The strategy video game Dungeon Keeper mobile version is being criticized for being unplayable because of its in-app payment system.
Dungeon Keeper is a game wherein players need to build and protect their dungeons from characters that steal their treasures. In able to build a lair, players will need to use imps for digging out rooms and hallways. Once constructed, the dungeon will attract monsters, which will then be used as guards and defenders of the treasure.
The video game, which was first released by Electronic Arts (EA) in 1997, is easy to play and it is, in fact, well-liked by many. The company decided to make a version optimized for tablets to attract more users. However, the mobile version has been accumulating a lot of negative reviews and ratings since it's December 2013 release.
Many players are reportedly unhappy about the performance of the characters which affects the speed of the construction of lairs. Unless you buy gems, the building of a dungeon in a normal ground will take four hours while the digging in rock-strewn grounds will take a day to complete.
The Escapist reviewer Jim Sterling stated in his report, "It's free to wait, but not to play anything. There's nothing to actually play." He said that the need to purchase gems, which players need to literally buy with real money, before speeding up progress and getting upgrades undermines its "free to play" claim.
Peter Molyneux, a British video game designer and game programmer who created the real Dungeon Keeper, said that the American video games developer and distributor failed to get the game's balance right.
He told BBC News, "I felt myself turning round saying, 'What? This is ridiculous. I just want to make a dungeon. I don't want to schedule it on my alarm clock for six days to come back for a block to be chipped.'"
"I don't think they got it quite right, the balance between keeping it familiar to the fans that were out there but fresh enough and understandable enough for this much bigger mobile audience," he added.