Buying virtual currency is no different to buying credit tokens in an old-fashioned arcade. It's no different to buying chips at a casino. It's not quite the 'scam' you claim it to be.

Social games need their user's money to survive. Companies won't (and can't) make games for free. The traditional "you buy a game, then you play the game" business model doesn't work on social networks. People are used to games on the web being free. So the only way to make money from the free games is to offer special content that you have to part with real money for. Social games companies now have a "you play the game, then you buy stuff to play the game more/better" business model because it works. Facebook already make a lot of money off the back of 3rd party app developers. Do you think so many people would stick around on facebook if there weren't games to idly pass the time? Of course not. The apps keep people on facebook for longer, giving facebook more ad-time. Asking 30% of developers only source of income is very cheeky in my opinion.

How/why I know what I do;
I work for a games company, and I develop most of the company's social games (with other people, of course). Trust me when I say it's very expensive to not only develop and host the games - but to keep them working. Facebook & other social networks move their goal posts a LOT. We have to be on top of all their changes so our games keep working. Unlike console games, for example, we can't just release a social game and leave it.

For those who are interested

Then we'd need another bulldozer satellite for when the 1st bulldozer fails and another one for when that one fails.

Reminds me somewhat of this.

mod parent up.

HTML 5 isn't just going to be the same in every browser. It's taken years to get /nearly/ respectable CSS support in popular browsers. Even bleeding edge browsers render the same CSS differently to rival bleed-edge browsers.

Flash might be a pain/slow/propriety/..., but at least it's consistent.

Click

I couldn't get on the article linked in the summary, but I found this in google which is probably the same thing. It's nearly 2 months old, but that's not reason enough for it not to be on ./

EULAs aren't the most legally bind 'agreements' at the best of times. But one that applies retroactively is ridiculous even by EULA standards.

You'll probably need twice the hardware for equal performance. Maybe it'll give nvidia & ATI a shove in the right direction when they realise that people might actually make games for the linux platform now.

But they don't consider 15-17 year olds children in China (I don't pretend to know about Chinese law - just putting the idea out there). Also, if $0.65/hour is just enough to live on - so be it. Factory workers here (UK) are paid 'just enough to live on' too. $0.65 isn't a lot by western standards, but if it can shelter, feed and clothe them over there, it's enough for them. Considering that factory has employees - it's most likely the best work those people can get in that area. If Microsoft & others decided to pack up and stop 'exploiting' - where would all those workers go? Probably to some other factory that pays even less.

Your post clearly says more about the general health of your computer than it does about the state of the game. I had it running on my Win Mobile HTC phone a while ago with absolutely no performance issues whatsoever.

Actually, even a cave in the mountains probably wouldn't be as radio-free as you might hope. Many rocks are naturally radio-active.

JavaSript? I thought Microsoft would have learnt from Active X's failings that propriety technologies don't catch on too well.

If it were moldable, maybe you could throttle it.

Other than moving your fingers closer together or further apart to zoom in or out of various 2D and 3D images - what use is a multi touch mouse? Personally, I don't understand the point.

Microsoft's table technology looks more intriguing to me because unlike a mouse, you can have more than 1 person using it at once.

Because despite it being slower, having longer queues, only being open at specific times and any money raised from that booth goes to "the man" - it's the legal route. So while it would certainly be easier, better, more convenient and arguably more morally just to go to any of the 49 other lanes - legally, you'd be in the wrong if you did. So unless "the man" says it's OK to use the free routes, wear a balaclava as you speed past the losers who obey the law.

Oh please, GTA 4 wasn't even ported to PC/Windows properly. What chance do they have with Macs?