[New Game] Pay $3 To Win: FFFFF2P Makes A Statement On The Lamentable World Of ‘Free To Play’ Games

The various detractors of the free-to-play gaming model, including yours truly, often refer to such titles from the likes of Glu and Gamevil as “pay-to-win.” That’s never been so true as in FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE 2 PLAY, where an ogre steals the princess and you have to literally ransom her back. You could spend hours and hours grinding through the 2D platformer, avoiding the advertising that will crush you and stomping on it to collect coins, slowly building up to 1,000,000 in-game dollars.

Yes, FFFFF2P is really free, and yes, it includes real in-app purchases. You can get various boosters to bump up the pixelated coins you play in the lightning-fast levels, or pick protection items to keep your streak going. Each IAP booster can also be bought with in-game currency (and compared to some of the more egregious free to play games, it’s a breeze to build up the cash you need), but that will set you back from the ultimate goal.

  

FFFFF2P makes a sardonic statement about free to play games, very much like the Windows game DLC Quest. But unlike that title, which costs three real dollars with all the in-game “DLC packs” made in pretend money, FFFFF2P’s message is somewhat undercut by the fact that it actually includes real in-app purchases. The description also leaves out the (real) full-page ads in between rounds and the annoying push to share the game on social networks, two features of the genre that’s being lampooned.

It’s kind of like an overly-obvious product placement being ironically shoehorned into a sitcom: sure it’s funny, but someone’s still getting paid. FFFFF2P is a free download (of course) for Android 2.3.3 or higher.