Capcom Mobile‘s recently introduced Smurfs’ Village game has been swiftly climbing the charts in the App Store, at one point reaching the top spot in highest grossing games, surpassing even Angry Birds. At the time of this writing, it has currently fallen to the number 3 spot*, behind Angry Birds, which is behind the freshly released RAGE HD.
Surprised? After all, Smurf’s Village is a free game, and the only revenue comes from in-app purchases of Smurfberries, which enable you to speed up the construction of village buildings and purchase exclusive structures. You can play the game without paying anything, but be prepared to wait a while for your village to take shape.
It seems that many people are not willing to wait, because Capcom is making quite a bit of real money selling virtual Smurfberries. Other popular games using a similar ‘freemium’ model include We Rule and We City by ngmoco, and the granddaddy of these kinds of games, Farmville by zynga. I for one refuse to pay for virtual currency with these types of games, so I guess I’ll be waiting for my village to build. I must say though, it’s good to see those little blue guys again.
Smurfs’ Village is available on the iTunes App Store for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
* in the US App Store. In Canada it still sits at number 2 above Angry Birds. The App Store does not show worldwide sales charts, which would be interesting to see how it is trending globally. In the Smurfs’ home country of Belgium, Smurfs’ Village isn’t even in the top ten grossing apps. Huh.
Articla Via TUAW
My kids put this on the ipads. Their 3 year old twin brothers were playing it. Apple itunes charged me more than $450 for the purchase of berries during one cycle of my credit card. Criminal.
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LikeThere is also an option to remove your credit card from your iTunes account. You have to do it through iTunes. Change your payment type to "none" and it will remove your credit card to prevent accidental purchases.
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LikeTrying to educate other parents on this . . . since I was a "victim" . . . . I didn't know about in-ap purchases or the fact that you can still purchase things 15 minutes after my password.
http://justthestork.blogspot.com/2010/11/scam-that...
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LikeIf your children aren't old enough to understand that they're spending money that doesn't belong to them then their probably not old enough to have an IPAD or IPOD. Here's an idea send your kids outside for some exercise and let stop being fat, lazy americans. it called parenting, im sure there are apps you can download for that too
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LikeThen use free iPod accept so don't run up a bill
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LikeI saw this and was reading some of the reviews on this app. Parents were furious as if you don't require a password for purchases some of their kids were racking up quite an iTunes bill on the in app purchases.
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LikeSilly parents.
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