First off, I'm writing this from a gamers perspective. I've been "in the gaming business" for over 30 years, which is to say; I've been buying games and playing them for said time. In my many years of exploration, puzzles, FPGing and, yes, even a dabble here and there into FPS games. I have found that, I like paying for good, quality games. Since the dawning of the digital age and tablets. Gaming has made, in some ways, leaps and bounds, unfortunately, in other ways, it's gone down a darker path. I call this path FREE-TO-PLAY GAMES. This stain on the gaming community is, in a lot of ways, trickery and deceitful. Why do I use such harsh words to describe this way of "Gaming"? Let me explain. Free-to-play games are made with little effort, as little of a budget as possible. I spent sometime working at a game development company. I got to even be apart of some testing of final projects. Most of their Freemium games were done in as little as a month, Sometimes in a couple of weeks. These said games had a very low budget as well. They were made for one purpose and one purpose alone...to steal your money. Here's the skinny. Lets say you have a compulsive buying disorder or gambling problem. You just made the company thousands of dollars. Companies like EA have shown how much they made on free-to-play games. So, now they just make Free-to-play games. There are such Freemium or free-to-play games, that are smart and not so bad. With a lot of grinding and little to no money, you could actually play it and possibly finish it. Timers, added bonuses that you can only get with money. These are the traps they set to make big money. These companies know people are impatient and want in-app bonuses you can't get by playing. These are the worst type of free-to-play games. How can companies fix this problem? Better yet, how can Apple fix this problem. Apple needs to step in and require companies to create a buy out in-app purchase. Which means, you pay a decent price to unlock the game. It's still a free-to-play game, if you want to spent the time or money, but allow an option to free the game from timers and possibly unlock it for easier playing. I've been grinding on the game Soda Crush. Totally made for the money grab approach. The levels are too difficult, timers are too limited, meaning, you only get 4 tries and each heart you lose, you have to wait over 20 min to get one heart back. In a game like that, have an option to get rid of timers. I'm sure gamers would be more inclined to spend a little money, if game designers took timers out. In closing, I think free-to-play games are horrible and need a second look at by Apple, however, I do believe there are some free-to-play games, that are somewhat okay; if only they would add an option to disable timers. We are in an age of great tablet technology. Tablets that run PC games. That are getting faster, lighter and being used by all walks of life. I feel that, free-to-play games, are a backward approach to a new gaming revolution. It's like getting the fastest console or PC ever, and still wanting to play Pong or Pac-Man on it, but a free-to-play price. We as gamers, need to stand tall and tell game companies and Apple, no to free-to-play games and yes to Premium games. At least for the free-to-play games, have the option to either unlock it as a premium game, or disable timers.
