I'm starting to become more and more disappointed with the Zynga game Scramble with Friends (Boggle). When I first started playing about a year ago, there were only three potential power-ups on which a player could use his or her 15 tokens. Also, a person could play a maximum of two power-ups per round. Then a 4th power-up was added and for three extra tokens, a player could have a third power-up for a round. Then a premium was added, where a player could pay money (actual money) to earn a mega-freeze power-up, which gave him or her an additional minute of playing time in a round. A practice mode was now just added. For the cost of 3 tokens, a player can play a practice round. With all of these additions and the cost of each, it's starting to look more and more like Zynga is trying to almost force players to spend actual money in order to regularly compete with the best.
Now, I'll admit that I'm a great player. I've never lost. However, I'm also not going to fork over a bunch of money just to keep up with opponents' power-ups. So, if players become really motivated to beat me by way of spending actual money on mega-freeze power-ups and the like, it's going to be difficult for them to lose.
I'm starting to reach the point where I may seek other Boggle-like games on my phone, because if this trend continues, how will we be able to decide who is better than who? How would it be fair for a player to have 3 minutes of playing time compared to 2 minutes for the other?
As far as the new practice mode goes, as I wrote about the mega-freeze premium power-up in another blog, I don't think this option is worth the cost. It costs more to play a practice round than to use two power-ups in a round of an actual game. If a person doesn't have many regular opponents and is set on beating somebody, then I could understand giving the practice mode a gander. However, if a person has as many regular opponents as I do, all the practice mode will do is delay actual game-playing (due to temporarily running out of tokens) or force a person to spend actual money on additional tokens. Like I said, it's definitely not worth it. Hopefully this disappointing trend doesn't continue or else I (and perhaps many others) may have to find a different version of Boggle to play on our phones.
Now, I'll admit that I'm a great player. I've never lost. However, I'm also not going to fork over a bunch of money just to keep up with opponents' power-ups. So, if players become really motivated to beat me by way of spending actual money on mega-freeze power-ups and the like, it's going to be difficult for them to lose.
I'm starting to reach the point where I may seek other Boggle-like games on my phone, because if this trend continues, how will we be able to decide who is better than who? How would it be fair for a player to have 3 minutes of playing time compared to 2 minutes for the other?
As far as the new practice mode goes, as I wrote about the mega-freeze premium power-up in another blog, I don't think this option is worth the cost. It costs more to play a practice round than to use two power-ups in a round of an actual game. If a person doesn't have many regular opponents and is set on beating somebody, then I could understand giving the practice mode a gander. However, if a person has as many regular opponents as I do, all the practice mode will do is delay actual game-playing (due to temporarily running out of tokens) or force a person to spend actual money on additional tokens. Like I said, it's definitely not worth it. Hopefully this disappointing trend doesn't continue or else I (and perhaps many others) may have to find a different version of Boggle to play on our phones.
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