Aayush Arya is India Editor and Apps Co-Editor at TouchPets, essentially a pet-simulator akin to things like Nintendogs or Petz, also has these in-game purchase options. Except this isn’t for anything like vanity items, toys, clothes, or other needless things for your pet, it’s for FOOD. That’s right, any of the virtual currency you earn in TouchPets can only be used to buy clothing and toys for your newly adopted puppy. If you want to keep him fed, and therefore maintain a status of a decent master and not some terrible Michael Vick villain, you need to spend $1.99 to buy more food. My dog’s energy had gone down to zero after teaching him some tricks and playing for a bit. After feeding him the single bowl of food the game includes with a new pet, he was hungry again within a few hours. I was shocked to realize that despite having over $1,000 of in-game money, there was no way to keep my puppy from whimpering from hunger other than busting open the in-app purchases and spending the $2 for more food. Considering $2 gets you 20 bowls of food, and the dog seems he could eat 2 bowls or more a day, you’re roughly spending $2 every 10 days to play. That’s 6 dollars a month, and that’s $72 a year. To play a pet simulator. And that’s if you keep your gametime to a minimum, because the more you play with your dog, the hungrier it gets.
This is exactly what I’d feared would happen when the in-app purchase system was introduced for the App Store. And I was sure this would become an issue with the TouchPets game (and with EA Games’ The Sims 3) when it was first demoed. Shame on you, ngmoco!
