Capcom’s Smurfs’ Village has garnered an astonishing volume of controversy since it first debuted in the App Store.
The issue? Smurfs’ Village is a freemium title: free to play, but all of your progress in the game is tied to collecting “Smurfberries” (a Roald Dahl inspired sexual euphemism if I ever heard one). You can buy Smurfberries to quicken your progress as in-app purchases.
The controversy all stems from the fact that it’s a freemium game with a subject matter aimed almost exclusively at small children, coupled with Capcom’s decision to price Smurfberries in ridiculously expensive bundles.
Pocket Gamer reports that Apple is hopping mad about the situation, with Steve Jobs playing the Gargamel to Capcom’s Smurfs. The company has apparently gone as far as to haul Capcom into their offices to chew the game maker out.
More proactively, though, this whole Smurfs Village debacle might result in a shortening of the iTunes login window (or the time iOS allots to make purchases after you have entered your iTunes password before you have to enter it again) from fifteen minutes to just five.
I’m not sure how that’s going to solve the problem, though. At up to $99.99 a bundle, that’s still plenty of time for a kid to go on a Smurfberry shopping spree if he’s not being adequately supervised… but it’s such a short window that it’s bound to annoy pretty much everyone else. It’s an annoying solution to a problem that has more to do with one app’s shady ethics and parents passing-the-buck on supervising their kids… especially considering the fact that you can already shut off in-app purchases globally.
What do you think? Should Capcom be dinged by Apple? Is shortening the iTunes login window really a good idea? Let us know in the comments.
[via TUAW
