What annoys me the most is that most have their own forums but those are so restrictive in what you can and cannot post, or the forum users get their collective undies in a bundle if you ask something that is in some other thread buried 37 pages back that the virtual tongue lashings only exacerbate the anger I have when something doesn’t work (which happens constantly).

I get so sick of “well it is only beta” or “you don’t pay anything to play, so shut up.” The fact is that in most case, yes, indeed, I have paid for their virtual stuff with cold hard cash, so it is insult to injury to be told that by people who are supposedly there to support each other. Snarky comments or mocking one-liners are NOT SUPPORT. They are rude and only make one more annoyed with the non-functioning games.

Support tickets are a joke inasmuch as, if you are even able to get acknowledgment for your request–usually a bot generated pat statement–there is NO FOLLOW UP by anyone working for the developer. Being told “we’re working on issues” is simply too vague to be of any use. But that is better than the experience I have had with EVERY game developer I’ve dealt with: total silence to personal email, forum posts, whatever.

So why on earth would someone keep playing something that does nothing but create so much frustration? I for one play these things to relax and reduce stress. So, the buggier they get, and the lack of support when I do have an issue, leave me to pursue other interests.

So many games are doomed to fail because of past experience with these badly programmed games. I’ve given up on so many and expect I will continue to find new games that–shocker of shocks–actually work and are “leaner and meaner.”

-Buggy, glitchy games they do not fix.

-Heaping more junk on top of already buggy, glitchy games.

-GREED. The blatant money grubbing wherein almost anything new could only be had with cash. Cafe World is a prime example. I had over 6 million coins that I could not spend because nothing could be had with them. It was all cash. Apparently nobody clued them in on this recession thing and you know, the rising unemployment rate.

-Dirty tricks to make cash. FrontierVille, for example, raised the cost of food and reduced the amount you received…and that was in the first week of play. They did that on a game that constantly “lost the connection, Pardner.” Oh but you could get more if you bought “horseshoes.”

-Gifting (receiving) became impossible once they forced you to let the games load for each and every gift. See below.

-EVERY SINGLE ONE of Zyngas games max CPU and hog memory. Got so I couldn’t play them on my killer laptop without overheating and shutting down. I can run Sims 3 and surf the web and get email, run powerpoint and watch a video all at the same time without it overheating but bring up one of their games and watch the temperature rise.

They’ve cut their own throats with all of that and more but they don’t get it. It stops being fun when it becomes work. It stops being fun when the frustration level continues to rise. And then I remember that I have a Wii and bunches of computer games that cost me $50 ONCE and those are fun! and they run! and I don’t have to buy hundreds of dollars worth of credits to wallpaper my cafe or buy a barn or….

They don’t get it. They see all the complaints and think “gamers are such entitled jerks” but those entitled jerks who paid them money are leaving in droves. And they just can’t figure out why.