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For some reason Vendetta Online is listed as a free game in the windows store. While it is free to download and currently has a small free trial, this doesnt mean it is a free game and should be listed as such. Ive contacted microsoft support through a chat support window for 1/2 hour and explained this to her, but she had the competency of a rock and just kept telling me to contact the games developers...even though its listed incorrectly in THEIR store. So why is it listed under the free games when its a pay game?? Thanks for any help, I got none from microsoft.
It's a subscription game with a Free to Play mobile tier. If this is listed in the mobile store of Microsoft then it's by design. But the PC version is not. Technically it is free to download though so it's not false advertising.
I believe Vendetta is listed in the Windows store due to being available on Windows RT mobile devices.
As stated on the landing page, Vendetta is Free To Play on mobile; you can continuously play a character on mobile, for as long as you like, without paying. It is not incorrect to say that it is a free game.
As stated on the landing page, Vendetta is Free To Play on mobile; you can continuously play a character on mobile, for as long as you like, without paying. It is not incorrect to say that it is a free game.
It is incorrect Phaser, because free to play only extends to Android at this time. Neither iPad not RT devices get the option. Maybe it is intended to spread to iOS and stuff in the future - but right now, except for 'droid - you have to pay to play after the trial has ended.
[edit]
The front page is also false advertising. Don't buy into the lies!
[edit 2]
Just for clarification (from the December newsletter)
Vendetta Online is now FREE TO PLAY on Android!
Android Phone
We've been experimenting with this change in the business model for a little while, and we've had a really enthusiastic response from players thus far, including much higher peak numbers online (and growing). The version is available from the Google Play Store as well as the Amazon AppStore.
It works like this: Free to Play users may only play from their mobile device, not on the PC (that requires a "Lite" subscription upgrade). Free users can play for as long as they like, with no time limitations of any kind. Both Lite and F2P are capped to level 4 in all license types, any pre-existing high-level characters are capped, but regain their old levels if the account is re-subbed.
Additionally, Free and Lite users may gather an in-game currency, called "Crystal", which is needed to acquire certain higher-level equipment and items. Crystal can be accrued through the process of daily play, or purchased in bulk.
The best way to create a Free To Play account is to install the game on an Android device, and make your account from within the game (not via the game website).
None of this impacts Premium subscribers in any way. They do not have to deal with "Crystal" or level limitations, they still represent the premium game experience.
We expect to bring this to iOS as well in the near future. The iOS updated versions are currently in open beta testing. If you have an iOS 8 device and would like to help us test, sign up here:
Notice no mention of RT devices? AFAIK, they are treated the exact same way as a regular PC user. They don't even get offered the lite sub, the only way to buy one is through the Android store, which can then be used on PC/RT/iOS.
[edit]
The front page is also false advertising. Don't buy into the lies!
[edit 2]
Just for clarification (from the December newsletter)
Vendetta Online is now FREE TO PLAY on Android!
Android Phone
We've been experimenting with this change in the business model for a little while, and we've had a really enthusiastic response from players thus far, including much higher peak numbers online (and growing). The version is available from the Google Play Store as well as the Amazon AppStore.
It works like this: Free to Play users may only play from their mobile device, not on the PC (that requires a "Lite" subscription upgrade). Free users can play for as long as they like, with no time limitations of any kind. Both Lite and F2P are capped to level 4 in all license types, any pre-existing high-level characters are capped, but regain their old levels if the account is re-subbed.
Additionally, Free and Lite users may gather an in-game currency, called "Crystal", which is needed to acquire certain higher-level equipment and items. Crystal can be accrued through the process of daily play, or purchased in bulk.
The best way to create a Free To Play account is to install the game on an Android device, and make your account from within the game (not via the game website).
None of this impacts Premium subscribers in any way. They do not have to deal with "Crystal" or level limitations, they still represent the premium game experience.
We expect to bring this to iOS as well in the near future. The iOS updated versions are currently in open beta testing. If you have an iOS 8 device and would like to help us test, sign up here:
Notice no mention of RT devices? AFAIK, they are treated the exact same way as a regular PC user. They don't even get offered the lite sub, the only way to buy one is through the Android store, which can then be used on PC/RT/iOS.
Welcome to Marketing 101. Thankfully we have enough people in game that can tell you immediately the difference between subbed and unsubbed VO play, if you are smart enough to ask.
I agree it's a bit misleading, but it's really not a huge deal is it?
I agree it's a bit misleading, but it's really not a huge deal is it?
Hmm, that's interesting...
I retract my previous statement. The only thing I know for certain about the Free To Play tier is that we aren't supposed to advertise it. yodaofborg may be correct, in which case, I apologize.
I retract my previous statement. The only thing I know for certain about the Free To Play tier is that we aren't supposed to advertise it. yodaofborg may be correct, in which case, I apologize.
We added VO to the Windows Store back when the Windows Store first went online (actually, before, we were one of the first Store entries, months before Win8 or RT release). To the best of my recollection, I don't remember getting to choose a "free" vs "paid" category at the time, we were just asked how much the game cost for up-front purchase (which was their definition of "paid" vs "free"). Microsoft hadn't even added in-app purchases to the Store yet, so there was literally no way to monetize within the game, and we still wanted it to be a free download for people. We added some subscription-time purchases at a later point.
So, nothing misleading was intended by the category, that was just where the game ended up.
So, nothing misleading was intended by the category, that was just where the game ended up.
Sorry for the late reply, but the bottom line is unless the game really is free to play it doesnt belong in the free category...anywhere. You guys could have it moved to the pay section where it belongs so as not to be misleading riiiiiight??.....
Kierky, free to download and free trial doesnt = free to play, its a pay game for anything but android.
If somebody gives you a free cigarette do you smoke it for ~3 minutes then run around town waving the butt in the air exclaiming how the cigarette wasn't free because it didn't last as long as a whole pack?
I agree with CWB. Games with free trials are not free games.
Your cigarette analogy is off, Arf. It's more like if the store advertises the packs of cigarettes as being free, but when you ask for one they only give you the one cigarette and try to charge for any more.
Also, cigarettes are for idiots. Not unlike Windows.
Your cigarette analogy is off, Arf. It's more like if the store advertises the packs of cigarettes as being free, but when you ask for one they only give you the one cigarette and try to charge for any more.
Also, cigarettes are for idiots. Not unlike Windows.
Sorry for the late reply, but the bottom line is unless the game really is free to play it doesnt belong in the free category...anywhere. You guys could have it moved to the pay section where it belongs so as not to be misleading riiiiiight??.....
Actually, NO, we couldn't. That was my point. The "category" was chosen from the fact that we did not define an up-front purchase price. We had no control over it then, and still have no control today, without actually defining an up-front cost (which basically makes the situation even worse, eliminating any free trial for people).
Here you can read Microsoft's own documentation on the Windows Store. Specifically:
Your app's price, and button(s) to install the app
If your app is free, the button to install the app will say Install (and the price will be listed as Free).
The only "categories" we're allowed to choose, as developers, as those of the fundamental game style, like Game or Action/Adventure, as you can also see in Microsoft's documentation.
Plus, on top of this, Microsoft does NOT allow applications to list anything about price in their description. They reject the application if you do that. Which is why we ended up kind of embedding a weird line in the game-store description that says "After the trial period expires, a subscription will let you continue playing (with a low cost "Lite" option for WinRT); Microsoft will not allow us to print the cost in this game description." and "Trial time of 8 hours of in-game time. Play an hour a day for 8 days, or 8 hours all at once. No strings attached, find out if the game is for you." The last thing we want is anyone to have mis-matched expectations, but it's a struggle to deal with these kinds of strange policy decisions, along with the fact that no one ever reads the damned description.
The Windows Store does now support a "trial" type model, but only for paid-once application, not for a subscription offering like we have. So if we wanted to give people the "trial", we could only charge once for the download and then let them play forever for free. Clearly that's not real compatible with us either.
I'm sorry that you took offense at our listing, but we do the best we can on these kinds of stores, with limited options. Our business model is not the same as most other apps, which doesn't make it easy.
Actually, NO, we couldn't. That was my point. The "category" was chosen from the fact that we did not define an up-front purchase price. We had no control over it then, and still have no control today, without actually defining an up-front cost (which basically makes the situation even worse, eliminating any free trial for people).
Here you can read Microsoft's own documentation on the Windows Store. Specifically:
Your app's price, and button(s) to install the app
If your app is free, the button to install the app will say Install (and the price will be listed as Free).
The only "categories" we're allowed to choose, as developers, as those of the fundamental game style, like Game or Action/Adventure, as you can also see in Microsoft's documentation.
Plus, on top of this, Microsoft does NOT allow applications to list anything about price in their description. They reject the application if you do that. Which is why we ended up kind of embedding a weird line in the game-store description that says "After the trial period expires, a subscription will let you continue playing (with a low cost "Lite" option for WinRT); Microsoft will not allow us to print the cost in this game description." and "Trial time of 8 hours of in-game time. Play an hour a day for 8 days, or 8 hours all at once. No strings attached, find out if the game is for you." The last thing we want is anyone to have mis-matched expectations, but it's a struggle to deal with these kinds of strange policy decisions, along with the fact that no one ever reads the damned description.
The Windows Store does now support a "trial" type model, but only for paid-once application, not for a subscription offering like we have. So if we wanted to give people the "trial", we could only charge once for the download and then let them play forever for free. Clearly that's not real compatible with us either.
I'm sorry that you took offense at our listing, but we do the best we can on these kinds of stores, with limited options. Our business model is not the same as most other apps, which doesn't make it easy.
To be fair to CWB, even though you explained adequately how it ended up in the free category, your first post didn't really clear up whether that situation had changed since then and whether you have any control over it. It kind of came across as a little flippant, like "this is how the situation originally arose way back when, so oh well, no point trying to do anything." I didn't actually interpret it that way, but I can see how he could have.
That's because I didn't know if things had changed or not, and I didn't have time to go rooting around to find out. Plus there's a little bit of an implication here that we've done something un-ethical by mis-representing our game.. when the reality was a total mess of dealing with a giant, dysfunctional company and their monolithic new store.
He could have googled the same content as I did yesterday, and read about it, rather than contacting Microsoft, or telling me:
"You guys could have it moved to the pay section where it belongs so as not to be misleading riiiiiight??....."
I don't really like the implication there.
We do not want to mis-represent the game, or the business model, and it is distinctly to our advantage to AVOID that, as mis-matching expectations result in negative reviews. We actually had our app rejected by Microsoft, when we tried documenting our business model more clearly in the description. Now we have negative reviews complaining about the lack of up-front information. That is stupid, and frustrating.
We also see like a dozen installs per month on the store, make no money from it (I mean.. ZILCH), and Microsoft has stated that they have no interest in promoting our app on the store front-page (we don't have "at least 50 million installs". LOLWUT?).
We maintain it because we have users on it we won't abandon, and we hope it might be worth something.. someday.
I appreciate where CWB was coming from. But this topic, overall, has sucked up a lot more of my time than it is actually worth.
He could have googled the same content as I did yesterday, and read about it, rather than contacting Microsoft, or telling me:
"You guys could have it moved to the pay section where it belongs so as not to be misleading riiiiiight??....."
I don't really like the implication there.
We do not want to mis-represent the game, or the business model, and it is distinctly to our advantage to AVOID that, as mis-matching expectations result in negative reviews. We actually had our app rejected by Microsoft, when we tried documenting our business model more clearly in the description. Now we have negative reviews complaining about the lack of up-front information. That is stupid, and frustrating.
We also see like a dozen installs per month on the store, make no money from it (I mean.. ZILCH), and Microsoft has stated that they have no interest in promoting our app on the store front-page (we don't have "at least 50 million installs". LOLWUT?).
We maintain it because we have users on it we won't abandon, and we hope it might be worth something.. someday.
I appreciate where CWB was coming from. But this topic, overall, has sucked up a lot more of my time than it is actually worth.
Sounds like the Windows Store has sucked up more of your time than it's actually worth... :(
Well, I was pretty cranky last night, lot of business BS. But yes, we haven't gotten much from it thus far. Thankfully, the initial cost of doing that port was covered by an outside party, but even with that.. given the sheer time-sink and many challenges, I have wished the time could have gone into iPhone or Steam or something that might have yielded greater returns.
But, we are still optimistic, hoping to do a "universal" release before long, that will include Windows Phone support, and maybe get a bit more promotional traction with Microsoft then. Also obviously the F2P stuff and whatnot. Maybe Windows 10 will help.
But, we are still optimistic, hoping to do a "universal" release before long, that will include Windows Phone support, and maybe get a bit more promotional traction with Microsoft then. Also obviously the F2P stuff and whatnot. Maybe Windows 10 will help.
I'd recently posted to the bug section on the forum when I got stuck at lvl 4. It was explained to me that the lvl 4 cap is for free Android users. I felt a little duped as well. As I was told that there was plenty of 'horizontal leveling' available for free accounts, I decided to take it at face value and grind on for a while.
Last night I played for 6+ hours, completing various missions and hunting bots on & off mission. I didn't receive a single gem in all that time. This afternoon I logged back on to try again, to no avail. Hive skirmish, bot hunting, missions, border wars in Deneb; no crystals, not one.
I'm in Brazil, where our currency is less than half the value of the dollar and twice as hard to come by. I'll probably never have enough to pay a monthly subscription fee in U.S. dollars. On top of that, I'm on a public forum divulging my standard of living due to ambiguous product descriptions. I can easily see how someone new to the game might become discouraged and possibly even offended.
It might behoove the devs, and the game, to clearly stipulate a reliable method of earning crystals, if one does in fact exist. While it's certainly tempting to agree with the commenters who claim that the Android version of Vendetta is a demo, it would be less so if new users could conveniently, and as stated 'indefinitely' (Log Keyword: Freely), access all aspects of the 4 levels offered to mobile users.
In the game description on Google Play it states "Free download no strings attached.. find out if the game is for you", which is a far stretch from 'free to play mobile game'.
As it stands, if someone were to ask me "do iap's affect game play in Vendetta Online?", my answer would have to be "Only if you want to play".
Vendetta is a great game. It's looks good and it's great fun. But a lot of people are downloading the Android app thinking that, even with the level cap, they can play those four levels for free, indefinitely. In it's current version, that's simply not the case.
Hopefully, pending versions or re-wording of game descriptions will resolve these issues. Best of luck with your future endeavors.
Last night I played for 6+ hours, completing various missions and hunting bots on & off mission. I didn't receive a single gem in all that time. This afternoon I logged back on to try again, to no avail. Hive skirmish, bot hunting, missions, border wars in Deneb; no crystals, not one.
I'm in Brazil, where our currency is less than half the value of the dollar and twice as hard to come by. I'll probably never have enough to pay a monthly subscription fee in U.S. dollars. On top of that, I'm on a public forum divulging my standard of living due to ambiguous product descriptions. I can easily see how someone new to the game might become discouraged and possibly even offended.
It might behoove the devs, and the game, to clearly stipulate a reliable method of earning crystals, if one does in fact exist. While it's certainly tempting to agree with the commenters who claim that the Android version of Vendetta is a demo, it would be less so if new users could conveniently, and as stated 'indefinitely' (Log Keyword: Freely), access all aspects of the 4 levels offered to mobile users.
In the game description on Google Play it states "Free download no strings attached.. find out if the game is for you", which is a far stretch from 'free to play mobile game'.
As it stands, if someone were to ask me "do iap's affect game play in Vendetta Online?", my answer would have to be "Only if you want to play".
Vendetta is a great game. It's looks good and it's great fun. But a lot of people are downloading the Android app thinking that, even with the level cap, they can play those four levels for free, indefinitely. In it's current version, that's simply not the case.
Hopefully, pending versions or re-wording of game descriptions will resolve these issues. Best of luck with your future endeavors.
*raises fist* DAMN YOU MICROSOFT STORE!
@Gordon: there's a Maximum of 10 Crystals a day when you're levels are capped (Not sure...)
@Gordon: there's a Maximum of 10 Crystals a day when you're levels are capped (Not sure...)
Yes you should be able the generate a further 10 crystals per day by killing hive bots, once you have hit the level cap. There are a few good ships you can buy that require 0 crystal, the EC-104 + EC-107 springs to mind, but you need to get 50 player kills while flying an EC-89 for the latter. Also there are numerous badges you can achieve, each which award between 5-10 crystal (above the daily cap), like the mining badges, the trader badges, PVP badges etc etc see http://www.vo-wiki.com/wiki/Badges
You can buy crystal from the play store, iirc 500c for $4.99, which should keep you in ships for months. And if you really cannot afford $4.99 every now and again on something you enjoy doing, well sucks to be you.
This is a quote from the lead developer, Incarnate:
I know everyone wants the game for free, but even with our small team and relatively low overhead (Milwaukee! Not San Francisco!), we still need to eat, and have a warm place to sleep in the winter.
[edit]
My last f2p character created around 500 crystal before hitting the level cap. Enough for a month or two of constant PvP combat without worrying about them. Also you get 6 character slots, each with their own crystal caps. Months and months of free gameplay IS a free game.
You can buy crystal from the play store, iirc 500c for $4.99, which should keep you in ships for months. And if you really cannot afford $4.99 every now and again on something you enjoy doing, well sucks to be you.
This is a quote from the lead developer, Incarnate:
I know everyone wants the game for free, but even with our small team and relatively low overhead (Milwaukee! Not San Francisco!), we still need to eat, and have a warm place to sleep in the winter.
[edit]
My last f2p character created around 500 crystal before hitting the level cap. Enough for a month or two of constant PvP combat without worrying about them. Also you get 6 character slots, each with their own crystal caps. Months and months of free gameplay IS a free game.
In the game description on Google Play it states "Free download no strings attached.. find out if the game is for you", which is a far stretch from 'free to play mobile game'.
I don't really see a problem here. If a player is old enough to be confused by what "free to play" means in the android app store, he's probably old enough to save a couple bucks off of his pension check for some videogaming. Not going to live long enough to use it for anything else anyway.
Edit: I think there may be some solid "suggestions" posts to get out of this though. Not many android people use the forums, or at least not many talk about their crystal addictions. Suggestions about the cheaper subscriptions would be a lot more interesting than suggestions about nerfing ships no-one uses.
I don't really see a problem here. If a player is old enough to be confused by what "free to play" means in the android app store, he's probably old enough to save a couple bucks off of his pension check for some videogaming. Not going to live long enough to use it for anything else anyway.
Edit: I think there may be some solid "suggestions" posts to get out of this though. Not many android people use the forums, or at least not many talk about their crystal addictions. Suggestions about the cheaper subscriptions would be a lot more interesting than suggestions about nerfing ships no-one uses.