Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Tiny Thief Pulls A Bait And Switch, Runs Off With Your Original $2.99 And Goes Freemium

When Rovio Stars published Tiny Thief into the Play Store last July, the game stole my heart. It was an absolutely adorable, excellently crafted, highly polished, and rather comical point-and-click puzzle experience. The stylized visuals and bite-sized nature of each stage made playing the game feel akin to watching old clips of Looney Tunes, and it was well worth its $2.99 asking price.

Unfortunately, things have changed.

Tiny Thief is now a freemium game containing in-app purchases. There is no way to get the original version back from Google Play (though you can still find it on Amazon, along with the lite version that has also disappeared from the Play Store), and you're going to have to ask for a refund if you want to avoid re-paying for levels. The original game contained five levels, each broken into five stages. Two of those levels now cost $1.99 apiece, even if you already paid for the original game. Alternatively, you can get both of them, along with the newer sixth level, for $4.99 total.

There's an option in the game settings to restore in-app purchases, but it means precisely that - in-app purchases. It doesn't honor previous purchases of the full game.

^{Or so it says.}

To make matters worse, you are now presented with these ads whenever you pause the game, ads that also weren't in the original version.

At the very least, refunds appear to be going out to disgruntled users. I received mine promptly. If you want to request one as well, just visit Google Play in a browser and go to the Settings Cog > My orders > Report a problem > Select an option > I'd like to request a refund.