Do you remember the good old days Facebook games were new to Facebook? Back then there were a few must play games.
Facebook let developers put their games on Facebook, and Facebook filled the sidebar with ads. So, while you were playing you could see ads that were making Facebook a lot of money. That was great...for Facebook.
One game that I loved back in those days was called Pack Rat. It was a virtual card collecting game, and I was hooked, as were many of my friends. We were at play dates with the kids, setting up trades, getting other friends into it, hooking up friends with our other friend who had the card they were looking for. Seriously it was nuts.
After a while of having a super popular game, the people at Pack Rat realized they were struggling to keep their operation open, and yet Facebook was raking in the dough on the side bar ads.
I remember seeing a lot of polls and questions about would we pay if they started charging. Many people balked. Some gave suggestions such as:
- do in app ads
- get companies to sponsor some of the card sets
- do a monthly fee for premium sets, or getting access to sets first
- go to your own servers and put up sidebar ads, or charge a nominal fee
There were many options suggested, and many polarizing opinions. In app purchases weren't common like they are now.
They decided to come up with a monthly fee, with premium cards, that was fine. But then then added premium stores, and the regular stores, where you could "buy" the cards with coins you earned the game started getting worse and worse cards. Also they would sell out so fast you had to spend hours sitting in one store and trying to buy. The premium people started trying to sell the cards we all needed but couldn't for real money. It got crazy, and so hard to complete collections I stopped playing.
I recently was clearing out old apps and things on my Facebook so I went to check out Pack Rat. Well they have left Facebook altogether and went to their own servers and website.
The problem is, they don't have any sidebar ads, and they are still going with the same ways of collecting money. So it is still no fun to play. Besides that, everything has moved, and I banked all my cards in my vault...and I have no idea how to get more?
There is a very basic tutorial that really told me nothing on how to play. The main idea is to trade or steal from other packs. Problem with that? You need cards in order to do that. I could buy some with my coins, but then I have to buy ones I need, and either trade them away or bank them....then I am back where I am.
I feel like they took an awesome game and killed it because they started out with a poor business model, tried to get a new business plan, and then went too far into a cash grab mode.
Have you played any games that you stopped playing for one reason or another?
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