you mean those games you need to spend money on in order to get the "cool" in game content. If you spend real money in order to get a virtual item in a "free" game, you deserve to get ripped off.

You don't HAVE TO give them money to play, you know. It's an option.

ManateeGag: you mean those games you need to spend money on in order to get the "cool" in game content. If you spend real money in order to get a virtual item in a "free" game, you deserve to get ripped off.

You mean like when you go to Best Buy and purchase a game to play online?

ManateeGag: you mean those games you need to spend money on in order to get the "cool" in game content. If you spend real money in order to get a virtual item in a "free" game, you deserve to get ripped off.

I know it's crazy, but even the "free" games have to make money. They don't spring from the ether and aren't run on servers powered by unicorn farts. They mostly recoup costs (and profit) by selling upgrades within the game, or by selling advertising within the game.

ManateeGag: you mean those games you need to spend money on in order to get the "cool" in game content. If you spend real money in order to get a virtual item in a "free" game, you deserve to get ripped off.

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They can't rip me off if I don't give them money.

Regulate? Baah. Capitalism at work, baby!

Here's a hint. Don't use facebook or myspace.

parting fools from their money is THE AMERICAN WAY!

Why does subby hate America?

If Zynga works this scam with the same level of detail and attention that they devote to debugging their games, we have nothing to worry about.

//former mobster who gave up dealing with the bugs

I give about $10 a month to MouseHunt. I enjoy the game, so it doesn't bother me, and I've never been scammed or given grief for it.

Now, there's a "complete an offer to get SuperBrie+" option, but the game developers themselves have noted that you're setting yourself up for a whole mess 'o Spam if you go that route, so it's better to just donate.

So someone is getting weak-minded people to pay for things in order to get somewhere faster than someone who just plays the game for fun? Preposterous!

Post continues after the jump

L@@K!!1 WoW-gold daily auctions! Dare you miss out?

I play Mafia Wars in order to have something to do at work that can easily be tabbed away from when I need to do some actual work. If it wasn't Mafia Wars, I guess I'd still be playing Urban Dead, which can't be tabbed away from as easily.

People who pay for perks in games, are the same kinds of people who think they achieve something in a game after having used every cheat code out there. They are the kind of people who actually pay for "strategy guides" to games at their local gamestore. To take their money away isn't scamming, it's economic darwinism.

All in all:

Cornwell: I play Mafia Wars in order to have something to do at work that can easily be tabbed away from when I need to do some actual work. If it wasn't Mafia Wars, I guess I'd still be playing Urban Dead, which can't be tabbed away from as easily.

People who pay for perks in games, are the same kinds of people who think they achieve something in a game after having used every cheat code out there. They are the kind of people who actually pay for "strategy guides" to games at their local gamestore. To take their money away isn't scamming, it's economic darwinism.

I consider giving $10 a month (also MW) a small price to pay to "give back" to a game I play way too much of.

R.A.Danny: I consider giving $10 a month (also MW) a small price to pay to "give back" to a game I play way too much of.

Very good point. After all, we pay for this, many people pay for WoW, and heck, look at the money people spend on real slot machines.

It's not a ripoff if you feel you're being entertained.

Arrington is just ripping Zynga cause they won't give him free shiat or advertise on his rag.

/screw you Arrington!

R.A.Danny: I consider giving $10 a month (also MW) a small price to pay to "give back" to a game I play way too much of.

Funny, I feel the same way about Total*Fark - double the entertainment of MW for half the price!

I read "Zynga" as "Zagnuts" and wondered what the hell candy bars had to do with anything.

I guess I'm mildly disappointed that Zagnut candy bars don't figure into this at all.

Here to reiterate the morans and their WoW gold shenanigans....

/terrible game
//blizzard can diaf

AC21365: Here to reiterate the morans and their WoW gold shenanigans....

/terrible game
//blizzard can diaf

You've forgotten the girl who offered "a mount" for a mount?

mr_a: If Zynga works this scam with the same level of detail and attention that they devote to debugging their games, we have nothing to worry about.

thalassatx: R.A.Danny: I consider giving $10 a month (also MW) a small price to pay to "give back" to a game I play way too much of.

Very good point. After all, we pay for this, many people pay for WoW, and heck, look at the money people spend on real slot machines.

It's not a ripoff if you feel you're being entertained.

It's the idea behind shareware. If you enjoy it, you throw some money the developer's way to encourage more development. Nowadays, it seems that the base game is free and enhancements (may be in many forms) may be a bit extra. If you derive enjoyment from it, have at it. It keeps programmers making new fun games.

R.A.Danny: ManateeGag: you mean those games you need to spend money on in order to get the "cool" in game content. If you spend real money in order to get a virtual item in a "free" game, you deserve to get ripped off.

You mean like when you go to Best Buy and purchase a game to play online?

No worse then that. When you go to Best Buy and purchase a solo game to play at home, but to get the best content you must purchase the limited edition and/or the optional additional crap. The stuff that is ready to go at launch, adds nothing to the main game, and should be part of what everyone buys instead of those willing to pay another $5, $10, or $20 dollars more.

thalassatx: They can't rip me off if I don't give them money.

Read the article again. This is about the scams run by the advertisers -- the free in-game points that actually cost you a $10 monthly fee you don't find out about until your bill comes in.

AC21365: Here to reiterate the morans and their WoW gold shenanigans....

/terrible game
//blizzard can diaf

I don't get why people buy gold in Warcraft. Do daily quests on three lvl 80 toons and buy some gems with honor points. you'll make 2k gold a week.

Zynga, a scam? They don't make you buy stuff. They might tempt you with in game Godfather Points. But, you can earn those free or even buy them outright from Zynga. In no way is this a scam. Any consumer going through these offers can read that they will be charged and voluntarily accept. The author of this article is an asshat.

I personally am addicted to Mafia Wars. My only complaint is that it's turned me into a click monkey. :click, click, click:

Holy crap, you mean the sketchy looking ad promising me 200 Godfather points if only I try DirectTV for 6 months might be a scam of some kind? THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!

Christ Almighty, have we just completely abandoned the concept of personal responsibility?

ManateeGag: you mean those games you need to spend money on in order to get the "cool" in game content. If you spend real money in order to get a virtual item in a "free" game, you deserve to get ripped off.

I always figured if I paid for the promotion at the end of the IQ test, I fail.

And now Facebook has marked all the Zynga game links as "Spyware" and won't let you get to them. WHO ARE THE REAL MONSTERS NOW, HUH FACEBOOK USERS!?

Examples Of Scams:
A typical scam: users are offered in game currency in exchange for filling out an IQ survey. Four simple questions are asked. The answers are irrelevant. When the user gets to the last question they are told their results will be text messaged to them. They are asked to enter in their mobile phone number, and are texted a pin code to enter on the quiz. Once they've done that, they've just subscribed to a $9.99/month subscription. Tatto Media is the company at the very end of the line on most mobile scams, and they flow it up through Offerpal, SuperRewards and others to the game developers.

i dunno that seems like every teen (and grandmother) in the US could get sucked into that one.

generaltimmy: ManateeGag:
I always figured if I paid for the promotion at the end of the IQ test, I fail.

that is brilliant. well put!

NihilisticShrew: And now Facebook has marked all the Zynga game links as "Spyware" and won't let you get to them. WHO ARE THE REAL MONSTERS NOW, HUH FACEBOOK USERS!?

I don't see it marked as spyware, but the games I do play won't let me send items to people and my Texas Hold em Poker is acting uo now to. Damn, I like this game to.

balin007: NihilisticShrew: And now Facebook has marked all the Zynga game links as "Spyware" and won't let you get to them. WHO ARE THE REAL MONSTERS NOW, HUH FACEBOOK USERS!?

I don't see it marked as spyware, but the games I do play won't let me send items to people and my Texas Hold em Poker is acting uo now to. Damn, I like this game to.

Facebook has been having problems all day, I don't think it has anything to do with this stuff.

This just in: Sometimes when people offer you something for free, there's a catch.

Actually, ANYTIME people offer you something for free, there's a catch.

Actually, anytime people offer you ANYTHING, there's a catch.

Actually, there's a catch.

Zynga ceo now admits columnist is right. Says he's cutting ties to the scammiest companies and blocking all the text message scams.

ManateeGag: you mean those games you need to spend money on in order to get the "cool" in game content. If you spend real money in order to get a virtual item in a "free" game, you deserve to get ripped off.

You can also sign that neighbor you hate up for all kinds of crap with a disposable email account.

Want to join my Mafia?

I was on Mob Wars when it first came out. Had some fun playing it.

Until I got to the higher levels, where my mob maxed out. The only way to expand was to pay for more people or buy through their offers.

I deleted it and moved on. It's their game, they can make the rules and I chose to do something better with my time.

Did you guys know that the innertubes are also full of porn?

Why do people enjoy these games so much?

Don't people get bored enough at work with spreadsheets? It's all CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK WEEE MY SPREADSHEET HAS A HIGHER NUMBER SOMEWHERE!

Ugh.

Weaver95: AC21365: Here to reiterate the morans and their WoW gold shenanigans....

/terrible game
//blizzard can diaf

I don't get why people buy gold in Warcraft. Do daily quests on three lvl 80 toons and buy some gems with honor points. you'll make 2k gold a week.

I've bought "gold" in games, twice. I bought influence in City of Heroes, back when you had to grind forever to get it, and I bought gold in WoW before dailies existed. It was a simple way for me to eliminate a lot of grind. For $20 I got as much influence as I would have got grinding for 3 hours a night for a couple of weeks. For another $20 I got as much gold as I would have got grinding for a similar number of hours. By comparison, stopping at the pub on the way home for dinner and a beer or two each for me and my wife is about $40. Saving myself that time in boring grind in games I enjoyed playing the non-grind parts of was an easy decision.

Never did it again, mostly because I didn't need the gold/inf (and you really never "needed" it in CoH), but also because of the threat of being caught. When you have a max level whatever in WoW, the offer of a month's worth of gold for 20 bucks is appealing, but the counter of being banned when you have fun playing it every couple of nights is deterring. If there was a legal "gold store", like some EQ servers have, or like DDO has, you're damn skippy I'd buy. If I still played -- the "fun" part of the game got less fun as time went on.

ManateeGag: you mean those games you need to spend money on in order to get the "cool" in game content. If you spend real money in order to get a virtual item in a "free" game, you deserve to get ripped off.

Actually you just get it faster, very little if any of the content you get from the pay parts is unique to them.

Personal story regarding this, I spent 300$ on them over the coarse of a month...yeah I'm an idiot. Anyways I just filed a claim with paypal and they returned the cash within 2 days.

I may have mentioned that my account info had been stolen and the charges were not my doing...

:D

jayhawk88: Holy crap, you mean the sketchy looking ad promising me 200 Godfather points if only I try DirectTV for 6 months might be a scam of some kind? THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!

Christ Almighty, have we just completely abandoned the concept of personal responsibility?

Are you just catching on to this trend?

HOw about this.

Zygna's games totally suck and require absolutely no skill to play. Hell, they don't even have any farking variability to make things a little more exciting.

Any 'game' with a privacy policy and licensing agreement that long isn't worth my time, try again.

To reiterate marcre3363's point, the Internet is full of free porn. FREE PRON!

There are games like Fallensword that have such offers. While the ad for these points don't spell out that you will be charged any kind of fee, it always seemed obvious to me that if something is texted to me, which I reply with a pin, that I am signing up for something. It's not rocket surgery.

By the way, Fallensword is a blast, it's free, and it doesn't take up all your time like WoW.

Link (new window) to the game.
/Shameless plug

IF you have to pay cash for in game goodies you suck!!!

ToxicMunkee: You don't HAVE TO give them money to play, you know. It's an option.

Bingo. I just play. If I'm out of the cash items, oh freaking well. It's just a game for crying out loud...

crazytrpr: IF you have to pay cash for in game goodies you suck!!!

What if you donate? Cause when I got laid off a few months back I hit the facebook games pretty hard. (I loves me the Mousehunt game, as dumb as it is.) I said once I get steady work I'll donate. When I donate I get in game stuff. Since I played for free for months I figure it was worth the 20 bucks. Does paying for a game mean I suck?

mid6000tek: crazytrpr: IF you have to pay cash for in game goodies you suck!!!

What if you donate? Cause when I got laid off a few months back I hit the facebook games pretty hard. (I loves me the Mousehunt game, as dumb as it is.) I said once I get steady work I'll donate. When I donate I get in game stuff. Since I played for free for months I figure it was worth the 20 bucks. Does paying for a game mean I suck?

Yup.

Wow, its like paying $5/month to access the 'cool' content and get a tag on a news website.

OUTRAGEOUS!

/suckers
//$5/month x 1000 users = I don't have to work anymore
///I'm the sucker for not thinking of it first

mid6000tek: crazytrpr: IF you have to pay cash for in game goodies you suck!!!

What if you donate? Cause when I got laid off a few months back I hit the facebook games pretty hard. (I loves me the Mousehunt game, as dumb as it is.) I said once I get steady work I'll donate. When I donate I get in game stuff. Since I played for free for months I figure it was worth the 20 bucks. Does paying for a game mean I suck?

I think your situation goes back to the donate if you get entertainment value out of it.

That's the way I look at it. Hell I've got folks at the bar playing it now. It's a dumb game yet I'm addicted. So I gave them money because I enjoyed their dumb game.

As for the scams that the offerpal folks run. I don't give out any personal information to crap like that. Your just asking for trouble, and when I get to the end of a quiz and it wants to txt my answer, oh well I don't need to know what color I am that bad.