Thursday, February 04, 2016

Pants

I wasn't going to write any more about Peter Molyneux.

I've defended him for years--decades, really--even though his entire philosophy seemed to be "Deliver anything, promise whatever."

I defended him because the "whatever" often turned out to be extremely interesting, although in no real way resembling the "anything" he promised.

Godus, though, was indefensible.

Yesterday, his bloated corpse suddenly burst to the surface again, bobbing away as "Godus Wars" was released.

A combat relative of Godus, it was free to existing owners of the original, failed product.

No downside, right? That seems reasonable.

Well, except for one thing: 22cans didn't tell anyone that after the first "continent", unlocking the next would cost $4.99. And on for each new continent, presumably.

Well.

What kind of stupid asshole would even try this? Promote how Godus owners get this for free, but all you're essentially giving them is a demo of the new "game" which they then need to purchase.

I'll tell you what kind of stupid asshole. The same kind of stupid asshole who would wipe the game forum clean because the comments were overwhelmingly negative about the paywalls.

In retrospect, it's clear that Godus Wars launched as a separate product solely as a platform for in-app purchases.

How sad.

Today, after nuclear weapons-grade criticism of the "demo + $5 +$5 + etc." pricing model, 22cans announced that they're removing the paywall.

They sounded surprised that people cared.

Molyneux also had a remarkable interview with Eurogamer yesterday--remarkable because he quite seriously portrayed himself as the victim in all this.

It all reminds me of a little boy I wrote about a few years ago. He was standing with his mother, and suddenly, he said "Mommy, somebody peed in my pants."

Yes, Peter. Somebody indeed.

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