In Defence of Dungeon Keeper Mobile

Dungeon Keeper Mobile upset a lot of fans of the original series. Once the dust had settled a little, I wrote a piece defending it for Den of Geek.

Some will tell you this heralds the end of gaming as we know it.

Some will tell you this heralds the end of gaming as we know it.

really wanted to write a piece actually defending it as a game outright as opposed to what I went with in the end. Tempting as it is to play devil’s advocate and fight for a position you don’t really hold, I just couldn’t produce anything approximating a positive review of this thing.

My distaste for the non-game pay-and-wait model is overwhelming and my suspicion of micro-transactional features runs deep enough that it actually threatens to stop me enjoying perfectly excellent games like Hearthstone which carry similar strands in its DNA.

At the same time, I do like change and I do welcome companies trying new ways to make money out of an industry that seems to lose far more of it than anyone expects. With yesterday’s news that Irrational was being wound up, it shows that even large well established studios can be hit with the financial failure stick, so if a few shoddy games can provide the data points needed to explore new revenue avenues, then it’s realistically a small price to pay.