Good GameReviews 66

Either you try to play the game for free and are gouing to be destroyed by most of the other players (because they invest money) or you have to invest $10/month, so you can survive. BUT even than, The game has so many bugs and in each update the game gets more and more bugs while the old ones get not solved. Hence, your paid Army or whatsoever disappears because of a bug or dies because you couldn't login in time...
Trying to claim things back which have been lost because of a Bug might take several weeks or will never happen

Goodgame Big Farm was fun for a while. I can live with some bugs and glitches. However, when they willingly bait-and-switched an Easter decoration I initiated a Paypal dispute and my account was immediately banned in retaliation. This is an unconscionable practice, and only led to me initiating full-blown claims (disputes give the seller a chance to resolve without actually demanding the refund) on all transactions, which I will win after what they did.

I have played GGE for quite some time and achieved a high Legendary Level (level past the max level 70). I recently quit after Goodgame Studios (GGS) failed to respond to repeated support requests. Here is a partial list of complaints:

- Loses troops when moving from outer kingdoms to Green (main) kingdom unless you use time skips or rubies to move the immediately;
- I spent over 1 million coins on the Technius to upgrade equipment before logging off. After logging back on found none of the upgrades were any longer on my equipment, and all the coins I spent were still gone;
- Food consumption rates have been increased to require you to farm (grind) more;
- Have lowered the payout of coins from attacks on Sam's and Nomads making farming more necessary than ever before;
- Support is non-existent. If you complain, they will ban you from the game and/or forums;
- I made a large ruby purchase prior to the crash. When it came back, the rubies were gone. I sent a copy of my receipt to Support. They refused to refund my money since I was unable to prove I did not spend the rubies. When I challenged through my CC company they locked me out of the game.

They are constantly updating the game making the purchase of rubies a necessity to remain competitive. Players who pay to play cannot be defeated by non-paying players through the use of God/SuperGod Commanders and Cast's.

In short, this game is no longer about strategy and teamwork. It's about how much money they can squeeze out of the players. You've been warned.

Advertised as a free to play game, this is probably the best (worst) example of how a free-to-play game can monetize itself. As someone who has played free-to-play games before and never been tempted to make purchases, I have made several with GoodGame Empire and I warn everyone to stay away from it.

The game starts of relatively innocently. Goodgame studios use psychological tactics that trap you in to the game. There are many people who feel addicted to Goodgame Empire and will not leave because of the commitment they have already made and the community they are in. Goodgame Empire uses a slow process of conditioning players to accept that spending money is a good thing, until you get to a point where you either need to spend vast sums of money to win or accept defeat. Players have spend thousands on this game!

Goodgame Studios do not listen to their customers. They do not even listen to their big spenders and it often takes large acts of defiance on their forums and well organised purchase and game-play boycotts to get incredibly unpopular decisions reversed. Bugs are rife within this game. Individual losses and frequent down time of in-game events are frequently ignored by the developers. Sometimes we may receive an empty apology but this is it.

Updates come in thick and fast. The game changes on a weekly basis with more and more features geared towards those players who are willing to spend hundreds on the game. I do not exaggerate! The gap between those who play for free (and those who spend a little) and those who spend a lot if ever widening.

The community is fun to be around but if you want to do well, you need to spend a lot of time on the game. So much so, it has become a chore for most people who merely go through the various motions in order to keep their account ticking over.

If I knew what I do now, I would have NEVER started playing Goodgame Empire. Avoid this game and any other game made by Goodgame Studios like the plague.

Avoid any game by GoodGame Studios, they will rob you blind and then deny all responsibility. The games are more bug-ridden than a whorehouse, and the customer support is non-existent. You stand no chance of competing fairly unless you spend £100 a day.
I've been playing Empire for 4 years at pretty much the top level and things have really started to get bad over the last year. If it wasn't for the time, money and friends I'd made over that time, I'd have moved onto something else a long time ago.

I cannot recommend this game to anyone and the experiences my friends and I have had with the customer service leads me to conclude that they do not care one iota for any of their customers, they just want your money.

All recent updates are either buggy, useless or for buyers only nothing for the non buyers and when they do add an ok update it normally brings lag more bugs and no fun and if the customer support actually worked I'll think it would get 2 stars the customer support is so awful that I'm still waiting on problems a year from now haven't got a reply nothing also they tell you your lying for serious issues like losing troops, losing rubies ( premium currency) and losing your account accusing you of password sharing when you haven't and other outlandish claims. I can say one thing great social place for saying negative things about any update. I just wish the company listened to us and fixed all the problems I personal don't care about rubbish support if they is no need to contact them but with bad updates and the update notes are so vague you could assume anything.

Hiya, gang!

I am Elliotell333 on USA 1 on Empire, and I absolutely adore the game. I have been playing for a good long while and will be for a much longer time. They have a great support team and have helped me out many a time, a good forum with helpful community managers, and a great game full of good features.

Regards,
E

If you ever concider playing a game, buy one in the store. It will save you thousands... and tons of frustration!

My experience is based on 18 months on this site... Customer service is non-existant, you are simply a liar even you prove them wrong. If you want to be cheated, play this game, and you will instantly feel how they screw you. Feels like youre talking to an automated bot...

Anyway, the price increases and changes to generate even more revenue is appalling, such as bakkery / hospital, let alone the addition of legendary levels. They are SELLING experience to help you level up, and then they keep adding levels! Never ending story...

I tried several of GGSs games (including Empire, Gangster, Big Farm) and I am APPALLED. Lets start with Goodgame Empire, which I think is the worst. The first few levels, it is ok, because buildings only take a maximum of two minutes. Fine. But once you get to a higher level (46 or 47 in my case) they take RIDICULOUS amounts of time. 9 hours to upgrade a dwelling. Something like 6 days to upgrade a keep. And whats more, spending real money (on rubies) allows you to speed it up. 112,000 rubies for £49.99. As a general rule, all games that include in-game cheat purchases like that are worth avoiding. So much waiting. And who wants to play a game by WAITING SIX DAYS?

For Gangster, there is one of the worst features ever: an energy bar limiting your play time unless you wait for ages or pay. Missions take 4 minutes to 20 minutes (of pointless waiting for the timer to go down) then a two-second fight. And to get enough energy to complete a FOUR MINUTE mission you have to wait ONE HOUR. Or spend Premium Currency gold. Shame.

For Big Farm, buying gold is for stuck-up spoiled obnoxious brats who want to cheat. There are these events in which you complete several tasks to earn a reward. Even if you didnt do the tasks, you can still buy the final reward for gold. Think of it like this: You are on a game show to win a prize. You work really hard and earn the prize. Next to you is a spoiled idiot who doesnt do any tasks but buys the prize for money. What do you think?

If I could rate them 0 stars, I would. Dont play these games.

It's REALLY ironic that Goodgame Empire is actually ADVERTISING on this site. The nerve!

Also, why are there these stuck-up snob idiots who are spending more than some peoples monthly salaries on Premium Currency for GGS? Ridiculous. *continues ranting*

The game isn't bad, it's customer service that ruins it. For one thing, endless updates which nobody wants or asks for - which would be fine if there werent a hundred bugs that popped up every time, that they almost never fix, and other issues with the game that they haven't addressed in years. This is also the only company I've ever purchased something from that will actually accuse you of lying and flat out refuse to help you. If you lose soldiers due to one of their problems, you will have to prove it and most of the time you can't because who in their right mind constantly takes screen shots while they're playing on the off chance that something will go wrong and customer service wont do sh*t to help you. Then even if you do provide proof, if their "records" don't back up your claim, they'll accuse you of lying and tell you to keep on walking. On top of that, accounts get hacked into and they do nothing to help, instead they accuse us of giving out our passwords.

Good game, horrible customer service. Doesn't matter if you play for free or spend thousands of dollars (which many do).

GoodGame Studios should be called 'BAD Game' Studios for the way they manipulate their customers. They draw them in on so called "free play" then make it impossible for to enjoy the game without spending money on it or spending all your time online. What a very poor excuse for a business to take advantage of their customers like that... There account creation page should contain a WARNING label that clearly says 'Play At Your Own Risk'! Good Games Empire, allows rich customers to "BUY" their way to the top of the food chain and decimate the non-ruby buying players. I'm switching my online gaming choice as well and will NEVER recommend GoodGame Studios to anyone!

Update on 6/2017

Goodgame Studios added several things to the Empire game that through it out of balance. In an attempt to fix this and save the game they reduced the values of gems people paid 495K rubies for and devalued armor sets that they paid over a thousand dollars per set. More and more people are leaving the game. It is my suggestion that if you do play this dying game you not spend a single dollar. GGS did not compensate these large buyers appropriately. No rubies were refunded. Their money was not refunded. GGS flat out ripped off these people. It is nothing short of a bait and switch (fraud.)

Goodgame Studios Empire game is by far the worst Empire building "strategy, war" game out there! The game lags and crashes continuously. Not only does it crash freezing up the flash player, the connection is dropped regularly. Updates are often rewrites of existing bad code and bring back old problems time and time again. Defending when these updates come without notice and hotfixes come with 1 minute notice most often causes you to lose your defending army. Sometimes GGE will replace them but getting GGE to do so can take weeks. Attack troops can be lost as well and the same thing applies. Expect week(s) to get an answer and it is unlikely you get your troops back even if you bought them.

This supposed "Free to Play" game make tens of millions off their customers yet cannot provide weekend support or hire support for each of their games. During the week, support works bankers hours. Support is for ALL games not just Empire. Support tickets and issues on average take 7 to 21 days to get a response and issues are resolved about 25% of the time. Support has even gone as far as calling a paying customer a liar.

Price increases as much as 200-400% for ruby items are the norm at GoodGame Empire. They are continuously taking features such as a bakery and making changes that wind up gouging their customers. It is beyond the point of ridiculous now.

GoodGame Empire recently added supercommanders that can be bought at a ridiculous price. They also added "gems" The gems for attacks are far superior to the gems for defense making it impossible to defend against supercommanders. You can attempt to buy, once again BUYING expensive defense tools but you still get slaughtered. Once slaughtered it takes a lot of time and coins to rebuild only for someone to come along and slaughter you again. Large, strong armies search for small alliances with minimal defensive abilities and bully them regularly. GGE has made this easy and does nothing to give these people a chance to enjoy the game. When you bring these issues to a larger alliance you often hear "Goodgame Empire has coded it so this is allowable. Don't talk to us, talk to the developers." While people have complained GoodGame Empire only cares about making as much money as possible therefor they pander to the big spenders at the expense of the average player. GGE does very little for defenders and everything for attackers. This has caused thousands to give up and leave the game.

Multiple accounts bullying other players is another huge problem. Most recently, after two months of prodding GGE to act, support finally closed 42 accounts that all belonged to one bully. This same person is already creating more accounts. There is no email verification for playing GGE and nothing to stop a 10 year old from using one email for a hundred accounts. GGE has also admitted they do not block the IP of bullies either.

To sum it up, with money grabbing updates, terrible support, horrible lag, a lazy bug crew and development crew, and a ridiculous slant towards attackers GGE has sucked the fun out of the game. I highly suggest you try Forge of Empires or Imperia instead of GoodGame Empires. You will have a much more enjoyable experience, you will not have to spend a ton of time and resources rebuilding. Weeks can be spent just putting out fires.(In FoE your defending armies are not killed off and left for you to replace and attackers do not have an unfair advantage.) You will have a staff that is hands on and takes care of issues immediately (even on weekends which GGE does not.) Do not waste your time and effort on GoodGame Empire. You will regret it later.

GoodGame Studios (GreedGame Studios as i like to call them) is a dishonest company. I have played empire for over 2 years now. In the last 6 months they have gouged their customers by increaseing the cost of everything by almost dubble, they have bribed their customers with rubies to win awards, and their customer service is awful. Save your money and stay away from GGS games all together.

Goodgame Studios is an evil empire. Their only goal is to get your money. The games they make are designed to suck you in and keep you spending money. They don't care about you at all. I was dumb enough to spend hundreds of euros on one of their stupid games. When I reported a bug they did not take me seriously, dismissing it. Then they closed my account without warning because another player had complained about 'harrasment' (smack talk). I wrote this review to warn you and hopefully I saved you some money. Regards, Gerard

The Four Kingdom game starts off ok at lower levels, but GoodGamesStudios have set it up so as you get into the higher levels and more to lose, you have to buy mega-loads of rubies to continue playing and the game becomes very addictive, some players having to spend hundreds of dollars to remain competitive. My worst complaint about GoodGamesStudios is that the Empire: Four Kingdoms Game is riddled with bugs that make you lose all of your troops very quickly so you have to buy rubies to get more! When contacting support, and clearly explain the problem, the support people claim ignorance and expect proof (ie. A screenshot of the problem with my phone) that there's a problem. Many people lose everything because of these bugs, but as long as GoodGames Studios are making money... they do nothing! I know of many players that spend hundreds of dollars building their castles and armies, only to give up, because GoodGames raised the price of resources and made it much harder to get by without Rubies. Overall... while it was fun to start with... GoodGames has ruined it for everyone because of their blatant greed, ignorance of bugs that spoil the game. Unless you want to spend your pay packet... don't bother!