Stop This Nonsense!

It had to happen. It never freaking fails. Not a week after I wrote about how awesome RollerCoaster Tycoon is, a surprise announcement came way in the form of a new game in the series. It was a dreadful message. The new game would be RollerCoaster Tycoon 4.......Mobile.

No. No no no no no no no no. This is wrong. This is oh so wrong.

To the chagrin of all who heard, it was announced that the next instalment in the RCT series will be for your mobile devices, such as your iPhone and iPad. Here's the thing: an optimist might say that this could be alright. Because, hey, it's your own little roller coaster park on the go! Cool, right? Well sadly, the games industry doesn't usually work like that. What we can expect instead is a microtransaction filled, free-to-play/fee-to-pay infested, ham-fisted socially ingrained, dishonourable and undignified mess of crap and metal.
Yeah. It's disgraceful, and borderline insulting that this is going to be a thing. My god. And as if to make it worse, the Twitter handle for Atari said that there would be a PC "experience" later this year.

Well what the hell does that mean?!?

"Experience?" Are you kidding me? Not game. "Experience." What could this be, a Facebook game that demands the same amount of nickel-and-diming that the mobile one does?
"Pay $2.99 to receive this really cool exclusive park sign."
"What's that? You want to extend your roller coaster another square? Oh that'll be 99 cents."
Or, hell, maybe it'll be an "experience" like the abomination that EA's SimCity was last year. Jesus I shudder at the thought. Like can you imagine? An always-online, dumbed-down mess that demands you "get connected" or you can't play the full-priced game. No. No. NO.
And you know what the sad thing is? All of what I just said is entirely possible, given the history of mobile/Facebook gaming and certain publishers.

So this is a message to you all who think that something like this is cool, or rather, that it's a good idea.

It's not.

But let me back up a bit. And you know what? I'm grabbing my soapbox while I'm at it. Oh yeah, you're goddamn right I'm doing this. I've had enough of this crap.
Stop This Nonsense!
No more shitty Facebook games!
No more half-assed mobile ports of good games!
NO MORE FREE-TO-PLAY, MICROTRANSACTION FILLED ABOMINATIONS!

Let me explain something first: none of this is exactly new. Certain "free-to-play" games have had what are called "in-app purchases" for quite some time. Most notably, FarmVille, which allows you to progress further or obtain rare items via paying with real currency. Now, however, the alarming increase in the amount of these games around makes many people, including myself, incredibly cynical when the words "mobile" or "free-to-play" appear in regards to games or series that we're familiar with. And in recent memory, more and more publishers and game developers have shifted their focus towards the mobile sphere. EA has continued certain franchises in both Facebook and mobile. Square Enix, has released ports of their older console RPG's. And then of course you have companies like King, the makers of Candy Crush Saga, who are scraping the bottom of the proverbial turd barrel.

EA is almost comically ridiculous with it's approach to the mobile market. The silly Sims Social on Facebook, for example, speaks for itself, but there's the particularly heinous case of Dungeon Keeper on Mobile. As one final insult to Bullfrog, the company EA bought and subsequently killed, they made one of their most well-known IP's, in this case Dungeon Keeper, into a mobile, free-to-play catastrophe.

The idea for Dungeon Keeper, at least in regards to the original games, is that you build out rooms and corridors of your underground lair, as the baddest of bad guys in the realm. You direct imps to destroy various blocks, of which you can then build various structures or areas that support your evil endeavours in either financial or helmet-bashing ways. The two original PC games are a lot of fun, mixing strategy with a tiny hint of city-building/management, and offering hours of entertainment. Now, EA, in their infinite wisdom, decided to make a new entry for mobile devices, with just a teensy-tiny itty-bitty caveot: that it be free-to-play. If you're familiar with other building games that are F2P, you'll know that the way it works is you begin construction or issue commands for different structures/areas/creatures/farms and must then adhere to a timer, which tells you when a job is completed, or when you may once again do something. Unless, of course, you pay a certain amount of real-world dollars to either "speed it up," or to purchase something akin to tokens, which can in turn be spent to hurry the timers. Well the new Dungeon Keeper decides to take that to it's most illogical extreme. What I said before about imps smashing blocks? That's on a timer. A long timer. A long timer that extends more and more the farther away the imps get from the centre. Understand what I'm saying: THE MOST BASIC COMMAND IN THE GAME IS ON A MONETARY-BASED TIMER. This is poop. Timers can extend from minutes, to hours, to even days, and you wouldn't have even completed one room. You are literally at the mercy of the game's (if you can even call it that) in-app purchases. Stop This Nonsense.

Now Square Enix, the company behind, most notably, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, has been moving into mobile gaming in particular more and more lately, for reasons that elude even me. Their earliest efforts involved porting over Final Fantasy I-V onto the iOS and Android platforms. Initially, the ports were serviceable, and at the least playable, but for the love of God I HATE playing an RPG on a touch screen. Perhaps on something like an iPad it may be more suitable, but while I was playing, I had only frustration. My needlessly interjected opinion aside, all seemed acceptable until they decided that the sixth entry should be ported over. What is often regarded as one of the best RPG's, and arguably one of the best games period, Final Fantasy VI (known also as Final Fantasy III on the SNES) is a loving piece of history, nostalgia, and fun for many people. It's graphics, music, story and gameplay are heralded as monuments to the genre. It's the definition of a masterpiece. Now, here it is in mobile form.

What we got was a glitch-ridden, graphically dumbed-down and washed-out, touch-screen infected heap that can't hold a candle to it's proper sprite-based counterpart. It makes me sick.
But Square Enix didn't just have this, oh no. May I regretfully present the ball-crunchingly outrageous, dry-heave inducing, piss boiling monstrosity that is Final Fantasy All the Bravest.

Okay. So what's the deal? Well, ATB essentially lives, breathes and shits microtransactions, and essentially requires them to even function as an entity. The actual premise sounds cool: you gather characters from across all the Final Fantasy games, 2D and 3D, and you do battle against the various enemies. So yeah, you can have Cecil, Squall, Terra, Zidane, Rosa, Cloud, and more doing battle against the biggest threats the series has ever seen! ....Is what I would like to say. Obtaining the characters requires, you guessed it, money money money. But that's not all: the selection is random. And then, when you finally do get into a "battle," you just swipe at the screen in no rhythmic manner whatsoever, and swipe, swipe, swipe some more, while your little currency-based character sprites hop around the screen making silly sounds and flashy lights. Same for the next battle, and the next, and the next, and the...oh, what? I need to pay MORE money to continue to swipe my finger across the screen? I might as well just throw my money into the ocean. In fact, the sight of such an event would be worth more than what this game purports to be. Man...I hate seeing this done to such a classic series. Frickin' hell. Square Enix...you need to stop man. Please. Stop This Nonsense.

And then finally, we have King, the company.

'The King who lives where none may dwell, in the festering swamps of putrid despair. O King, who hath brought such despicable titles from the ungrateful Candy Crush Saga, to the blatantly repugnant Papa Pear Saga. Thy King who stole from the humble, and sequestered the dissenters. O King who pillaged the lands of Facebook to make it His own, to which it became a barren wasteland of irrefutable plague and disease. O King whose most heinous crime came from within, as His greed spewed forth from his wretched desires, and sought to destroy and kill all who bore the name "Candy" or "Saga." Or maybe even "Crush," for His insatiable greed could not be ceased. The tale of The King is a woeful one indeed.'

EA is often regarded as a terrible company, but I find them more guilty of ignorance and stupidity rather than pure greed. But King, on the other hand, is just sheer evil greed. Having the gall to rip-off known franchises like Bejeweled and Peggle, and even the ideas of aspiring developers, is one thing, but to have the nerve to go after names, trademarks, and even individuals is some serious nonsense. You may or may not know, but earlier this year King went on a tirade of sorts as the company sought to trademark the words both "Candy" and "Saga." Think about that for a second. Candy. And Saga. You have got to be kidding me. Of course, this directly affected the development of original games by other studios, such as The Banner Saga, and even independent games like CandySwipe, which had released a full two years before King went on the hunt.

It shall be said that, for various instances, King retracted the trademark(s). But having said that, my opinion of King has not changed. The fact of the matter is that all of this did happen. Whose to say it might not happen again? They need to Stop This Nonsense.

If you play a King game, fine. If you enjoy a King game, that's fine too! I won't judge you. But think for a minute who you're supporting. And I respectfully ask that, if you're reading this, please just don't send me invites for any King game. I look at that the same way I look at spam. And, though not directly related, while you're at it, no more FarmVille invites either. Okay, how about NO FACEBOOK GAMES, period. I, Donlevy, humbly thank you.


Well, that was a rant. Although I do hope it was more than that; in fact, I hope you were at least a little educated or at the very least entertained, by my thoughts on the nonsense that is mobile and Facebook gaming. Please remember that I am a consumer, like you, and I want to know where my money is going, should I choose to spend it. Be mindful of what you buy. Be mindful of who you support. Be a smart consumer.

That's all.