News
Free App is a Lie
Cordova, TN; January 22, in the year of our Lord 2014--Family
Friendly Gaming, the industry leader in covering the family
friendly video games is coming out against the lying free apps.
For too long companies have deceived the media and gamers with
two words put together; 'free,' and 'app.” Yet the majority of
these are anything but free once players get into them. There
are repeat pay to play, pay for existing in game content,
advertisements on every screen, spamming Facebook and Twitter
accounts, pay for being impatient, and donation reminders.
I am tired of the bait and switch tactics too many companies are
using. I am ill from all of the horror stories, and customer
complaints. It is draining to have companies, and PR firms
hiding the true nature of their games. Be up front and honest
about what your game is. Most of these are purposely designed to
make you pay them over and over again for the same game. Why not
just do monthly fees like MMO's? Why do they keep lying to the
public? Why aren't they being transparent? Why do they design
these games so that normal players can not play through them?
The direction of deceit is what bothers me the most. I feel like
too many of these companies are unethical. They lack character
and morals. They are greedy, selfish, self-centered,
self-absorbed, and take without putting back in.
Too many of these “free apps” are designed deceptively. They
make it impossible to play the game without paying. So play an
hour, and then you have to pay. Otherwise you hit a brick wall,
and it is impossible to continue in the game. Even though you
can see the content right there. So you pay an excessive amount
of money to have the same thing hit you in another hour. You
look in the mirror and see “SUCKER” on your forehead. Other
“free apps” are designed so you have to spend many hours doing
the same repetitive action just to get the one resource. You
find out you have to spend weeks or months playing to get enough
of a resource to actually use it for anything useful. Others
want complete control of your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts
to spam advertise to all of your friends. Harass them into their
software. Then there are the ones that have advertisements on
every single page. Promising needed resources if you give their
advertisers money.
What can you do about it? First and foremost – do not download
them. If they say free app, then pass. Ignore them, leave them
alone, save your memory usage and bandwidth. The less downloads
the better. If you do download them, then rate them low, and
leave comments to their deceptive nature. Once you do that
delete them. Plenty of these companies brag about their
downloads, and yet they hide how many active users they actually
have. Family Friendly Gaming has noticed the attachment rate is
around 25% in those that have reported to us. Meaning only
Twenty-five percent of consumers keep playing once they realize
the deceptive nature of these “free apps.” Companies will listen
as long as we are a united force.
Disclaimer: There are a small percentage of apps that are
actually truly free. They are being drowned out by the
deceivers.
God bless,
Paul Bury
Family Friendly Gaming