hi. Those of you who are Simpsons fans might already know the dead Homer society article (or rather novellaa), on the concept of Zombie simpsons, ie, why the Simpsons is no longer where it was and what it might be devolving into, (If you don't know it and are a simpsons fan i definitely suggest giving it a read, sinse at the same time it manages to be both highly readable and entertaining and extremely well researched).
However, checking out that article again I notice that the webmaster has written a similarly in depth treatment of The Simpsons Tapped out game on Android which may be found here http://deadhomersociety.com/tapped-in/ I am %90 certain that this game is inaccessible, however Why have I posted this in General game discussion? Because the discussion of The Tapped out simpsons game goes into heavy detail on the concept of Freemium games, that is games that are essentially free to download and play but have a premium currency that is used to buy certain features or expantions in the game, especially I might add for these sorts of games that fall somewhere between resource management and a slot machine. I found the comparison of these to gambling and the idea that their ultimate aime is too get you into a state where you lose money quite worrying, however I have noticed such tendencies myself in games from the defunct Legend of Zork (cryticized as a payment system disguised as a game), to Epical gladiators, and possibly some of the Storm8 titles, games that exist more for the repetitive task than anything else. Of course, such a thing is a sliding scale, and a game like Puppet Nightmares or even a time management style game like Solara isn't guilty of all the same shabby tricks, for example spending of premium currency with no confirmation that Tapped out is guilty of, however I did find some cryticisms here quite fascinating for example the need to contribute four or five times the price f a standard mainstream game to unlock game features for essentially not much reward, indeed I have been investigating Lords and KNights for a db entry and I was interested to see how many of these cryticisms applies. As I said, from the article it is clear that Simpsons Tapped out is a relatively extreme example of this form of gambling disguised as a computer game,but it's probably worth thinking about some of these things next time you considder whether to buy that extra bag of gold and just what the game is actually giving you in return or what it is trying to do, and a bit of awareness of possible abuses of a given system never hurts, especially with how common this idea of freemium perchices is. Dark. Take them to the refirbished chamber that was once bad! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
