Dungeon Keeper Mobile Dev Addresses Design Criticisms

Dungeon Keeper recently released for iOS and Android, and has been getting skewered by the press and gamers alike for its transaction model. The game places heavy time limits on the most basic of tasks, which can be sped up by spending gems. Of course, the gems require real money to purchase and the game constantly reminds you to purchase them in order to speed up the proceedings.

EA Mythic’s Jeff Skalski addressed these concerns to TabTimes, stating that, “It’s important to emphasize that we designed a game that is built around the typical mobile play patterns. This means Dungeon Keeper is meant to be played on the go multiple times a day with a few minutes here or there. This way of playing allows fans to naturally progress as a free player.

“That’s not to say you can’t quickly blow past 30 minutes in one sitting by summoning new minions, reorganizing your dungeon layout, find a keeper to attack, check in with your guild, queue up your next digs then take on a new event raid before calling it a night.”

The game seems to have a fairly decent average on both the Play Store and App Store, although there are tons of negative reviews overall. Stay tuned to see how quickly EA back-peddles from this practice, if they do at all.