Nagware

[bladespark]

I like Mahjongg solitare. It is one of those mindless pleasures. And feeling rather like being vegetative on Sunday, I went hunting for a shareware copy of it. I found a rather nice one, with lovely graphics, good mellow background music, and a few alternate games that are pretty fun. However, it has the most annoying "buy me!" nag I have ever encountered. Argh. Not content with popping up a little "buy me" when you start the program, not even content with going "buy me!" when you begin a new game, this thing pops up with "buy me!" every ten moves while you are playing. Literally. Every. Freaking. Ten. Moves. As I play fairly fast (current reccord game time just under 5 minutes) this means I'm getting a nag every few seconds! It even nags you when you're playing the little vaguely tetris-like block dropping game, so it can bollox up your game play while you try frantically to click on the thing and get it to go away before your little batch of tiles hits the ground in the wrong spot.

So I rolled my eyes, and went to look at how much this thing costs, thinking that paying a couple of bucks to get rid of the Nag Of Doom would be all right. Couple of bucks, thought I! But no, this thing is $22.95!!!!!

Now I understand that a lot of work went into this. Making all those pretty tilesets and getting all that pseudo-oriental music took time and effort, not to mention coding the gameplay itself. I know this. I don't mind paying a little money for somebody's hard work. But for crying out loud! I can go to a physical brick and mortar game store and find a copy of Mahjongg that's just as pretty for five bucks! Maybe ten! Mahjongg is not Halo. Mahjongg is not even Battlechess. Mahjongg is available perfectly free in literally thousands of places. YOUR Mahjongg, annoying person with the Nag Of Doom, is available for free, and there are cracks out there for it! Could you not be sane and sensible and charge a going market rate for this thing, rather than twice that? I am betting that you would make more money in the long run if you did so. Gah! I am not paying twenty-three bucks to somebody who has already annoyed the heck out of me by begging for my money every couple of seconds!

Comments

[malakim2099.livejournal.com]

You know, if Mahjongg was more like HALO? I'd probably play it a lot more often. *grins*

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

I don't know how you'd make Mahjongg like Halo.

Although it wouldn't be very hard to make a Halo tile set for it.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

I use Bejeweled for mindless gameplay.

Not that this has anything to do with nagware.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

I can never get anywhere on Bejewled and those sorts of games.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

Really? It's one of my favorite game types.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

It's the way you can screw yourself up. Once I make one mistake, I get all flustered, and then end up just botching the whole thing. Whereas in Majhongg it's harder to mess up, and you can always take back a bad move, or reshuffle if you get stuck.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

Oh I see~ if I screw up too badly I just start over. ^^;