I would argue these are easily among the top ten video games of the last few years. And both can be had for less than $2.00. Plants vs. Zombies became so popular that they ported it over to other gaming devices, such as the Nintendo DS and even the PC.
I value Peggle more than PvZ And even Bejeweled. I consider Bejeweled a much larger success than PvZ in terms of market penetration and putting Popcap on the map.
For the record, I'm not a huge fan of match 3's, but if you're going to pick one Popcap game that really did it, it's Bejeweled. That said, I thought PvZ was pretty boring and didn't get too far.
I never knew how much I'd love tower defense games until I played Defense Grid. Loved PvZ (except the android version), but am very disappointed to hear that PvZ 2 will be free and have micro-transactions. Maybe they can do it right, but I'm not holding my breath.
Whatever, man, it's the way things are now. Buy the coin doubler. It's probably all you need for an okay experience, and it's probably around or under 5 bucks, which is what you would have paid for PvZ, right? It also gets a lot more people to download and play it which means potentially more "Sales" or people spending money on the microtransactions. Basically, it affects you almost none, but helps PvZ 2 reach a lot more people.
I paid $1-3 for PvZ (depending on the OS)... and it doesn't mean I have to like it and probably never will, no matter if it is "the way things are now". Just like most F2P MMOs are terrible, so are most F2P mobile games based on microtransactions. Cosmetic or optional items? Fine. Personally, I will always prefer to pay for the game upfront, not have to run into artificial walls and buy something to continue. And with EA at the helm of Popcap now? I'm not holding my breath. Would rather have a pleasant surprise if it turns out good.
I'd rather pay for a game than have it overrun with shitty advertisements smeared all over it's bottom, sides and opening screen.
There are a lot of fun TD games out there. I'd mention (in no particular order) Gem[-]dropstorm[/-]Craft, Cursed Treasure, Kingdom Rush, and the Bloon series off the top of my head. I think there's even a Kingdom Rush thing for handheld phone things.
It's good and fun, but not without bugs. Should have been a little more polished before release. Keeps you busy as hell and has the nice touch that if your character dies, it stays dead.
Last MMO I tried was SWTOR and it was so disappointing, that I haven't played an MMO since. Never tried LOTRO, because I'm just not a fan of LOTR, my son has played it though and still prefers WoW (though he doesn't play MMOs anymore either). He does play a lot of Diablo 3 though.
This. If they want to get the games in a lot of hands offer a free version with ads and let me pay for the ad free FULL version. Don't nickle and dime me to death with microtransactions.
I think microtransactions have a place in the game, but it should never be REQUIRED to advance or to finish the game itself. If someone wants to cheat to take a shortcut, or the get a really good weapon earlier, then by all means. It should be treated like a Gameshark cheat - nice to play around with, but unnecessary.
