I have to give credit to everyone here from both side of the fence, I feel that the arguments are good, informative and most of all I feel that everyone is civil and no one resorted to flaming ( grilling yes but not flaming ) This is what I love about this site bravo everyone, I really enjoyed this
i just read ALL the thread and noted that the discussion is shifted from the "ngmoco will go bankrupt? " to "is TA a faithful servant of ngmoco?" i'll say my thoughts in random order if anyone are interested in read them.. i think that the writers of Ta love most games of ngmoco but they are not affiliated to them or something else,also to be a member of the oats doesn't meaning a lot to me...for a (strange) example,in italy you can find an anti-mafia member that is affiliated to the family so i base my feel exclusively on what i read (and i read stp,148 and a lot of others,never thought to read a "strange" review) for the ngmoco business question,i think that for the make money aspect this is very good for them..i see eliminate in the top grossing charts for just two weeks or so but checking the review of their games (eliminate amplifer,touch pet dogs 55 food and others of this kind) noted that the reviews are a lot so imo they make money from the freemium model,considering also that there are hundreds people willing to pay even 19,99$ + to get more bowls or energy cell... and this is where ngmoco turn bad for me.sure they can do it..but is not the best thing in the world to allows player to spend such an amount of money relying on his impatience to play more and more. this is the only thing i can complain on ngmoco..apart from this i like to play occasionally to a good free online fps and excites me very the idea that i can play some good games (like it seems the case for we rule and god finger) for free..
Well I read the first 5 pages* and it seems that a few things have become clear. -TA gets money from Ngmoco (I honestly did not know, or is this just a load of bullshit?) -If I say touchpets sucks, I'll be banned? -People like to bitch about free games they don't have to pay for, nor download, or like, or think is good. -We all sound like little kids. *=Just the first five pages Well I just read the past few pages and people seem to be posting better. I don't think it matters if TA is in OATS or not. I don't think they really police the members checking if they charge or not.
What five pages have you been reading? Anyways, this is where the argument boils down too: A) NGmoco makes it so that people DON'T have to pay to play the game, meaning that they most likely won't. B) If they DO pay to play more, it only lasts a short while and they are ripping the consumer off because the Product X, is not worth the Amount Y because technically, Product X is already offered for free.
not getting (enough) moco My criticism of ngmoco is that I had higher hopes for them. I thought Rolando was the start of something special and they would become the App Store's first AAA developer/publisher. Instead, they have become Faceboamoco. Whether they make a profit does not concern me. It seems like they are and that's fine by me. I wish them no ill will. For me, I am disappointed that all their games have a "me too" quality about them, where they take popular game styles and copy them. As a business, it may make sense. But I no longer look to them as beacon of where iPhone gaming will go. I once read their developer blog, now I just see no reason why. You can also say that Gameloft has the same copy-popular-games strategy, but they are releasing copies of console games that you cannot otherwise buy in the App Store. They also are releasing their own titles. ngmoco is largely mimicking successful App Store games. It may be a successful business model, but it doesn't interest me. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the freemium model. I wish more games would go in-app. You try for free with limits and then you buy. But I am probably alone in this respect (as in-app has been around for a year with little uptake in games). I would love to buy a game that was like a comic book, each month releasing a new "issue" that expanded on the game. I think touchArcade does an admirable job, overall, of being a good citizen, giving indie devs space along with the big names. I think sometimes it can sound more like a cheerleader of App Store games (particularly from big names), but it is better than other sites in showing some balance. My wish is that the site spend more time speaking with indie devs. I would suggest not waiting until they have something to announce. I'd love to hear from Steph Thirion (developer of Eliss), Madfinger (Samurai Way of the Warrior), and Mobigames (devs of Edge and CrossFingers) even before they have a new game. Mobigames in particular I'd like to hear about non Edgy news. Last, Valve, I switched my radio transmission, maybe you can now receive my SOS for you to jump to the App Store. You seem to be changing your frequency. Maybe you will discover my message. I'm still alive.....in the App Store.
NgMoco is basically a new company. About as old as the AppStore itself. And in my opinion only have a few really GOOD games. So inorder for them to develop the capital to buy Freeverse and have 50 million of expendable income must mean either A) They have rich friends, or B) they are making a shit load of money raping gamers with this freemium business model. I just cant sit back and watch gamers basically be taken advantage of and not get angry over it. I loved Eliminate and had to stop playing it because i wanted to play it a lot and it was costing me a forune. More than a console game and it got ridiculous. We Rule looks awesome but i wont get it cause i will want to jump in full steam and i dont wanna spend that much on a game. Id pay 20 even 30 bucks for a good game. As long as i myself once i purchase it can decide the amount of time i get to invest in it. waiting for crops to grow in real time is just not fun to me. And from what i understand i would have to pay to speed up this process. I just dont want this to become the norm on the appstore and if Ngmoco becomes more and more successful it can and prob will and that will be a bummer for me and many other iphone gamers. I made an example that this wouldnt work with Call of Duty so why implement this model on the app store. Now Freeverse too. Whats next?
ROFLMAO I hear a lot of facepalm at the ngmoco office right now. ***damn, he guessed our next groundbreaking appstore-shaking innovation-innovating freemium game idea....***
You can indeed make much profit with freemium, no question. But the people who really participate on that, that's the big difference and also where a big problem is. The casual gamer plays it for free, enjoys it and is fine with it. Just out of curiosity he/she maybe tries 4 times over months the in app purchase and that's it then. That's a low side of the inspection ground. High side of the inspection ground: Now there is the hardcore game crack witch is REALLY addicted to playing games, and especially this or "a" shooter. People who play over 3 hours and more a day, and start loosing the connection to be good in school, work, have a social life. So the things you can buy in Eliminate for example, they are connected in their effect to bring time and building up power. So that's really things which are needed for the hardcore gamer, because he gets forced out when the credits ran out. And also hardcore gamers LOVE to pimp up their character, see for example in Word of Warcraft, item trade, finding new things etc. Freemium now makes the hardcore gamers symptoms of their addiction (and I mean that really as a psychological disease) even more worse, it "plays in the hand", it pushes the problemated persons further in a wrong and damaging direction for themselves. The addicted people buy just so much and much, it get's in total gross even over the whole gross of casual gamerfreemium buyment income! It's transfered (the reasons which lead to them are of course different) the same as in state taxes, formula there is ~ 10 % of all citizens are per definition called as "the rich" and bring in real about 80 % of all tax income (That's true! The prices for the things the rich buy, the luxurous ones, are much higher than the ones of the proletariat. ALso they have much more on their bank account) Also people which are really really heavily playing games, but would not be diagnosted as addicted, because they still have their feets on the ground somehow, can get because of freemium transactions in a addiction more easily, because the effect of the freemium brings them too fast further in the game (what they have reached, should have been earned through collection gameplay itself)(Ironically to make collection itself without freemium could mean do that even more leads to an addiction, too). Addiction because of videogames exists and is a official diagnostic by psychiatric doctors. I don't want to say that freemium make videogamers as a whole thing, to addicted people, that will never happen! ALso the percentage of addiction people won't rise because of freemium from let's say 4 to over 50 percent, that's not gonna happen, too! The scandal is a different one, troubled and dangerous affected people get's pushed even more, as I said above, in the wrong direction. I don't want to argue against itself videogames in generall, I love games and I thing it's one of the greatest art forms ever! People can get addicted from a wide amount of general things, videogames is just one of those. But I love the people/companies the most, who have a very positive mantra, and extremly good ethics. Google's "Don't be evil" (that may be quastionable, because of George Orwells 1984 and so , but I just love the meaning of the sentence itself). ngmoco is sadly no more such a company to me: to just let the possibility out in the wild, to make the disease of addicted people even worse, THAT'S JUST A EXTREMLY NO GO FOR ME!!! It doesn't matter to me that 95 percent of the people don't get effected in a badly way of freemium, as a society you should just care about things, that could make the situation of diseased people even worse! Not that a gaming obsession really EATS the daily time of those people, freemium will have dramatically financial consequences for the addicted. Time eating compared to financial loss could be relativly "okay" (But just relativly, not ethicly), but the financial damage ist just sooo bad.
wow, these people are assholes o3o I'd personally like them to stop making me stay connected to the internet to play their games - it totally kills the point of having an ipod touch to play games on while on the go.
I know right! They should totally let me play a free game without internet or I'ma bitch slap their ass since I spent so much of my hard earned money on it and they are obligated to do everything I tell them becauase I downloaded their free game. Right on brother.
Geez... if only there was a seven letter word that started with "ass" and ended with "hole" that could describe what you sounded like right now...
Well he said he wanted offline play in their games, he didn't specifically say he was opposed to paying money for them. I'd pay for offline games too.
