Games By James Plafke May. 22, 2014 1:58 pm
Once upon a time, long after Electronic Arts cemented*its status with the gaming populace as a widely hated (though somewhat necessary evil) company, it had a brief period of building up its long lost favor. Gamers loved titles like*Mirror’s Edge and*Dead Space, but eventually, EA fell back into its old habits of beating franchises to death and ruining once-great games. Now, reports from the New Zealand iOS App Store say that PopCap classic*Peggle has been replaced with a new free-to-play version of the worst kind.
Not too long ago, EA-owned PopCap released a sequel to one of its best games,*Plants vs. Zombies, with a new free-to-play pricing structure that the original classic didn’t employ. The gameplay wasn’t changed, and was actually*still very good. The new pricing model — installed at the behest of EA — was widely regarded as having instantly ruined a once promising franchise. Playing for free not only required a lot of grinding through the same levels (at different difficulties), but certain items in the game — ones that were essential to the original and make the grind more tolerable*in the sequel — were locked away behind a paywall and could not be accessed any other way. Now, it appears as though similar practices have been copied and*pasted onto*Peggle.
As you can see from the above screenshots,*Peggle has been infused with a somewhat standard pay-to-play structure. Technically, it’s not much different than the common (and terrible) energy- or stamina-per-turn mechanic that is prevalent in so many mobile games.
For the uninitiated,*Peggle is extremely fun, regardless of your feelings for casual games. It’s basically a bean machine mixed with pinball and*Arkanoid; you shoot a ball up into a labyrinth of pegs and the ball bounces around clearing pegs that it hits, with the goal of clearing the field. Normally, if you run out of balls, you can just start over. Now, the above screenshots appear to show a new model where you can purchase more balls, or get stuck waiting for a timer to count down until your balls refresh for free.
The New Zealand App Store is more or less the testing ground for new apps, so it’s possible that this new model doesn’t make it out of there. However, it wouldn’t be surprising if it does. As of right now, both Peggle and*Peggle Nights does not appear to have made the switch yet outside of New Zealand, so make sure you get the old versions of*Peggle before it’s too late.
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Not too long ago, EA-owned PopCap released a sequel to one of its best games,*Plants vs. Zombies, with a new free-to-play pricing structure that the original classic didn’t employ. The gameplay wasn’t changed, and was actually*still very good. The new pricing model — installed at the behest of EA — was widely regarded as having instantly ruined a once promising franchise. Playing for free not only required a lot of grinding through the same levels (at different difficulties), but certain items in the game — ones that were essential to the original and make the grind more tolerable*in the sequel — were locked away behind a paywall and could not be accessed any other way. Now, it appears as though similar practices have been copied and*pasted onto*Peggle.
As you can see from the above screenshots,*Peggle has been infused with a somewhat standard pay-to-play structure. Technically, it’s not much different than the common (and terrible) energy- or stamina-per-turn mechanic that is prevalent in so many mobile games.
For the uninitiated,*Peggle is extremely fun, regardless of your feelings for casual games. It’s basically a bean machine mixed with pinball and*Arkanoid; you shoot a ball up into a labyrinth of pegs and the ball bounces around clearing pegs that it hits, with the goal of clearing the field. Normally, if you run out of balls, you can just start over. Now, the above screenshots appear to show a new model where you can purchase more balls, or get stuck waiting for a timer to count down until your balls refresh for free.
The New Zealand App Store is more or less the testing ground for new apps, so it’s possible that this new model doesn’t make it out of there. However, it wouldn’t be surprising if it does. As of right now, both Peggle and*Peggle Nights does not appear to have made the switch yet outside of New Zealand, so make sure you get the old versions of*Peggle before it’s too late.
More...
