iGame Radio

How do you reward loyal customers who play your paid game all the time? Why, you drop some advertisements on them in an update!

Rovio, developer of the famed Angry Birds, has recently launched their latest update to Angry Birds for the iPad. Included within the fifteen new levels and a new golden egg is a “news section” every time you get to the pause screen. The advertisements are specific to Rovio, pitching their merchandise, but fans are having none of it. The response has been overwhelmingly negative.

One fan stated: “Common [sic] Rovio…haven’t you made enough money on selling the app – now you have to inject it with advertisements too? Completely ruined the experience from playing.”

Other fans have echoed the sentiment, stating that the ads are “tacky-looking” and “a total hack“. One fan asked why the merchandise ads couldn’t have their own menu, rather than be pushed from the main game.

But are these legitimate claims for gamers to make? Just how much of an intrusion do these advertisements make on the game experience? One poster on the Angry Birds HD iTunes page said:

“…this impacts the time to restart the level and continuous fade-in animation is very distracting. Now we’re forced to wait until the news loads EVERY SINGLE time the game is paused before restarting. Serious players will now have to wait an extra second or so each time a level restart is required.”

Really? A whole second? Is that really such an impact on the gameplay experience that “serious” players would stop playing the game? Or is this more of a complaint from people who “want their cake and want it now, dammit”?

Another more legitimate question to ask is whether a company that has already obtained payment for a game from a player should be putting advertisements within that game. Players are used to an economic environment within the game industry where paid games do not have advertisements, and freemium games either have advertisements or the player expects to pay for in-app purchases. Rarely are games ever free…there is almost always some price to pay…but there are also rules to purchases. Rovio seems to have broken those rules…at least according to most of their fans.