Kongregate getting worse?

Kongregate. The great gaming website that overmatched every other: Armor Games, Newgrounds, amongst others. However, it does seem to slowly becoming worse. Recently, I’ve discovered some things and I have to say, some Kongregate users ( Like me ) were not amused.

1#: Kong Plus? Now, some people may disagree with me, but is this a downgrade? Because honestly, Kongregate has never had a way to make your account premium. There were kreds, which were a slight annoyance, but they were comprehensible because every website/game deserved premium currency to have donations. But Kong Plus just gives a plain upgrade, which in my eyes, is unfair because Kongregate should never expect people to pay to have a premium account. But when they did implement Kong Plus, they were obviously expecting people bought it. Which worked. I’m not saying this was terrible, it was the very will of the buyer to pay for that premium account, to support kongregate. I’m just saying there was no need for that. In my opinion, anyways.

2#: What’s with all the pay-to-play/pay-to-win MMO’s? Seriously? This just occupies space in kongregate. When I read: Thousands of FREE games. Free. That isn’t free. A game that demands you to wait or pay for energy, or that constantly bugs you to buy the premium currency to have flat-out better gear than others is NOT free to play. It’s give-us-money-and-we’ll-give-you-overpowered-things. No. Just no. But other than the developers ( That obviously just want their money) I also think it’s the buyers fault that this happens. Because there is always some 50 kids paying for that stuff. And they shouldn’t. But that is something we can’t avoid. What really sucks is that an awesome game with awesome features is instantly ruined by the greed of the developer, and efficiently making 60% of the people playing it angry/bored and leave.
3#: User incompetence. This is something that will ALWAYS happen, but I’m pointing it out anyway. To any user reading this: In chat, in your profile or in any place of Kongregate, use the mute button. A troll? Don’t feed/mute. An annoying idiot? Don’t feed/mute. Chatroom is full of immature trolls/kids? Call a moderator or if there aren’t many, mute. Plus be respectful with mods. Do understand that they come to the chatroom out of their good will. They aren’t paid. They use time they could be having fun or earning money to cleanse the chatrooms. And while there might be 50 mods, there are hundreds of chatrooms. So PLEASE, only call mods if the chatroom is in critical need of them. This means extreme disrespecting/trolling/spamming. Don’t call a mod the second somebody says " lol ur stupid british suc america ftw ". No. See that shiny little mute button when you click somebodies name? Yeah. Use it. Be respectful towards them. Don’t say they are incompetent useless idiots because goddamit they are not. I hope you understand.

4#: Children. It’s obvious anybody in their right senses reading this would begin to act like they should. Unless they are underaged(Under thirteen, as the conduct says.)/mentally challenged. It’s alright that kids play flash games here, after all that’s the point of Kongregate, but it’s not alright to go to a chatroom and cause trouble. Kids, don’t go to kongregate just because you want to annoy people: If you are here it’s because you want to be playing games. And if you DO want to chat, do it properly. Otherwise you will not only get yourself into trouble, but also other people that lose their nerves too quickly. For the sake of a better Kongregate.

Overall: There maybe be more reasons that Kongregate might becoming slightly less good than they were, but I’m not listing them here does not mean they don’t exist. I just have to thank all the moderators and admins, as well as the creators of Kongregate for offering all of us a great experience. These were simply things that, in my opinion, should be attempted to be fixed. Maybe some don’t have solutions. Maybe others do. All I would wish is for there to be a more clean, better Kongregate. Thanks for reading.

#1: Bonuses given by K+ aren’t numerous, so non-paying users aren’t really losing on anything. The reason it was implemented is that a lot of users desired to support the website.

#2: I do agree that many free games are relying too much on players that pay additional content, but it’s a general trend to charge someone for bonus material nowadays in the gaming industry (DLCs, for example). This isn’t something Kongregate is responsible of.

#3: Unfortunately, tolerance isn’t as wide spread on the internet as I would wish. After all, emotionalism is a very widespread quality among many internauts. Once again, we can’t really do anything here to force people to change.

#4: If they are underaged, users shouldn’t be here in the first place. Please report them if you see them explicitly stating their age. As for users simply coming to be a nuisance, I believe the problem lies in point three; if users ignored trolls, they would never get the enjoyment from attention they attract.

Thing is most of the children say they are over 13, and there is no real way to find out. I agree: It is normal for charging for more content, however, I don’t like the fact that they charge us (usually) a ridiculous amount of money for virtual goods. Usually the premium currency. If I did want to have a flat-out upgrade than what I already have in a MMO game, I’d buy WoW and then spend on that. Why? Because it is popular, which means lot’s of people will be there, and also more polished better version. Usually it’s not Kongregates fault, but sometimes users just don’t realise you should use reports and mutes instead of " omg ur so gay yo mama so fat lolololol"

Kong is getting worse.

Hey, you forgot something: Socialization which makes points 3 and 4 more malignant.

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Sigh, kongregate used to be sole gaming website. Now it’s spiced up with social features which naturally has its benefits but also disbenefits, mostly points 3 and 4 not to mention that kongregate is owned by GameStop and heavily advertised and promoted more than ever which naturally attract immature users. Of course, it brings mature and very desirable users as well but overall, majority will be more immature with this rate.

If someone looked flash games in 2009 (my own experiences don’t go beyond that), they used search engine and was not randomly redirected here by an advert or referral link.

Of course it is good that kongregate can support itself by attracting more and more users but this is getting out of hands due loud majority of immature/trolling users attracted to here. I’m not trying to be elitist, trying to say everyone who behaves even slightly immature should be banned, but you should take a look at yourself and your behavior before you jump into community

And about MMOs clogging… blame internet and developers. Micro-transactions, referral systems and friend cooperation are trend now. I call it ‘facebookilization’ and I hope it doesn’t last forever

However, to support itself, kongregate is unscrupulously taking advantage of this trend and is willing to promote MMOs to… cash out. As if MMOs didn’t receive enough plays without promoting them

So yeah, the way kongregate is heading is looking gloomy for all of us rebels who despise Facebook. I doubt this is enough to nudge me much, though, as there’s still sickeningly much great and free games left to play, badges to earn and some true friends to chat with

EDIT:
@Above
Blame greedy developers for charging mind shocking lot for mere virtual goods. /cough Tyrant /cough

The big problem to us gamers is that, while good MMO’s like Battle Dawn or Realm of the Mad God are getting shoved out of the way of popularity, other Pay to win MMOs are occupying this space, making it so many new players don’t find the good ones. And eventually these die out, but in a much slower rate and with a much higher rating than the Pay to win ones. But then the developer that does those good MMOs takes too long/stops making MMOs and there goes another good opportunity. Going to the MMO section and attempt to find a good MMO between the promoted ones is like looking for diamonds in a trash can. You know you might find some, but they are almost never there, and each time you give an MMO an opportunity, it just spits in your face with some pay-to-win content and makes you go " I don’t want to live in this planet anymore."

Title nailed it, but the post itself missed.

This reminds me of Flipline Studios who left RoS (one of the better MMOs) to go churn out countless Papa’s games.

The only game I find that isn’t truely ‘free’ is Swords and Potions! That game is nothing more than a money grab, not even going to bother with the badges. Overall, Kong has gone a bit downhill but its not half as bad as some people say it is. People just blowing things up. _{as usual…}

It has gone downhill with all this feed crap, and the ever-increasing dungheap of MMOs… but the whole industry seems to be going that way. Encourage/force people be ‘social’ because Facebook worked, try to hook paying users… been going on for years. We should be thankful Kong hasn’t gone further down that road, because it easily could have.

Still a great website, just (for me) not as great as it used to be.

You are forgetting the real reason pay-to-win MMO’s get played so much:

Greg and raw keep giving them badges.

For an example, lets look at Time World.

Recently, this “game” got badges. I say “game” because there is literally no gameplay. The entire game is just idling in a menu to get more ships or upgrade buildings. The battles are basically “biggest number wins”, but you have to sit through like 30 seconds of a bunch of ships shooting at each other to find out which side has the biggest number. You cannot control the ships.

Nobody would play Time World if it didn’t have badges.

They badged it BECAUSE people play it and BECAUSE they like it. There’s 3 requirements for a game to be badged:

1. People actually play it;
2. Higher then ~3.6 rating;
3. API.

2 of those things are 100% within control of the players. If everyone rated it 1/5 and didn’t play it, then the game wouldn’t be badged.

Originally posted by GameBuilder15:

Kong is getting worse.

Please explain, and preferably offer constructive criticism. Just complaining doesn’t help anything.

Originally posted by DarkRainyKnight:

This reminds me of Flipline Studios who left RoS (one of the better MMOs) to go churn out countless Papa’s games.

It’s a shame that flash games have become a business and that there aren’t more developers making games for the fun of it.

Originally posted by CROWexist:

Nobody would play Time World if it didn’t have badges.

Oh, but they would, and they did ;) Just because you don’t like a certain type of game doesn’t mean others don’t… Think of a genera of flash games you don’t like, do you think it would be ludicrous for others to play that type of game if it didn’t have badges? Of course not. Sure MMOs appeal to a smaller margin of players than games like Kingdom Rush does but the player base is still there and as long as people are willing to spend money on games like Time World games like Time World are going to be released.

Originally posted by L_Deathnote:

The only game I find that isn’t truely ‘free’ is Swords and Potions!

As someone who earned all badges in Swords and Potions in 4 days without paying a cent, I disagree with this.

1.-Point 2-4 are not kong fault.
2.- That kongregate has been in a downhill is just personal oppinon and not a fact.
3.- There are thousends of developers who make games for fun, not for money
4.- Yes, the MMO getting badges is annoying, and time world got badges probably since Dream World was a great succes so they though the same would happen with another one of the same developer. Also they always do this with developers who have a good relationship with them ( playmage, neerdook, the trio of cyclomaniacs, 5th planet games, the same guy who makes CoG, Senatry, ShadowLand ) ( and who always change his user name so pleople dont flame him about re using his games to profit the stupid )beacuse really, Time world hard badge is repetitive and boring.

Originally posted by BlackBone:

Originally posted by DarkRainyKnight:

This reminds me of Flipline Studios who left RoS (one of the better MMOs) to go churn out countless Papa’s games.

It’s a shame that flash games have become a business and that there aren’t more developers making games for the fun of it.

Oddly enough it sounds like a large group of people dislike the Papa’s games and it seems like a good majority of people that play/played RoS really enjoy/enjoyed it. Though the Papa’s games wouldn’t keep having high ratings if people truly didn’t like it. There must be quite a few undercover Papa’s fans among us :-P

Originally posted by hiperson134:

Title nailed it, but the post itself missed.

Gonna agree with hiperson here.

1) K+ gives aesthetic changes. There is nothing in the package that gives you an advantage within any game. If you still think K+ is a bad idea, you are basically selfish because you don’t have the same paint job as other people. K+ isn’t a premium package. K+ is an aesthetics package.

2) Greedy developers make them since they can’t be creative enough to make an original game. It is easy to sell items in MMOs and therefore it is easy to make money. This has nothing to do with Kongregate themselves other than Kongregate thinking it is a good idea to keep badging these games.

3) This has always been an issue, and it will only get worse. As a population grows, you will always see an increase in them. 1000 new users will join. 990 will be awesome and friendly. Humans, being the self-centered people they are, will only notice the 10 who annoy them. To clarify my point, if a website has 1 million users, you will only notice the 1000 that piss you off. The only way to fix this is to go to an unknown website with less people (so only 10 of the 10,000 players annoy you) or a website without a chatroom and forum feature.

4) This is not an issue of children. See 3.

I would like to point out that not all ptw games are evil…
I’m fine with them as long as the ptw nature does not come into competitive play much.
for example, clash of the dragon, I’m perfectly happy with it back in the day when it only have draft as a reward-type pvp. it went down hill with Colosseum. Sure, it had ptw pvp from the very beginning, but as that part was once about a time voluntary competition with NO reward attached, it really doesn’t hurt the game a bit. If you don’t wanna be pawned by rich ppl, just don’t play them and you won’t be any worse off.
thou frankly now days no one except the cash players even bother with Colosseum so it still doesn’t matter much… But in any case, I think that’s an example where ptw didn’t hurt.

But you guys are correct in saying that most ptw game hurt, most of them are too greedy to think every aspect through… There are probably ways to make it provide some benefit via paying(or save effort but does not grant progress, such as tribal war) while not hurting the game, but they either don’t think enough or disregard it for the sake of more fast income. I play games casually instead of competitively because I know I can’t win against the wallet warriors. And even when I try to compete, I won’t compare myself to the whales.

It’s not the genre, it’s the over-abundance of negative examples within it.

Kong certainly isn’t what it used to be, I’d agree with that, but unfortunately everything changes, as companies get bigger, they just want more money, so they lose their character and become blank and corporate to appeal to the masses. That’s what happens to every company, Kongregate just got too big. It’s a shame and all, but it just means if you want that nice cosy feel back, you’re going to have to move to a different site! :/ Kong won’t ever go back to being down to earth again, they are making too much money, and for a company like this, that’s all they end up caring about after a while… It’s a shame, because all the people who helped it become popular just get pushed aside.

As I said though, it’s normal for most companies that reach a certain size, just look at facebook, youtube etc.

Originally posted by Fleecemaster:

Kong certainly isn’t what it used to be, I’d agree with that, but unfortunately everything changes, as companies get bigger, they just want more money, so they lose their character and become blank and corporate to appeal to the masses. That’s what happens to every company, Kongregate just got too big. It’s a shame and all, but it just means if you want that nice cosy feel back, you’re going to have to move to a different site! :/ Kong won’t ever go back to being down to earth again, they are making too much money, and for a company like this, that’s all they end up caring about after a while… It’s a shame, because all the people who helped it become popular just get pushed aside.

As I said though, it’s normal for most companies that reach a certain size, just look at facebook, youtube etc.

Sadly you kinda hit the nail on the head. To a certain point this is undeniably true.

It’s not really that bad. :P

I distinctly remember when Kongregate was bought by Game Stop the it was said that it would remain the same without drastic and obvious changes. I also remember reading someone at Kongregate saying something about economics or the market or some other piece of nonsense, necessitated the takeover. But when I logged on yesterday the freaking home screen changed yet again and this was the time that may drive me finally off the edge. I liked having the games I’ve most recently played on the home screen. I also don’t care or care to see which people are winning what badges. I don’t want to seem too remeniscent(sp?) about something now long past, but I do miss the old days.

to me Kongregate just seems too much like FB now, the ads never really bothered me, and I did enjoy finding new games to play.
I dont like Facebook, but I do use occasionally..and I hate to say it, but Kong is looking waay to much like it now, everywhere I look, I get updated on peoples statuses and if they commented on a game I never even heard of…
Kong+ was ok, I mean there wasnt really any new benefits and it really didnt matter if you bought it or not, but like people said before me, all they care about is the money…and everything else just goes to hell…
It makes me sad to see something that I enjoyed get taken over just like everything else into a corporate buisness, which is what Kongregate is becoming…

This seems to be random issues piled together. 3 and 4 are kind of unnecessary. Mute people you don’t like, and report people that cross the line too much. This includes children. Kong Plus is just a way for those with money to spare to tell Kongregate they enjoy the website and wish to support it.

As for the MMOs, there really isn’t a problem with them “existing” (as much as there isn’t a problem with hundreds of idle games existing). There’s a problem with them being featured and getting badges or challenges related to them. An MMO with only visual upgrades or small singleplayer advantages is excluded from being problematic. A “game” where you can buy a pack worth a thousand dollars (!!!) which will make you an instant winner over all those that don’t pay stops being serious. The highscores should forfeit “best player”, “amount of upgrades” and “number of victories” and replace it with “amount of money pumped into the game”. This is an insult to the gaming industry. The worst thing is that these games thrive on the little kiddos using their daddy’s credit card to support the continuation of such abominations. Don’t get me wrong, there are MMOs, like I said, that only give visual enhancements or small singleplayer upgrades. There are probably also websites that only feature pay-to-win games, attracting only players like that. However, Kongregate started out differently, so it attracted a lot of players not belonging in that category. Free players cannot compete with paying players, unless in the games that only feature visual enhancements.

It’s shitty that a lot of badge hunters get turned off by such games, but I guess we’ll get over that.

Originally posted by DarkRainyKnight:

This reminds me of Flipline Studios who left RoS (one of the better MMOs) to go churn out countless Papa’s games.

Heh i rate every new papa game a 1 when they come out. stop making the same stupid game.