Problems in Game Land: IAP Fees Get Gamers Up In Arms

04. Dungeon Keeper - Mythic Entertainment

It is very hard to say the name of this game without throwing up a little in our mouth. Not because the game is bad - it actually is not bad as far as game play goes - but because it is the unworthy successor of a game - the original Dungeon Keeper - that many gamers remember with the same measure of fondness that old school gamers give to the first time they played D&D.

To put this in perspective for you, of all the games of the 1990s the original Dungeon Keeper is both among the most memorable and the most popular - at least among gamers who like this genre. That being the case, attempting a remake no matter what style and form that attempt takes, was going to be an up-hill struggle.

So to have the folks behind it opt for what can only be described as a mercenary structure that unleashed a succubus on any gamer who downloaded it that instantly siphoned money out of their bank accounts and credit cards is by far the least of the crimes.

How bad was it? Put it this way, Peter Molyneux (the guy who created the original) publicly ripped into the game after it was released, describing it as "ridiculous" and he was NOT talking about the in-app purchase scheme either, he was talking about the game play elements!

In the end and facing massive criticism over micro-transactions that felt to the players like muggings, EA went public, explaining that if the players played the game in small sessions several times a day it was perfectly playable without spending a single dime.

Of course if they want to play in larger blocks of entertaining time well, then they have to pay.

Backlash was so severe over the Dungeon Keeper mess that parent company EA Games ended up closing the studio that created it -- its EA Mythic location in Fairfax, Virginia.