GregHowley.com

It's been a while since I've talked about any video game. Perhaps I've been burned out post-Lungfishopolis*. But there's one thing that's certain: in the past couple years, I've been playing way more mobile games. Phone games mostly, but also a couple on my wife's tablet.

The one I'm going to discuss here is Plants vs Zombies 2. More specifically, I'd like to examine that franchise's move from a traditional casual game to the so-called "Free-to-play" model.

Plants vs Zombies 2 has three level templates, much as PvZ1 did. Whereas the first game had the front yard, the back yard, and the roof, PvZ2 has Ancient Egypt, The Pirate Seas, and The Old West. Each has its own rules, differences, and new zombies. That much is fine.

After completing all ten levels within one of those "worlds", you're faced with a portal to the next world. This portal can only be opened by collecting stars. To get stars, you revisit the levels you've completed and undergo challenges that have specific new rules. These rules may stipulate that you need to collect a minimum amount of sun, have a maximum number of plants at any given time, not let the zombies pass a certain point, or not use a single lawn mower. These are fine, although some get very difficult. The one that kills me is the rule that you can't spend any sun (i.e. create any plants) for 40, 60, or 80 seconds. Essentially, this means that you've got to let the first zombie get all the way across the board. The only way to stop it without creating a single plant is to spend coins for a power-up. And while I've earned a decent number of coins, this means that each attempt at this level uses some. After those coins are gone, you've got to grind to get more, or - surprise! - spend real cash to get more.

Now, I'm fine with not spending cash to get the subset of plants that are only available for those who make the additional purchase. I don't need to spend extra to get ahead. My problem is that when developers pursue the free-to-play model, they make the game far less enjoyable for the majority of players who aren't "whales", by which I mean those gamers who spend outrageous amounts of cash on free-to-play titles.

So let me actually think about numbers here. To reach the third world in Plants vs Zombies 2, I've got to come up with 40 stars. World 2 has 10 levels, each of which has three stars. That's thirty if I get them all, which given the previously-mentioned difficulties seems unlikely. There are also a small number of additional side levels, unlockable only by collecting a various numbers of randomly-occuring keys, and each of these side levels may have 3 or 4 stars. Now that I'm thinking about it, it's going to be far more difficult than I'd realized to get those forty stars. I'd much rather have paid $15 for Plants vs Zombies 2 and been rid of the slot machine mentality of a free-to-play game.