Wordabble turns one month old!
Happy Birthday, Wordabble. It’s been one month since the launch of our first iPhone application and we’re having a great time. Purchased now from more than 20 countries, more than half of our users are playing the Puzzle of the Day across 13 different timezones! Only about one third of our daily puzzle players submit their score but they’ve spent a combined 1,499 hours playing in just 30 days.
With any success — you run into users who try to push the limit or test the rules. We’re now getting a taste of that:
Several users have been solving the entire puzzle of the day in an extraordinarily short amount of time. This can be very frustrating for our users who spend quite a bit of time trying to solve the puzzle. Believe it or not, some users will spend upwards of five hours trying to solve a single puzzle. That’s incredible!
With fans that dedicated, you can bet we are contacted when something seems awry.
We’ve spent a lot of time discussing the appropriate response, whether responding is appropriate, the motivation for someone to complete or nearly complete a puzzle using a word list, how often someone might be motivated to do this, how people are accomplishing this, and finally, what we consider abuse.
Ultimately, the decision of who is abusing is very subjective. We can’t ever be sure of a person’s capability. And anything we do to prevent this in the future can be circumvented unless everyone has the same concept of how the game should be played.
I want to be clear that despite the complications, we are working on solutions that will make the game more enjoyable for everyone:
- We implemented a system to disable scores that are clearly abuse last Thursday, 9/4.
- We’ve contacted individuals whom we feel quite certain have abused the system and asked what they enjoy about the game, how they feel it challenges them, and their input on the situation.
- We’re considering placing those who are gifted in completing the POTD into a separate class, thereby playing against the clock with others who play the game in a similar manner while not affecting casual players.
One proposed solution by quite a few of our casual users was to remove the “End game and view summary” feature. I must stress that this is not the only way someone could abuse the system and was the most requested feature after our 1.0 release went public. While abuse clearly started after we released the updated version with this feature, removing it would do no good. People will still find a way to abuse the system if they want to. I believe we simply hit a tipping point in the user base where we finally had enough players for people to be interested in completing a puzzle. Or perhaps people got bored not finding all the words and wanted a new challenge (or wanted to learn words!) and have chosen to use a variety of tools at their disposal to complete the puzzle.
Ultimately, our goal is to listen and accommodate all sides of our customer base. Alienating a user for enjoying the product, regardless of how they’re enjoying it, would be a terrible thing to have to do. We’re here though, we’re listening to everyone, and we’re doing everything possible to resolve this situation.
A quick comment to thank-you for 30 days of challenging fun and looking forward to many more.
What about those of us with an iPod Touch who don’t consistently have access WiFi?
Like many, I am addicted to the daily puzzle. I download it when I wake up (and sometimes just e-mail myself a screencap of the game), then I will play the game at work throughout the day. However, I don’t have access to WiFi at work (DSL connection), so I methodically write down the words (à la Boggle) to later enter them at home with WiFi. Since I wasn’t on WiFi, the score wasn’t submitted nor the time logged… so when I go through my list of scribed words it appears it took a ridiculously low amount of time just because I was referring to my list of already solved words.
I commend your actions to make the game a more enjoyable for all users, and tremendously respect your choice to not ban those that other users unrighteously accuse of abusing the system, when clearly there are other options in which to play and enjoy this game.
Keep up the great work. It truly is a wonderful game!
Thank you both for enjoying the game so much. Interestingly enough, both of you play the game with a pen and paper (or type it somewhere) outside of the actual game.
I completely respect and admire the challenge you’re giving yourself to solve words without the game telling you whether the word is valid or not. I don’t think I’d be very good at it myself though… much of my success for a puzzle is based on guess work.
Do either of you print out the hints page too? Or do you just write down the letter grid? That would be doubly impressive if you did it without hints!
I too play offline, I often look at the grid on my laptop and write down words and enter a whole lot in one go. I have been both accused of cheating and have also asked for something to be done about the built in reveal words list.
The reason for this is simple, since the reveal all words list was introduced it has become very common for all words in the Puzzle of the day to be found. Before this feature it had never been done before, now don’t get me wrong I am not saying that everyone who has ever completed the Puzzle has cheated but some people didn’t get anywhere close to doing that before.
Why have a built in list that people can abuse built into your game? Yes there are other ways people could cheat but this shows you every single word in that particular puzzle in alphabetical order.
Anyway in my opinion there is always going to be doubt and accusations flying as long as there is a built in easy way to enter all the words and that has taken the fun out of playing.
It is a shame because this is a top quality game and I was totally addicted to it, unfortunately that is the only mode that is engaging and so I confess I have moved on to other word games.
I play Wordabble a couple of different ways depending on where I am. During the week, I’ll lasso and print a screen cap of the game from the web site and write down the words I find on paper and tap them in when I get a chance. I find it easier to locate the words on a piece of paper rather than online as I use the game as a diversion from looking into a monitor. On the weekend, I’ll write the grid onto a piece of paper and paper play while I’m out and about and tap them in when I get a chance. I’ll occasionally write down the hints grid if I’m struggling with the puzzle. I’ll close by seconding Jessica’s remarks that FB has created a great game and to keep up the good work.
I love this game. I too download it first thing in the morning and pull it out throughout the day for a distraction. I have been impressed with the people playing for the most part. Someone will always cheat sadly. But I have to say I love looking at the high scores and rankings to see who i am near and who is sneaking up on me. I was disappointed the first time I saw someone solve a whole puzzle because I find it hard to believe anyone can know all these words, however, to each his/her own. I know I play honest and feel good when I get a lot of words. If people cheat they only get a hallow victory. Anyway, FB has been nothing but responsive with suggestions and support. Great Great game!! Wish people would play in the spirit intended. That said, I refuse to be driven off by people who don’t. Keep up the good work and I look forward to your next APP.
I’d like to offer a little insight PyjamaRama’s comment, “Why have a built in list that people can abuse built into your game?”
Someone has to be pretty dedicated to get the word list and put it in the phone to begin with. Meaning, I don’t think simply removing the word list is a fix. As more and more people hear about the game, there will be more people who want to challenge themselves beyond what is within ones capacity to know by using tools available google search, or dictionary, etc. Other methods to cheat will increasingly become more apparent as time goes on. If we take a stance to remove this the word list feature (or postpone it), we’d have to somehow enforce everything in the future as well. It would be a never ending battle!
I think what we did was a nice balance. Things have equalized out and no one is blatantly abusing the system. I can’t promise things will stay but as I’ve said before, we’ll continue to do everything possible to keep this equilibrium and make the game fun for all.
Congrats and thanks to FB on release 1.2. The many new features are great.