn't think about some (maybe even most) of that population since the majority of gamers do put games on and off their system. What about giving access to an .ipa file of the 1.1 version on a server to those of us that can show that we paid for it? I think that would at show that you actually do care about those who supported you and seems like a viable solution to make everyone feel better about the situation. And, no, saying we are responsible for having backup is not acceptable. If that were the case, why would Apple make it so we can redownload everything from the Cloud? You should be bending over backwards to keep the trust and future sales of people who supported you when you needed it most. The customer shouldn't have to bend over backwards because of your lack of consideration. I would like at least a response from the dev.
Also, I'm not going to name names but I'm a little disappointed in a few senior members who usually automatically ban devs for doing this sort of thing, but largely giving them a free pass this time. Maybe because they just happened to has the app still on their devices and they got the "reward" this time, but that's a little hypocritical when you jump down other devs for doing the same thing when you don't have it on your device.
No, not you. But don't you see how things like this just further devalue the App Store? If every dev did this, it wouldn't make sense to ever pay for an app. What would be the point of premium games at all? I feel for their situation, I really do. As anyone who knows me on this forum, I'm a huge indie supporter (even created a separate GoTY to help shine some light on them). But in the end, every business has failures and successes. And if you fail, you can't just basically take back what you originally sold. Those are the people that you want to support you in the future. And, I'm sorry, in an environment like the App Store you can't expect that all of those supporters would still have your app on their device. But there's hundreds of times I go back and redownload and play a game I bought. So in my eyes this is unethical at best and really should be something Apple adopts rules to prevent.
Despite my reluctance but anyway because there's a lot of misinformation that this is unique to Apple. It's not. The only difference between Google play and the App Store in these policies is that on Play, once you go free, you're always free whereas Apple allows free promotions. However that Play policy does in no way rule out switching an app from premium to freemium as one has the option to switch a premium app to free, add stuff to it, make it ad supported and then build in iap for extra content or subscriptions. More or less exactly what happens. So it is not a uniquely Apple policy gap, one just has to do it in a slightly different way on Play and cannot run free promos. The reason being so that reviews and chart positions don't get manipulated and solely for that reason. Something Apple does all on its own. On Play, one can also discontinue a premium app and upload a freemium version, turn one to free and upload a premium version or numerous other variations and options. The only limitation is that once you go free or launch free, you stay free and can't go to priced. That's it. So, no, it is not a unique App Store gap/feature/fault (whatever you want to call it depending on your perspective) and no, it will never change. Ever. The App Store itself won't change that policy for reasons I'm not going to disclose here but the only reason Google play has its distinguishing policy is simply down to the fact that it has less oversight and an open ecosystem whereas Apple has substantially more supervision, approval and monitoring procedures. This is a free open market after all which allows people to change and modify the product they create and sell in more or less any way to see fit. If as a consumer you'll feel burned by this well that's really up to you but in an open marketplace, this happens all the time. Even to fixed solid objects. Product pricing policies and standard equipment change every day with anything from cars to computers. I'm sure price fixing, monopolies, excessive oversight policies, a closed marketplace, certain other practices and so on would give you a lot more things to rage on about.
Nope, I'm enjoying it quite a lot. Much more than the previous version. Plus I've gotten the gold bar priced weapons, (crossbows specifically, only two more weapons to get which from what I read earlier, they are the only two I don't have so they will eventually get dropped from a boss and cost nothing) from just playing it and getting them in drops from bosses. I'm quite looking forward to the chainsaw. The auto heal is a bit overpowered in lower difficulties and I can't quite decide if I like the crossbows or not because I do like my fully upgraded M4 carbine alike gun. That fully upgraded energy handgun is a beast as well. The game is actually far more complete with a substantial amount of more variety not than it was before, so I think its one of the better upgrades I've seen in a long time.
The update may be great but you and SV were ones who always called devs out on things like this. But since both of you appear to have had the app installed at the time if the update, everything's hunky dory. Especially SV had always been one to put devs on his do not buy list. And I'm not trying to start anything as I really have appreciated by of your recommendations, etc. But it just seems like "well, this didn't hurt me too bad so I'm letting it slide". Sure the devs made a gesture but like I said a great number of people probably don't have this on their device from initial purchase. And I'm adamantly opposed to these changes in business models. It REALLY doesn't take much to release and maintain separate apps. I know from my own experiences and maybe that's why I get even more upset about because I have to work my ass off and extra hours to maintain different applications for different companies and I don't get jack for it other than keeping my job. So it just irritates me that others who have slammed devs for this in the past don't seem to care about the moral issue and standing their ground when it doesn't affect them. When I see the same situation, even if it doesn't affect me, I don't roll over, I still call foul.
If a change to freemium makes an effort to be smooth as possible and covers a bit of the negative effects of the change, and especially if i am not affected by it (i had this game on my device since day 1), i never complain too much. In the first few pages of the thread i was disappointed in the change to freemium too, but eventually realized it wasnt too bad for me a all. What's left in it that ticks me though are the ads, wich are rare, but ads and timers are what i hate most especially if i already paid for the game. With your last line there, you cant survive in the iOS scene not being flexible to what may happen, as we've seen far worse switches happen before that totally trash the game from great to totally must-avoids.
