from the marketing,-ever-a-bastion-of-integrity dept.
The Advertising Standards Authority (UK) has banned an EA Dungeon Keeper advert as it is misleading, it omitted important information regarding in app purchases. The advert claimed that the game was free to play but didn't mention the in app purchases that can speed up gameplay. EA pointed out that the "average player would expect a free-to-play title to be monetised with countdown timers and premium currency, and mentioned popular titles that use this feature".
Luckily, the ASA knew more about how the game works, and that at later stages in the game the countdown timers grew longer.
The ASA noted that the game software was available to download for free, and that it was possible to play the game without spending money. However, we understood that several mechanisms within the game took a significant amount of time to be completed, and that these would only be speeded up by using the premium Gem currency. We noted that, although some of these actions could be done simultaneously, there was a limit to how many actions could happen at the same time and that the length of the countdown timers increased according to how far the player had progressed in aspects of the game. We therefore regarded it as extremely likely that players would reach a position where they would be unable to take any further meaningful or progressive action in the game until a timer had finished or been skipped, and that these periods would become longer and more significant, and the cost of skipping increasingly higher, as the player progressed. Although some of the features in the ad did not require waiting for a timer, we noted that these were either incidental or brief (such as 'slapping' the imp characters) or were dependent on other actions that were gated by a timer.
The complaint has been upheld and the ad must no longer appear in it's current form.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Thursday July 03 2014, @03:02AM
I'm disappointed that Dungeon Keeper is morphing into Candy Crush.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by Dale on Thursday July 03 2014, @01:53PM
Then Check out War for the Overworld on Steam. It is the same art, style, and gameplay as DK. It is still in beta and is still fairly clunky, but it has come a long way in the last 5 months.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday July 03 2014, @04:06PM
Welcome to the world of mobile games. In-app purchases have effectively killed mobile games to the point where I haven't found any game that are worth my time (Bad Piggies was the only mobile game I really played). Ad's? I'll deal with them if they pop up after every round. If they are video ads and I am allowed to skip them within 3 or 4 seconds then fine, I will live with them. But purposely slowing the game to a crawl to milk people for real money to purchase worthless in game items is INSANE.
One example: I went looking for decent mobile games. Read a few articles and found there is an interesting Simpsons game. Huge 200 something meg download and a while later I was building a little town. Well they made two types of currency: regular money in dollars and the iconic pink glazed doughnut. The game looks great and appears to be fun to play until you realize its a money trap. They start you off with building a few homes and a quick-e-mart using starting cash and doughnuts. But you soon hit a wall (within 10-15 minutes) as other interesting structures cost doughnuts. Having a character work for money take real HOURS to complete, as many as 24. A WHOLE DAY for no other reason than to coerce you into spending real money on fake money. And getting doughnuts is an incredibly tedious process. But hey why not spend just $99 and buy a hundred or so doughnuts and go buck wild? FUCK YOU is what I had to say and after only having the game for a day, I uninstalled it.
And every other game uses the same tactic "Oh look how fun and pretty this game is. Plus, its FREE!" And it's never is free because the game is crippled by being excessively hard or tediously slow to the point where you are convinced that mobile gaming is dead.
What ever happened to charging a few bucks for a decently fun game? Oh I get it, you didn't make millions off of it.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday July 04 2014, @12:17AM
I'm disappointed about EA in general... For the last 10+ years, however their new DK really ups the ante: while it's possible to say "Fuck you!" in most of the games and just use a memory editor, DK needs a constant internet connection and checksums the map or whatever, so while it's possible to make yourself a couple thousand gems and build 2 or three things, the next online sync/tick, your dungeon just resets!
Like, seriously? GO FUCK YOURSELF, EA! I ain't even playing online you fucks!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @03:48AM
I thought everybody understood that "free-to-play" meant "unable to do anything meaningful in the game without spending money, but technically you dont have to pay to play it".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Thursday July 03 2014, @04:43AM
In civilized places, lies in advertising aren't generally allowed to get so big for so long that the language they use diverges from the common language of the country.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by anubi on Thursday July 03 2014, @06:23AM
Do you still trust what businessmen tell you?
What passes for "salesmanship" in these parts has denigrated into the art of how far one can deceive someone yet be defensible in court.
Well, its nothing all that new... I remember grandpa warning me of snake oil salesmen. He had a spat with them even in his day.
Its getting increasingly hard to find honest businesses. A lot of them have drank the kool-aid the "get rich quick" business consultants are passing around.
Hint: Companies using deceptive sales talk will use the phrase "up to" a lot. Sounds good but doesn't commit them to anything. Dead giveaway. Honest companies do not play the game that way. Companies relying on trickery will. First thing I do is look for that phrase to set the tone of how I see that company. Raise your shields when you see that phrase... as the company has already indicated its basing its sales spiel on trickery and deception.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Thursday July 03 2014, @09:00AM
Of course I don't. It's a real shame because it has gotten to the point that the few who are honest have a difficult time being heard at all.
It's not at all new. In more recent time, we have the used car salesman as the prototypical liar. However, it has gotten more widespread and the degree of the lies is bigger. Some of the businesses such as banks that used to enjoy sterling reputations (mostly earned) are among the biggest liars today (of course, some of them have graduated to actively supporting drug cartels and terrorists, so I suppose it's no surprise they deal crooked).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Thursday July 03 2014, @10:27AM
I meant that directed to us as a public, not to you personally, sjames... albeit I did reply to your post as you brought up the topic...
I realized I had directed it right at you right after I hit the submit button. My intention was to direct it to all of us.
Its been one of my pet peeves that if I lie and deceive, they call it "breach of contract", but if they do it, its called "salesmanship". Caveat Emptor. Even the preacher-men are becoming as dishonorable as a used-car salesman - making whatever claims he thinks that a gullible person ( that is one who will still take the word of a salesman seriously ) will accept. Lie like a dog and call it faith.
I have even observed exactly how they get away with it... "they" will organize. "we" won't. And that costs us control of the situation.
And the banks... don't even get me started on the banks. I am so disillusioned at the state of some people being allowed to literally print money then charge usury on that which they printed up out of thin air. Combine that with their buddies in Congress and the overwhelming inequality between those who have access to the printing press and those who do not...
With the power of advertising, a lot of businesses do not seem to give much of a darn to foster a repeat business experience. I can count on my fingers how many businesses ( sans utilities ) which I do repeat business with.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday July 05 2014, @09:30PM
An interesting thing with the bank situation. At least some portion of We did organize. Then they got bopped on the head, pepper sprayed (literally chemical warfare), and in some cases carted off to jail. Not to mention spied on and infiltrated.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday July 03 2014, @02:59PM
Well what's the good of having that public trust if you don't abuse it? Trust has a value too, and they decided to cash it out.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Thursday July 03 2014, @12:07PM
Well, in the UK we have the ASA, which is an industry self-regulatory body. Its a million miles from perfect but, at least, it can block adverts because they are likely to mislead even if a lawyer could defend them as pedantically true (for a given value of truth). This seems to inconvenience a lot of US firms (No, Apple, you can't sell something as 'iPad with 4G' in the UK if it can't actually use UK 4G services).
The US have this bizarre idea that advertising has something to do with freedom of speech. It took me a while to realise that although the US constitution has stuff that sounds, to European ears, like 'human rights', its really all about protecting businesses, local governments and religious institutions from the federal government, and any protection for individuals is a happy coincidence.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday July 03 2014, @02:56PM
It seems to be the way of the (capitalist) world to take a term that makes sense and is consistently and accurately used and slowly dilute and destroy its meaning.
But they're making money! :D
P.S: also language
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"