Rovio Says Paid Angry Birds Had 'Negative Impact' on Free-to-Play Versions (arstechnica.com) 43
Back in the days before practically every mobile game was a free-to-play, ad- and microtransaction-laden sinkhole, Rovio found years of viral success selling paid downloads of Angry Birds to tens of millions of smartphone users. Today, though, the company is delisting the last "pay upfront" version of the game from mobile app stores because of what it says is a "negative impact" on the more lucrative free-to-play titles in the franchise. From a report: Years after its 2009 launch, the original Angry Birds was first pulled from mobile app stores in 2019, a move Rovio later blamed on "outdated game engines and design." The remastered "Rovio Classics" version of the original game launched last year, asking 99 cents for over 390 ad-free levels, complete with updated graphics and a new, future-proofed engine "built from the ground up in Unity." In a tweeted statement earlier this week, though, Rovio announced that it is delisting Rovio Classics: Angry Birds from the Google Play Store and renaming the game Red's First Flight on the iOS App Store (presumably to make it less findable in an "Angry Birds" search). That's because of the game's "impact on our wider games portfolio," Rovio said, including "live" titles such as Angry Birds 2, Angry Birds Friends, and Angry Birds Journey.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
pay-to-win (Score:4, Informative)
Free-to-play, pay-to-win.
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It's even worse than "Free to play, pay to win" now. Modern "free" games are basically an ad delivery vehicle pretending to be a source of entertainment.
Need more lives? Watch an ad. Need more powerful weapons? Watch an ad. Can't figure out how to beat a level? Skip it by watching an ad! If you somehow beat the level without those powerups, expect to watch 2 more ads before the next level loads.
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That is just paying using the currency of your attention rather than your credit card. It works because kids don't have credit cards, and (hopefully) most people with a credit card would not use it as frivolously as you use your attention watching ads.
The transition to SAS and F2P is tough... (Score:2)
Negative impact == loss of money for Rovio (Score:5, Interesting)
So basically, they started with a regular game that cost money, but no ads.
Then they created a free game, with ads and other revenue.
So the "negative impact" is a loss of revenue for Rovio.
I would say this is NOT a negative impact for the customer.
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"Loss of revenue" is such a funny term.
I didn't buy a lottery ticket, so I'm reporting a $200m loss of revenue on my taxes this year.
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yeah every night i send over a bill to the producers of jeopardy for not paying out my winnings (i play from home nightly)
they refuse to respond, i'm thinking of getting a lawyer.
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I didn't buy a lottery ticket, so I'm reporting a $200m loss of revenue on my taxes this year.
You are thinking too small. Claim the reported payouts of all lotteries across the whole planet as a loss.
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It's a negative impact on both sides. Backward compatibility just isn't there on Android for games. That means that even if you charge 99 cents one time, you're on the hook 8 years later making sure that one-time purchase still works with new versions of Android but without any new revenue to pay for it.
If you could write an app one time and have it work properly forever, then a one-time purchase is a good deal for both parties. This is where consoles (and Windows...mostly) still have the advantage.
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whenever a PR goon makes a statement, always assume the exact opposite is true.
You Keep Using The Word... (Score:2)
I don't think the speaker understands what "ground-up" means...
I always pay... (Score:3)
I always pay for the games I like to get rid of the ads. I won't play a game that wants to keep throwing ads in my face...
So Roxio might think they're losing because they haven't been showing me ads, but now they're going to lose my payment as well as showing me ads because I won't have their games on my devices.
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I have been playing ad-driven Angry Birds since it came out and am currently enjoying Angry Birds 2 by watching ads
They offer the ability to purchase packages of coins/etc to get ahead, but I steadfastly refuse to pay a penny for it
There have been periods where the ads get 'stickier' or try to launch install programs, which a respond to by complaining on their most recent facebook past, and they seem to respond
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The version of Angry Birds currently available through Apple Arcade (subscription fee) has no ads and you progress through levels with skill and luck, but no additional purchases (as a game should be).
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but now they're going to lose my payment as well
They don't care about you. They care about idiots they can milk with pay-to-win mechanics.
Walled gardens = Lost history (Score:1)
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Angry Birds could have been considered a "modern classic" by now, a step into a possible new genre of "retro mobile games". But they decided to use DRM to destroy their legacy, meaning once again only pirates and jailbreakers get to experience it. Most retro game preservation is only possible due to ROM ripping and emulation as original hardware gets rare and expensive. Angry Birds could become part of the lost generation of games that future generations will never experience, all because of a few extra dollars for the CEOs car.
If we had a non "Mickey Mouse" copyright system, games would be become public domain as soon as they are delisted from game stores.
I bet you would feel different if you wrote a novel, then decided to revoke the publisher's rights for failing to send you royalty payments, or something.
Can't stand it (Score:2)
Does anyone know any good Android games that you can just pay for and not see ads? Imagine if they did that in Playstation or XBox games.
I did a little work for a print shop (Score:3)
The company went tits up because they sold to all the little print shops out there and once they had the software they never felt the need to buy it again. It was easy to use and well designed so it didn't need support either.
One of the points the communists (actual communists, not Democratic Socialists) make is that we spend a *lot* of time doing work that exists to keep money flowing in instead of making the things that we want. Stuff like this and planned obsolescence and systems like out transportation network that's built to sell cars, etc, etc.
Say what you will about their economic system, but they do have a point.
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Under Communism, those shops would STILL be using that VB app because the government would not see it fit to create anything newer since "it works" and that money could be better spent building new schools for orphans or something. While that's all well and good, it would result in a system where nobody is allowed to have anything better so long as anyone else is lacking. That's why the Soviet Union was so behind the times and modern-day Cuba and NK still are.
Capitalism has some amount of work required just
Re: I did a little work for a print shop (Score:2)
So I'm a Democratic socialist (Score:2)
In a communist system the people using the software would literally vote to have updates made and those updates would be made based on their votes.
Now y
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tHAT wASNT rEAL cOMMUNISM
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Public choice doesn't work on this level of granularity. A given piece of software might have 10000 users and everyone will vote to not pay for an upgrade to be made. Realistically you will vote for a person who will head an agency in charge of making various software. That person will not waste time catering to just 10000 voters. On the other hand a market of 10000 people willing to pay $200 for an upgrade is enough to support a developer for a year.
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10000 x $200 is $2 million. $2M is enough to support 20 or even 40 developers for a year.
But under exploitative capitalist employment, around 3 to 5 devs will be hired to do the work of those 20 to 40 for around $150K to $250K (each of them under threat of being sacked* if they can't magically do the work of 8 or more people), another $100K or so will pay for expenses, a few percent will go to some elaborate tax evasion scheme, and some rich cunt will pocket the rest.
* never buy into the "let go" euphemism
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Why is any of this a problem? The company made money for some time, customers got a lot of use out of the product, former employees went on to work on new things. Not everything is meant to be permanent, although these days it's easy to keep old digital goods available for sale and license source to consulting companies that can make improvements for clients.
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I used to work at a photography store. I could think of a million improvements to our software that would warrant buying a new version, but the vendors never seemed to change/add the features we wanted. Most stuff was designed for NT4 and wouldn't even run on Win2K. In general, the stuff we had was pretty awful and usability left a lot to be desired.
Naturally, all those companies eventually went of business long before the whole photography market crashed. That was back in my college days, and it didn't
Restrict your product, consumers buy other brands (Score:3)
Rovio don't want to admit it but Chillingo got it right first time - players come first before profits.
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Why would removing your own game from a saturated market, encourage users to play your other games?
Same reason my girlfriend owns a giant read angry bird plushie: brand recognition.
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If you remove the product and have no brand loyalty then people get a better product elsewhere.
If there was brand loyalty, Rovio's other games would have already been played, and they wouldn't have this problem, therefore this move is only shooting themselves in the foot by removing a *product* people have loyalty to.
Of course people conflate the product with the brand too, which is possibly why you mentioned the Angry Bird plushie, think Rovio,
Quite an assumption... (Score:2)
I put pre-paid Angry Birds on my child's devices _because_ I could do so ad free. If that wasn't an option I wouldn't have installed it at all, and Rovio would have got zero money.
Maybe Rovio have done the math, but I suspect they might make more money on Angry Birds overall, but their brand will become even more diminished than it is now, as it won't have the same reach to young children.
Changing Tech... (Score:2)
We can point to Rovio for being a bit too greedy
We can point to Apple and Google for their store sales issues
We can point to device makers for planned obsolesce
But our expectations are also to be blamed.
For the old guys here, the NES Games we had as a kid, still work, but only technically only on the NES they wont work on the Super Nintendo, or the Nintendo Switch. The legacy games that we can play on the new platform is due to some work to move and port the game over. But we still can't take the cartridge
Time to call the nuke strike from orbit... (Score:2)
... it is the only way to be certain to destroy this cancer...
It's a campfire (Score:1)
People get so caught up in things, they forget that you can get the same happiness sitting outside and staring at the coals of a campfire.
Have you nerds ever sat outside under the stars and stared at the coals of a campfire?
It's a far superior form of passive entertainment than movies, music or video games. But, you would have to experience it to know that.
They're not looking to sell games. (Score:1)
Because selling you ads is more lucrative.
And this is how companies go bankrupt (Score:1)
Sticking to their old products, not innovating, sabotaging themselves.