After sifting through the mountain of e-mail that accumulated during my vacation, I came across a note from PlayFirst, alerting me that Diner Dash on Facebook would be shut down in August. The note didn't offer any reasons, but obviously it's not monetizing like PlayFirst would like. Unfortunately, the game's failure is their own fault.
Diner Dash had the makings to be a great Facebook game. It retained the core gameplay, but added social elements. Where PlayFirst went terribly wrong was in their monetization strategy. Like many traditional publishers attempting to enter the social space, PlayFirst got greedy. The amount of things you had to pay for in that game was ridiculous. When it launched, it cost 40 Facebook Credits (That's $4.00 for those of you who don't know) to unlock any restaurant other than the starting diner. This is a completely asinine price for a number of reasons, the biggest of which is that you can download an entire Diner Dash game (five restaurants and 50 levels) for $6.99. WTF? Why would anyone pay more than half the cost of an entire game for a single restaurant?
Recently, PlayFirst made it possible to unlock the next restaurant by earning five stars in the first one, but it was too late. Diner Dash fanatics like myself had already stopped playing in protest. A quick browse through the official forums after launch made it clear the core Diner Dash fans felt the same way I did.
The failure of this game illustrates how clueless many traditional publishers are when it comes to social gaming. They try to put a price on your progress. The best social games can be played without spending a penny. It will take you longer to level up and achieve your goals, but it is possible to play continuously for free. Diner Dash wasn't like that. They gave you one restaurant and charged for everything else. The game was basically like demo, where you had to shell out the cash to get the full experience. There's nothing wrong with the gameplay obviously, as the franchise has sold millions of copies, so the monetization strategy was its downfall. It just ended up feeling like a crash grab, and players (even if they've never played another game before) can tell when you're just out to make a quick buck.
Hopefully PlayFirst has learned its lesson; it's just a shame that one of my favorite gaming franchises had to be the one to fail.
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