Dungeon Keeper's Original Designer Calls Mobile Version "Ridiculous"

Does anyone like the new Dungeon Keeper for iOS and Android? Last year, players thought EA's Real Racing 3 was as bad as it could get when it comes to viciously-tuned free-to-play microtransactions, but Dungeon Keeper could be even worse. Our very own Jaz Rignall gave the game one star out of five and Pete called the new Dungeon Keeper a "symptom of a wider problem" in mobile development. In an interview with the BBC, original Dungeon Keeper designer Peter Molyneux agreed that EA screwed up on the game's microtransaction balance.

"I felt myself turning round saying, 'What? This is ridiculous. I just want to make a dungeon. I don't want to schedule it on my alarm clock for six days to come back for a block to be chipped,'" he said. "I don't think they got it quite right, the balance between keeping it familiar to the fans that were out there but fresh enough and understandable enough for this much bigger mobile audience."

One media analyst warned that EA could start to face considerable backlash for all of its products if it continues have such poorly-tuned in-app purchases.

"It's only a matter of time before the friction between what people want and what game studios offer reaches a point where the whole thing collapses," Thomas Baekdal told the BBC.

EA has recently been accused of using in-game options to make sure that only players with 5-star reviews end up on the Google Play Store. Players are given the option to either give the game 5-stars, at which point they're funneled toward the Google Play Store, or between 1 and 4 stars, which prompts them to email EA with feedback. It's not directly messing with ratings, but it does grease the rails for 5-star reviews, which is why Google Play Store ratings sit higher than App Store ratings and critic reviews.