why I'm finished paying money to Rovio

[Jkhab69]

I understand Rovio is in the business to make a profit. I’m all for capitalism. I’ve observed many things in various angry birds games that demonstrate blatant “rigging” in an attempt to cause players to spend more money on various power ups. Some of the challenges in Go are also obviously made extremely difficult in order to force players to spend a big chunk of money. I draw the line when the rigging is so blatant and obvious that it cannot be explained away or ignored. with a Maxxed out racer, I was finishing first very easily when I cared to, if I didn’t spend too much time trying for coins or to get other challenges. That is, until the challenge was to finish first three times in a row, with a buy out of FORTY NINE FREAKING DIAMONDS!!!!! my racer was 640cc. the next closest racer was 377cc, yet for some reason, even ignoring coins and concentrating only on finishing first, I had four or five instances where I would win the first two races and then lose the third. looking at the EXORBITANT cost of diamonds in the store, and realizing that there are more than likely many more examples of blatant greed awaiting me, I’ve decided that I’ve spent my last penny on Go. I cannot justify the exponentially increasing cost. as I’ve done with a couple other Rovio products, I’ll play a bit here and there, but much like a dowsing in cold water, I’ve been shocked out of my hypnotized state. I’m sure, based on a few other comments I’ve seen, that I will now be slammed by shills working for Rovio, probably called delusional, incompetent, etc. I would guess I’ve spent about $1000 on AB since I first began playing four or five months ago. unfortunately, this incident has made me think about what I’ve spent, and I can no longer justify the cost, not just on Go, but on the other AB games as well. I now see why Rovio is having problems. if I can go from a fanatic to completely disillusioned in a few months, all due to displays of greed and an attitude that must assume we are all too stupid to realize that we are being set up, I’m sure many others who were less enamored with the AB franchise caught on even more quickly than I did.

Topic

[burpie]

@jkhab69 AB Go! represents a turning point in Rovio’s quest for cash. This was Rovio’s first proper freemium game. To unlock the characters in AB Go! you can either wait endlessly for birds to recharge OR you can pay. (Really? The birds are too tired to play unless you pay them?!) You can either replay hundreds of races to mine gold for required upgrades OR you can pay. More of the same when you get to the challenges. If you’re stuck, buy your way out! For a long time Rovio didn’t check if challenge objectives were even feasible (examples). The money-grab wasn’t exactly subtle and your observation that races become harder doesn’t surprise me at all.

I suppose it’s possible to complete AB Go! and 2,000 challenges without paying Rovio a dime, but it would take a special kind of determination. I have no idea what a reasonable amount would be for 5 months worth of playing. A thousand bucks sounds excessive, and I can only hope that you got your money’s worth of entertainment.

Personally, I wish Rovio the best but I refuse to support their new business model. When I started playing Angry Birds, I paid €0.75 for Angry Birds Space Premium and €0.80 for the extra Danger Zone episode. That was it, there were no extra costs or extra options for anything. Back then I actually thought that €0.80 for Danger Zone was a rip-off! Cut the Rope and other great games, same thing. Then Rovio introduced pay-to-use Mighty Eagles and Power-Ups in their old games. You didn’t need those features to keep competing for the leader boards, but the trend towards freemium was obvious. After AB Go!, Rovio messed up Star Wars ll with pay-to-use Character Swaps and Last Chance options. Same with Stella. Those things are required if you’re playing for the leader boards.

From $2.00 for unlimited game play in 2012 to a whopping $200 per month in 2014. Yep, beware of what games you get into!

[Jkhab69]

update: just played another 15 races trying to beat the challenge, pretty much the same pattern as before, unable to win three times in a row despite having a 650cc racer compared to a 370 cc. then I tried some fruit splat levels, same disparity in vehicles but I came in first EVERY TIME, even without using any boost. since they want a dollar fifty just to bypass this very obviously rigged challenge, I’m almost done with the game, and Rovio is done getting money from me for it.

[dbkraemer]

Hi @Jkhab69 – I am guessing that you are talking about the Rocky Road track? And I am also going to guess that you are on Track 1? You are correct that the opponents are much more difficult for this challenge, despite their low cc’s. I think that Rovio went way overboard in trying to make this particular challenge “challenging” and made it almost impossible. I believe that the opponents are using multiple special powers, which is how they are winning.

If you are interested, my strategy on this challenge was to use Corporal Pig as my racer with my fastest kart. He’s a good racer for this because he has three uses of his “boost” and his spinning balls-on-chains help you go right through the TNT boxes. Also, definitely take the left track just after launch. This is the shorter side. And if need be, use his special power twice. Sure, it may cost you an extra 3 gems (and if needed for all three races, 9 gems total), but you can get that back the next day by winning the 10 gems from the daily challenge.

Just my thoughts. I don’t work for Rovio, I just love playing AB Go! and there are some levels that make me want to tear out my remaining hair. There is one Fruit Splat challenge in Stunt where they want you to “remove the fruit bar in 40 seconds”. Even with the Leaf Blower and the Target kart, the fruit are too spread out on the track to even get to enough in 40 seconds. I wrote to them about a month ago with a detailed list of some “impossible” challenges. Hopefully they will fix some of these for future updates.

Anyway, you seem to be enjoying the game for the most part. There are plenty of other tracks and challenges that you can try if you just want to ignore this one. Maybe come back to it at a later time. I hope this helps in some way. Best of luck :)

[Jkhab69]

@dbkraemer , I finally managed to get the three wins through sheer luck. my very next challenge was to beat my own score. not too difficult, right? the first race I got something like 135k, and the closest I came for the next thirty races or so was about 7k less. very big coincidence or more rigged challenges? at any rate, yes I do like the game, just not the blatant, insult-my-intelligence challenges that are close to impossible, and the high cost to skip them. at 49 gems each, it can add up to REAL money very fast. btw, thanks much for the tips!!

[angryde]

Interesting position – @jkhab69.

@dbkraemer and myself can certainly sympathize with your frustrations. I’m not sure how any reasonable person could avoid feeling somewhat scammed by Rovio’s tactics… however, to be fair, the mobile gaming market is pretty hardcore ATM and given Rovio’s shocking losses over the past couple of quarters… understandable..?

I suppose our position – if I could assume DB’s agreement with me here – is that at least Rovio provides the casual gamer with (free) access. We’re members of a thread that’s all about leeching every scrap of enjoyment out of AB Go with the lowest RW spend.

I myself have beaten the game and have completed over 1020 challenges sans any RW$ spend. Not a single cent. Plus, I’ve saved over 4000 gems – which I use to slowly knock over the more challenging challenges (armed with an abundance of patience).

I can well appreciate that not everyone’s going to find such an approach particularly entertaining! Lol. For me – and others – avoiding RW spend becomes part of the challenge and therefore part of the fun… it’s simply about adjusting your expectations/mindset going in…

In any case, thanks for a thought provoking post… we need more of them! I echo my fellow poster’s comment – whatever your frustrations or spend… I hope you managed to enjoy the game and don’t feel too much regret..? Buyer’s remorse can be a cruel mistress, yeah!? ;)

We’ve all been there!

Best of luck to you, mate!

p.s. My cost to skip a challenge is… uurrgghh… over 400 gems. Lol.

[Jkhab69]

@angryde , I had an epiphany after reading your reply. I get frustrated when I’m playing the same level over and over and over and then I get an impossible challenge that I can’t beat. I just realized it doesn’t matter if I can’t beat that challenge, I can still play that level and earn coins and gems and then at some point, though it might take a while, I can eventually use those gems that I get from playing ad nauseum and get past it. paying to get by levels due to impossible or rigged challenges really irks me, but if I use “free” gems it’s irritating but not quite as bad.

[angryde]

@jkhab69

Dude, I was really stoked – and kinda relieved – to read your latest post re: my last post. (a) because I thought that my comment kinda made me come across like a Rovio sock-puppet, and, (b) it’s always good to see reasonable people responding reasonably on the interwebz! Lulz.

Basically, everything you said was valid, but, capitalism being capitalism (as you originally pointed out), stuff’s always going to tend towards suckage, yeah!? It’s a shame, especially when one invests a tonne of time and energy into something like AB Go. It’s amazing how ‘invested’ we get in such utter tripe!

Like you said, in some ways these shocks are productive – they ‘wake us up’ from our mindless consumer fugues! Curiously, this is why I lurk on the nest… people like @dbkraemer keep it funny and keep it real… making the (annoying) process of grinding + ‘leeching fun’ that much more, well, fun!

Anyway, dude, thanks for the comeback, it was a great read! And – don’t worry – I’m full of ideas about how to make AB Go — cough — ‘fun’ after what seems like months of brainless repetition (for seemingly no purpose save compulsion and habit!)

L8R

[Narc]

It’s nice to see that its not just me thinking this. They seem to have done the same thing to transformers with the long amount of time it takes to earn coins and upgrades (needed to complete levels) and epic with the need to earn gold coins. I mean who in their right mind would ever pay $100 for the large amount of gold coins in epic or even $50 or $20.

[Jkhab69]

@narc good point. i will admit to having spent quite a bit of money in ab tournament since powerups are permitted and the spirit of competition got to me, but I do have to admit the prices are very close to obscene. $100 for virtual items to help in a virtual game where youre going to have to play it over and over and over using up those virtual items probably in about two days with no real concrete return. rovio would actually make more money in the long run if the prices werent so high for the bulk purchases because the more people would make bulk purchases, use up the items and make more bulk purchases.

[Narc]

I doubt this will change. I’m already see many other app makers doing the same freemium games. Candy Crush did it and will continue do to it as long as it continues to make any sort of profit. As long as it makes money, I wouldn’t expect rovio to change anything either . On a separate topic, i contacted rovio twice through the support website about an issue connecting through facebook on ABGO and still have received no response.

[Jkhab69]

@dbkraemer , heres another example of an impossible challenge. in the air challenge, splat 30 fruit in a race while drifting. i cant seem to get even one, possibly because of the design of the racers in that round. oh well, i’ll just keep playing until i accumulate enough to skip that challenge.

[dbkraemer]

Well, it depends on how upgraded your karts are. If they are all fully upgraded you will have a very hard time drifting. If you have a kart that can drift, you need to use Hank’s tornado power on the large cluster of fruit before the final turn (I assume you are talking about track 1). Just as you begin to drift into that first group of fruit, hit the tornado button and that should do the trick. It may take a few tries, but it is not impossible if you have a kart that is able to drift. I hope this helps, and gives you a little hope :)