Feature Friday: In Defense of EA (and Dungeon Keeper)

There seems to be this belief that when companies become so large and powerful, they forget the little people. To the customer — especially the one with a bad experience — it’s very easy for them to become faceless evil empires that care nothing about you as the consumer or customer. They don’t care about your needs, or wants, or your problems. They just want to take your money and make you pay… er, overpay for their goods or services, and perhaps then listen to your gripes and issues. But they probably won’t.

Electronic Arts certainly doesn’t need me to defend them, but as an enthusiast gamer whose been playing games for over three decades, I wanted to take a moment to offer my counterpoint to the popular (and of course negative) point-of-view regarding one particular game that was released awhile back: Dungeon Keeper.

I have a special place in my heart for the Dungeon Keeper series, originally released by Bullfrog Productions. I was fortunate enough to play and enjoy both original PC releases when they first came out over 15 years ago.

Bullfrog was, by far, my favorite game developer in the 90s, especially when it came to PC games. They made enjoyable and quirky strategic titles, including the Populous and Syndicate series, as well as some really fun “Theme” simulator games (Theme Hospital, Theme Park). Bullfrog is also where Peter Molyneux began is fame (infamy?).

As a long-time fan of the Dungeon Keeper series (I even ran a small Geocities fan site for Dungeon Keeper 2 sometime around 1997), I of course had the same knee-jerk reaction that all of the other so-called old-school/hardcore/enthusiast gamers had when EA announced that there was a new Dungeon Keeper game, but that it was mobile only… and offered in-app purchases. Much like many other popular free-to-play apps, Dungeon Keeper for Apple and Android devices is designed to try and get you to spend real money.

Along the same vein as the original series, the goal in Dungeon Keeper is to manage your dungeon and then defend that dungeon and its “heart” from aggressors. Just like the original, you’ll dig paths using imps, build rooms that offer new features (like traps), and raise and train your army of minions to defend your keep, or invade and pillage the precious resources of other enemy Keepers.

But like modern mobile apps, there is a catch to the free price tag. Performing actions takes time. Sometimes a lot of time. However, time is meaningless if you’re willing to part with some cash.

“Old-school fans” first complained that it took too long to do anything in the game. Digging a path, upgrading a trap, and leveling up a room all take time and, as a nod to the original, almost all tasks require an imp to be involved. In the new version of Dungeon Keeper, you have a max of 6 imps, but you start off with only one. Unlocking new imps requires gems, which can only be earned by mining (which takes a lot of time) or can be purchased with real-world cash.

Yes, getting started in Dungeon Keeper is a long process. And if you lack patience, your best option is to spend money. But this is no different than any other game. You start off small and work your way up to the good stuff. For some reason though, in this case, that caused some people to complain that this new Dungeon Keeper was a bastardization of the original and was designed with greed and malice (so likely) in mind, to take your money.

I’d like to state for the record though, that as a huge fan of the games that came before, Dungeon Keeper for iOS has been my favorite game for months. And you know what? I have not spent a single goddamned penny on it. I earned everything that I have, every win and every loss, with good old-fashioned patience and hard work.

Dungeon Keeper is not the type of game that you play for hours at a time though. You fire it up every couple of hours, check to make sure that your imps are working hard (remember to give them a slap every once in awhile so they’ll complete tasks faster) and that you’re collecting resources.

It’s the best I-have-two-minutes-to-spare type of game I’ve played in a long time.

Dungeon Keeper is not a bad game — it’s a very good game actually. And those who claim to be upset because a beloved classic is now a just another way to ‘screw over’ customers and take their money for EA, are missing out on a really enjoyable strategy game that has a lot more in common with the original titles than they give it credit for.

As gamers, whether you’ve been playing games for as long (or longer) than I have or you’re new to the hobby, we eventually get set in our ways. We become like our fathers and grandfathers, who think change is bad simply because it’s not the way we remembered it. “Back in my day games were better…” I hear that all the time. Games back then aren’t any better or worse than they are today. They’re different. Sure, there is a fair share of terrible games around that aren’t worth your time or money, but we also have a lot of really good titles today that do some great things. It’s all relative.

And for the record, as much as I love the original Dungeon Keepers, they’re not very easy or quite as enjoyable to play with today’s gaming mindset, so take that for what it’s worth from a big fan of the franchise.