Have You Ever Spent $1,000 On Candy?
by Jimmy Marks
[EDITOR’S NOTE — Ron’s off this week so we’re throwing it over to Jimmy who’s got a few things to say about Candy Crush Saga and the future of mobile games – and mobile money.]
I teased my wife mercilessly. I told her she was just wasting her time. I told her she looked like a crazy person, freaking out over a “game over” the way five-year-olds do when they’re all out of Mario’s.
She didn’t hear a word of it. She was too busy playing Candy Crush Saga, a game where you line up different colored candies and they blow up and you line up other candies and…well, you’re basically pattern-picking and trying to empty out rows and rows of brightly-colored candy. I thought it was juvenile. I thought it was stupid.
Then, I played it. And WOW, is it ever fun.
The game struck a nerve with me recently, though, when I started taking note of how often you’re encouraged to “buy up”. Extra lives are dangled in front of you when you’ve hit zero and you can always purchase more bonuses that will make the candy exploding a lot easier to manage. I’ll admit it – I’ve dropped $0.99 on a five-pack of lives (to my wife, I offer my most heartfelt apologies). There are times when I can be reasonable and just put the game away until all my lives are replenished and I can play again. And then, there are times when I’m just too human and I cave.
I drew the line yesterday when, after reaching my newest level, I was told I had to complete three side-quests to keep playing. I could do this one of three ways:
- Get on Facebook and bug my friends about it (more on that later…)
- Buy my way over to the next level for $1
- Play quests. You have to beat three small, short levels in order to move forward. You can only play one level in a 24-hour period. WHAT?!(more on THAT later, too…)
