Whenever I see an update with extra content for any game, I assume it's paid for, and it's a nice suprise when it's free. Regardless of if a game had 10 or 100 levels at release, it shouldn't be expected to get all future stuff for free, it's nice to get free stuff but greedy to expect it, and spoilt and childish to then slag the devs off and make shitty reviews on content they've prob not bought or played. Would be totally understandable if UsTwo don't want to make anymore levels because of the embarrassing display of entitlement and greediness shown. It's quite possible that NOBODY will have the choice of future levels now. If you want the extra levels buy them. If you don't want them, don't buy them. It's hardly rocket science! @UsTwo Thank you for the hardwork,love and dedication that you put into Monument Valley.
That. Plus if you want to villify anyone look to Rovio who blazed the trail of free content expectation. If you release a paid game and don't have a "chapter" type setup from day one, you are telling your customers to expect future free content. The shorter the original content the stronger the message. Comparisons to entertainment systems of old are really pointless as the economics are so completely different. For a non-server side game such as this the incremental cost to the developer of additional downloads is zero whereas SMB or Zelda had very real per-unit cartridge production and distribution costs. (One might argue that Apple's cut equates to those costs, but that thinking is wrong because production costs could easily create a situation of per-unit losses - Atari's ET - where as the appstore/play store cut is a fixed percentage.) Console games also have the disadvantage of the used game market cutting into sales. Bottom line, there are more differences with the mobile market compared to console market than there are similarities. iOS devices sold: "well over 800 million" Android devices: over one Billion in 2014 alone PS2 (best selling console of all time): ~155 million (Of course, many iOS devices sold are broken or otherwise not in use, but the same can be said of consoles. I personally owned two PS2s having worn out the first one.)
But iOS game devs already more than compensate for the increased market size by selling their apps at much lower prices than console games. Saying that in addition to selling their apps for a tenth of what similar console or PC games would cost, they should also be obligated to provide additional content for free doesn't seem reasonable to me.
Can you gift someone the expansion? I will gladly buy the OP forgotten Shores expansion, just so he can play it. He will inevitably feel like a douche for ever saying this, but of course he won't admit it. Monument valley was the best game of the year, and was worth much more than we paid for it.
I just laugh that we all heard/knew the gameplay was short in Monument Valley. But still people bought it (then moaned) Its like the ones who see theres a game which says 'DOESN'T WORK ON IPHONE 4' etc and then give a game 1 star as it wont work on their iphone 4 ! No one forced people to get Monument Valley, the reviews/users who liked it said it was short but exceptional. I cant believe in this day and age of tons of reviews/forums etc that anyone bought it and were 'surprised' when it was quite short when the whole world said it was a quality short game. Granted there were people who would have bought it instantly when it was out but come on, lots of other users bought it later after it came out in NZ and then moaned saying it was too short !
Mobile gaming is an extremely competitive market, with potentially billions of customers being able to choose from more than a million apps from thousands of different companies, both big and small. That's as cut-throat as it gets. Acting in a reasonable manner will unfortunately get you nowhere.
I don't really agree with this thinking. Sure a lot of people will evaluate everything primarily on price and get whatever is cheapest and shiniest. Luckily though there are enough people who are willing and able to notice something with a unique and desirable quality like Monument Valley and are willing to pay a little something for it. The fact that Monument Valley sold over a million copies is testament to that.
I agree, i'm glad something like this has been so popular and has 'risen' to the top so to speak. Yes its a competitive market but i find often the quality games like this will stand out from a lot of the usual rubbish you get on the app store. Sometimes its difficult to find 'a gem' like this but to me games like Leos Fortune, Monument Valley and Dodo Master are iOS classics and i'm glad they've got the attention they deserve. I'll gladly pay more when an apps quality, as this was such a huge hit it sounds like we'll get something else in the future from these talented devs so thats great news. As sad as it is when i hear about the likes of Jeff Minter giving up on iOS games there is some good news when you hear about stories like this
"I won't stand for that." good thing you don't have to, dicknose in the meantime, those of us who are interested in the game will gladly pay game developers for their time and energy.
