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Dungeon Keeper

Molyneux: Dungeon Keeper is "ridiculous"

EA tries to boost Google Play ratings with feedback redirect.

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When we first heard that EA was releasing a mobile version of Dungeon Keeper, we were over the moon. We hadn't played the game for nearly twenty years and were looking forward to getting back into some evil doing.

Alarm bells started ringing when, shortly after launch, it was highlighted that the game's feedback on Google Play was being distorted by EA offering players two choices when it came to rating the game: either give it five stars on Google Play, or being redirected to a feedback page where concerns were not aired publicly.

Dungeon Keeper

EA has since responded to claims that they were loading the dice in their favour, by suggesting that players can still head to Google Play and submit their own feedback should they wish, and that they were just redirecting lower star scores in order to gather feedback. We're not entirely convinced.

Another criticism that has been levelled at the game is the amount of transactions that players are being pushed toward. Considering it's a free-to-play game, many are unhappy with the way that the title has been put together, suggesting that the core concept that made the original so popular has been replaced with cynical free-to-play mechanics designed to squeeze as much out of the player as possible.

Peter Molyneux, who was part of the team behind the 1997 original, is among the growing chorus of people criticising the game and EA's latest approach towards free-to-play: "I felt myself turning round saying, 'What? This is ridiculous. I just want to make a dungeon. I don't want to schedule it on my alarm clock for six days to come back for a block to be chipped,'" he told the BBC.

Despite the controversy surrounding its launch, EA's game still has a four-star rating on Google Play, and a three-star rating on the App Store. Perhaps the more damning indictment of Dungeon Keeper comes from Metacritic, where the game currently enjoys a score of 46 from critics, and 0.3 out of 10 from users.

Dungeon Keeper

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Dungeon KeeperScore

Dungeon Keeper

REVIEW. Written by Rasmus Lund-Hansen

"For every second of actually doing something or making decisions, you'll be faced with several minutes of just waiting around. It's an anti-game."



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