Anything I say is from the perspective of a customer. Devs do it for the money, which I get. If your good at it, and you like doing it then there's no reason not to. I'm in college full time and working full time, so I share that kind of dream, where you make it big, and live comfortably doing what you like. Id never be in their position though, where I made a freemium game. If I made a game it wouldn't be freemium, cause I don't support that model of sales at all. But hypothetically if we traded spots, there still wouldn't be much I could do to change things, even if I wanted to. In big companies getting the kind of money your talking about, there's a team of people that decide stuff like this, and I'm guessing it only takes 51% of them to like money for a freemium game to be decided on. I'm not trying to start a revolution here, or a boycott. Just ranting if you like spending money on these types of games, more power to you.
My current pet peeve game is "Fantasy Warrior Legends" http://appshopper.com/games/fantasy-warrior-legends-all-free I like the looks. I like the interface, the combat seems fun, but it has this buying mechanic for 'Gemstones' to power up attacks, which it wants you to have to buy to play the game. I refuse to buy a consumable in this manner, as IaP. When the developer makes it a requirement to complete the game, well, I'd rather pay 5 bucks for a Real Game that is balanced rather than this. And Im old-school, I know in the old days that all arcade games (I own many full sized uprights) were quarter suckers. How many times did you put in extra quarters to continue in Gauntlet II? How many games were designed to get you past the first two levels or so but the third made so hard you had to put in quarters to continue? But even in these, if you were really good (and lucky) you might be able to make it a bit farther. I realize that the IaP is just a continuation of the quarter sucking arcade model, because no one makes games for free. I buy a lot of games, and I would buy this one if there was a model balanced for play without the consumable. Just my rant, Rixx PS just loaded the game again, and saw this quote upon loading: "You can defeat all evil with a pure heart ... and some gemstones!" Argh
Lucky So good luck I would get into programming if I were you, as myself, I can only invent games and think of the monetization, not program them or do art. Easy to get an artist, near impossible to get a programmer to see what you have. Single inventors can do as good and be creative as all the people in Zynga but only qualifications seem to get you by these days in the games industry. Such a shame. Not saying Im a genius either. Imagine if Mozart was told to get lost with his music!
I'll add that I hate IAPs from Korean RPGs. They do not augment the game, in the sense that you don't get new levels, new challenges or whatever. You get stuff like extra bag space, character stat reset, etc. Stuff you need to have in order to really enjoy the game.
That's like selling a pokemon game and charging for every pokemon people want to be in the game. Sad thing is, people will still buy it.
Playing Smurf's Village right now and yes, it's one big giant fat ugly scam. Ticks me off as I really like the Smurfs and there's a good game here that's been severely crippled.
Same with Zombie Farm, Gun Bros, all those iMafia and such games (way too many to count), Restaurant Story, Farm Story, City Story, Farmville, Tap Fish, Lil' Pirates, Tap Resort, bla bla bla bla bla..... There are way too many of those great games that are limited by all the IAPs.
In simple words, I'll put it across this way.... Non freemium games = Getting married & having fun! (Gifts are something else, not the fees for having fun everytime) Freemium games = Getting an escort service & paying for it everytime to have Fun! (you all know what I mean?) I could not agree with you more Paradiso
