Day 14 of Angry Birds Seasons took me a little longer than expected, but I eventually got that elusive 3 star rating. Now, please feel free to top me!
(ImageShack and TinyPic are both good image hosting options.)
(ShootMe and Drocap2 are both good screenshot apps.)
A couple of our friends in the industry (here and here) have already posted up some of their choice thoughts today about GameLoft, but as a site with a crazy active community, we wanted to see your thoughts on the company as well. If you aren’t familiar with GameLoft, I’ll do my best to catch you up in a few short sentences. GL is obviously a gaming company, but they just so happen to be one that makes some of the highest quality and most impressive games you’ll ever see on Android. Most of their games are “HD” and include titles like Dungeon Hunter, Let’s Golf, N.O.V.A. and Asphalt that can all be had for $4.99.
So what’s the problem then? Users have grown increasingly frustrated with their lack of a presence in the actual Android Market. At this time, and for the foreseeable future, you can only purchase games at GameLoft’s site using a buying process that ranks as one of the worst in the history of online shopping. Users are noticing multiple charges for games on their bank statements and are even having issues downloading and installing games immediately after buying them. Seriously, it’s bad.
And why is GameLoft forcing users to their site? As far as we know, it has to do with piracy. I can’t say I blame them for having concerns as piracy of apps is HUGE in the Android world, but if they are choosing to go this route, then maybe it’s time to put together a system that isn’t causing customers such heartache.
So tell us, have any thoughts on GameLoft in general?
[poll id=”38″]
Update: GameLoft reached out to us after posting this poll to apologize to any customers who ran into double-charging issues while buying games from their store. Oh, if you were double-billed, you will also receive a free game credit…
“Gameloft would like to apologize to those who were affected by the following situation on Gameloft’s Android store:
We spotted an issue in our billing process that affected 0.05% of all transactions on our stores in December. After having bought one game through a credit card, some customers were charged a second time under certain circumstances.
All customers who received extra charges will be automatically refunded for all related game charges directly to their credit card accounts, and will receive a free game credit.
This bug has been fixed today.
Again, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience it might have caused some of our customers. If you need further assistance on Gameloft’s offer for Android please contact: android.support@gameloft.com
Gameloft Customer Service”
Nice to see them come out and admit that an issue was in fact there and then follow it up with some free games. Thanks GameLoft!
Motorola has filed for a trademark of the word “Stadia” which came as a pretty big surprise to us initially, until we saw the description. This new trademark, more than likely has something to do with Moto’s CEO Sanjay Jha and the remarks he keeps making about the seamless transition of media from phones to TVs and home entertainment systems. We know that Moto’s goal with their upcoming Tegra 2 devices (Olympus, Etna and Everest) is to make an all-in-one multi-media device with extra gaming capabilities and “Stadia” might be the name for those plans.
Here is a quick shot from the description:
handheld game device in the nature of hand-held units for playing electronic games for use with external display screen or monitor;
Tegra 2 Everest or Etna streamed somehow to your TV? Sounds like fun to me.
Via: Phandroid, Pocket Now
The Voice Search application for Android just went personal. Actually, a new update is available and includes what “Personalized Recognition” that if enabled, over time, will learn from your voice to help make your searches more accurate. Who didn’t want a custom speech model for X-mas?
If you opt into personalized recognition, we begin to associate the recordings of the words that you ask us to recognize with your Google account. We then automatically use these words to build a speech model specifically for you. This speech model enables us to deliver greater recognition accuracy. Although subtle, accuracy improvements begin fairly quickly and will build over time.
For Android 2.2 phones and above, and you’ll have to click yes when prompted to begin building your speech empire.
Via: Google Mobile Blog
Cheers rudyt and Adam!
Scrabble – Sounds like a blast. Oh but wait, now you’re saying I can play “Scrabble” on my Android phone? Double blast? Indeed it’s true. The extremely popular i*hone application is being ported to the Android platform by the game developers and is expected to make it’s first appearance very soon. But can I play with my friends with i*hones? I hope so. I love wiping that smug grin off their faces!
But this brings up another subject. Getting more applications from the i*hone platform to come to the GreenSide. Queue Imperial March! We already got the Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds love, but I want to see more. Also, it isn’t like we don’t already have Scrabble games. There is Scrabble Lite, WordWise, Word Feud, and a ton more, but if any of you know Words With Friends, then you’ll know of its pure greatness.
Picasa is at it again! The ultimate leak machine these days for anyone with too much time on their hands, has produced the first pictures from the Motorola Olympus (MB860). They aren’t much to look at and the resolution or crop job on some of them is about as weird as it gets, but we may still have discovered something special pictured in the image below: (more…)
Ready to crank up the rumor engine? How does the Super Bowl sound as an outlet for Motorola and Verizon to announce their 10″ Tegra 2 Honeycomb tablet? Currently codenamed the Everest and Stingray, we fully expect it to have “DROID” branding at launch and according to the tipster that dropped the picture above on the world, February 6th in Dallas might be the day to mark on our calendars.
To see video of the Motorola tablet in action, check out this post.
Thoughts on a February 6th date?
Cheers ckeegan!
