IOS games are the future, they must be. The reason I say this is because today King, IOS game makers, have paid to have a double page ad covering the front of the free UK newspaper Metro. As you can see this is advertising their new game Farm Heroes Saga. And the reason why I say IOS must be the future is because I have never seen a AAA title with this kind of advertising.

Yes big name games have ads in newspapers and on the TV. And those ads are aimed at everyone. King (who are douches) are deliberately going after commuters with their “free” game, a game that I suspect will try to, fairly quickly, milk you for every penny. These kinds of  deliberate compulsion forming tablet/phone games are a cancer. That may seem like an insult (and I guess it is) but I mean it literally. Cancer is your body’s own cells growing out of control. And games like this, and farmville and other numerous expensive “free” games are the same.

They are all based on familiar gaming systems, like match 3 games. But they have been twisted away from the body of gaming, with the sole purpose of keeping people playing and therefore paying. What bothers me is that instead of someone buying one of the exceptional Bejewelled games, and enjoying it for the great game it is. Someone will get Candy Crush, end up spending $50 on it, and then think that is how games work, perhaps putting them off games forever. We gamers know that there are better ways. Hell even on IOS there are plenty of excellent little games that only cost a pound or so and won’t try and milk you. However those aren’t the developers that can afford multiple page adverts in national newspapers.

Much has been made of King and there agressive trademarking of words like Candy and Saga. This is why they are douches, it is undeniably a dick move to lock down their corner of the market, to the detriment of proper games like The Banner Saga. And yeah that gets me angry, but the thing I fear is that these ways of game development become more and more normal. Hell there are microtransactions in FIFA games now. We are on the edge of a slippery slope and I am terrified of falling.

Twitter @hangmansj0e

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