Welcome to my new blog feature, Easy Mode! It’s all about games and gaming and complaining artfully when things get too damned hard. Because truly, life is too short to have a difficult time winning video games. Enjoy!

So it looks like we’re all stuck with in-app purchases as a gaming business model. I was hoping that it was just a phase and we could all go back to purchasing feature-complete games, but devs know that there’s a sucker born every minute. We won’t see the end of the practice any time soon!

A primary genesis for this model is Apple’s refusal to implement any kind up traditional ‘demo’ system in the iOS App store. The in-app purchases somewhat enabled demoing, but developers realized that they could just offer the game for free and nickel and dime us all until we were bored and broke and they were rich and – hopefully – ridden with guilt. Not holding my breath.

I hate the business model.

Still, with proper implementation and sufficiently awesome game quality, in-app purchases can be non-offensive and even make the game more fun. It’s interesting to see how various game developers go about setting up their in-app stores and upon which game mechanics they try to force the player to choose grinding or paying.

In my experience, the best handling of in-app purchases starts with a feature-complete game that you pay something for rather than a free game with purchased add-ons. I’m actually more likely to try a game that I have to pay for up front, the logic being that since I’m paying for something, I’m going to actually get the playable game that I’m looking for at a high baseline of quality – one that can be played from beginning to a satisfying end without paying for anything else. One game like this is (or was; it’s now free in the App store) the exemplary tower defense game Kingdom Rush by Ironhide Studios. (I think I paid full price for this game twice, once for my iPad and once for my iPhone, more because I wanted to support the developer’s fine effort than for any kind of convenience.)

Kingdom Rush is an interesting case vis a vis in-app purchases due to the fact that they were introduced quite a long time after the game had been around. Ironhide Studios added a number of extra levels for free but then introduced some hero characters, some of which were free (earned in-game) and some of which were premium (anywhere from $.99-$4.99 depending on sales). They also eventually implemented a shop where you could buy power-ups and other items with collectable in-game money. You can, of course, buy the in-game money with real money, but relative to some other games out there, it’s cheap. The heroes and power-ups feel more like fun game extensions rather than nickel-and-dime-ing. Because of the implementation. The game had Easy and Normal difficulty settings to begin with, so they didn’t break difficulty to add things on. They eventually added a Hard mode, which is still doable for the experienced Kingdom Rush-er, but does benefit from the use purchased power-ups and heroes. All-in-all, well done on the implementation front. I hope the next game in the series, Kingdom Rush: Frontiers, follows this model.

On the other hand…

NimbleBit’s latest offering Nimble Quest is a different matter entirely. The game was free when I got it (I think anyway), now $.99. The game mechanics are simple and full of action and enemies, and the game is great to play in little chunks when you have the chance. Progressing through the game is addictive and satisfying. But the way that they use in-app purchases is just kind of crass. In order to unlock the 10-spot (in addition to the 1- and 5-spots) of in-game money – with which you need to purchase boosted power-ups and levels of experience for the characters – it was a $4.99 in-app purchase.

Oof.

You need that 10-spot to get any kind of chance at leveling up characters and progressing through the game at a reasonable rate. Therefore the game really costs $4.99. I actually would have been fine with that, but no, they chose the most execrable technique of nickel-and-dime-ing.

NimbleBit and other devs that set up their games this way basically break their games by manipulating the difficulty balance, forcing the player to decided if they want to grind – like, a lot – or throw real and, therefore, in-game money at the problem. So they make the game too difficult and then force the player pay more to progress. For someone like me that’s been gaming since the Atari 2600, this is anathema. I’m used to paying up to $50-$60 dollars for a complete and immersive experience, so it’s not the money that bothers me. It’s what the particular application of in-app purchases does to game play. Even if I like a game – and I like Nimble Quest – at some point in the experience, I’ll feel cheated. Sure, we’re talking a lot less than $60 for a game, and the depth of experience reflects that, but it’s a value proposition that leaves me scratching my head, wondering why I bother. Spoiler alert: I like games.

But is it even a game anymore if you have to pay to progress in a reasonable manner?

If nothing else, it’s going to be interesting to see how this practice evolves.