Electronic Arts may be close to steamrolling the last
of remnants of PopCap's glory days. EA bought the celebrated game
developer a few years back for about $750 million, and quickly set to
work making our nightmares come true. Now it looks like the classic
time-waster Peggle is about to get a makeover that pretty much ruins the game.
The new version of Peggle has shown up in the New
Zealand App Store, which is the testing ground for many developers
before a wide release. EA has unpublished the original Peggle iPhone and
iPad games, replacing them with a new version with the same basic
gameplay mechanics. You shoot balls toward all the pegs and blocks in an
attempt to clear the board before you run out of ammo. It's a strangely
compelling experience.
Every PopCap title since EA took over has featured
in-app purchases to some degree. Sometimes it was manageable, like with
Plants vs. Zombies 2. However, the upcoming version of Peggle seems to
be taking the most dramatic turn toward in-app purchases yet. If you're
running low on balls, the game lets you buy more. Annoying, but not
necessarily a deal breaker. It's the energy system that will turn people
off.
Like a number of other EA games, Peggle only lets you
play so many rounds before you have to either pay to get more energy,
or wait until it regenerates naturally. This rather destroys the casual
time-wasting nature of Peggle. The new Peggle adds some new collectables
and uses a different level layout as well, but it's not clear to what
degree that content is monetized.
This
is still just an early soft launch, so maybe the IAPs will be toned
down before a wide release. Still, if you want the classic Peggle, now
might be the time to go and get it.
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