Not me as I won’t be updating.
I just went to the Angry Birds page at iTunes. See, a new update came out on the 17th which added 15 more levels. And added in your face ads selling Rovio merchandise. Every time you pause, you get an ad when you restart. You have to wait for the ad to finish before you can begin playing again.
The game play of Angry Birds forces rapid restarts. Often to get a three star level you have to hit the right spot. Miss it slightly and you might as well start over. Which is what everyone does. But to do this now requires that you watch the same animated ad over again. Not only does watching ads over and over again infuriate people, it also rapidly slows down game play.
People are not happy seeing ads in an app they paid for. Of course, there have been many levels added along the way for free, so I can see Rovio wanting to get some of their older customers to add something to the kitty.
But the way they have done it is not very smooth. So, here is the latest count for this update of Angry Birds: 344 five stars and 301 one star.
It is now a 3 star game. Used to be 5 star. I won’t be downloading the update as I have made it a habit to refrain from updating apps when there is a sudden decrease in the star rating. I’d rather wait for the developers to fix what ecer caused the decrease in rating before i add it to my iPad/iPhone.
I think they could have done a better job with the intrusion of ads into game play. Forcing people to sit through ads over and over again before they can resume game play, especially when they have not had to do it before and especially for a game costing $5.00.
And anyone going to their page at Apple is being warned not to buy the game. As hard as it was to build the trust of their original customers, it is really easy to lose it. Perhaps Rovio has other ways now to make a lot of money now but angering those customers who originally made it successful is not a good long term strategy. Others expect you do to it to them eventually.
A Man With A Ph.D. 