Team Lava, you deserve a round of applause...

[thekaygirl]

Seriously everyone, cheers for Team Lava! I mean, I really didn't think any company could successfully ruin one of their apps quite so well!

It's incredible! It only took a few short weeks for me to partially lose interest after the first price hikes were installed on food and nests. But now they've gone above and beyond! The recent increases in the prices of expansions to over six times what they were before was simply genius! Not only did it infuriate me - it made me quit the game altogether!

Really, I am stunned! I don't think I have ever seen a company prove that it doesn't care at all about its consumers as effectively as Team Lava has. I am so proud! It's almost as if they screamed into my ear "Hey! We don't care about anything but our wallets!" Such a brilliant move on their part!

This clear money-making scheme, this total disregard for anything but the bottom line, this blatant overlooking of the players feedback - it's simply fantastic! Exactly what I look for in an app! I love to feel frustrated and unheard each day! It absolutely makes me want to give a five-star rating!! I mean, it's beautiful how Team Lava turned their latest game into a desperate attempt to get more money. Beautiful!

Such a shame that I've somehow found myself losing interest in the game. After all, it was so much fun to need to save for a week in order to expand one time. I'm going to miss that thrill of being stuck in the same spot for days on end with nothing new to do. Such a shame.

You really knocked it out of the park this time, Team Lava! Bravo!

[cubsrock1908]

Wow I really ( don't) like this thread! Not to be rude or anything

[yanochka]

It's a shame that TL doesn't listen to feedback!!!

[yanochka]

Seriously everyone, cheers for Team Lava! I mean, I really didn't think any company could successfully ruin one of their apps quite so well!

Unfortunately that has been their strategy lately for all games - for example take a look in Farm Story Feedback section of the forum...

[queentina3]

Unfortunately that has been their strategy lately for all games - for example take a look in Farm Story Feedback section of the forum...

I agree, and they are losing users by the droves. Oh well, eventually people are going to get fed up and leave completely and new users won't bother downloading their games, then they'll be out of business and out of jobs.

[bobbyrae]

I agree, and they are losing users by the droves. Oh well, eventually people are going to get fed up and leave completely and new users won't bother downloading their games, then they'll be out of business and out of jobs.

Not really. Seems they're doing pretty well. People are still buying those gems. A lot, it seems. So no wonder they don't respond here. They don't have to! Plus, for every glitch in the game the first go to solution is to delete and reinstall the game... 300,000,000 downloads? Lol.

[queentina3]

Like you said, uninstall/reinstall to fix problems that they have on their end, accounts for many of those downloads. Inflated and altered numbers. About or less than half are probably actual games being played. Storm8 games are popular, but to violent for my taste. TL games, well, people will get frustrated and leave, we've already seen long-term players that spent hundreds of dollars a month stop buying/playing, and new users are eventually going to get sick of these changes and leave within a month, or not download at all after reading comments in the app stores.

That listing in the article is also just stating basically the same thing over and over again. Reaching number one is categorized off of downloads, isn't it? Maybe it's off of star-rating, which is easily manipulated. Either case, inaccurate numbers as many just quit games without changing a rating and the multiple times people have to reinstall to fix an issue doesn't give it more users, just more downloads. Not very accurate.

[ankalagon]

Is Dragon Story even listed or mentioned in the storm8 or teamlava main pages? I couldn't find it in a quick check.

[Rachael98]

I like sarcasm.
You're good at it, Kay.

[ankalagon]

I thing queentina is right. Storm8/TL business model relies on having as little customer contact as possible, else they would be swamped by people hit by accidental in-app-purchases. Maximizing the bottom line is the main goal, to appear attractive for a bigger company (Zynga? Google?) to acquire them at a bloated price thinking they are getting good intellectual property... The games only need to work well-enough to attract people; it does not really matter how long they play or if they like the game. That's why every game is a copy of some better/higher ranked game, with some additional glitter thrown in for looks. :-(

This is a good business model, but bad for customer satisfaction or retention (which are not important) ... So, don't expect much from storm8/TL and play accordingly.

PS. Above is just my opinion, and I still like DS as a game.. even when there is a lot of wasted potential; we can only hope TL keeps developing this title in new and better directions. But I'm not holding my breath.