New games?

Any new games for windows pc?

Alas, no.

LDW seems to have moved to issuing new games on mobile platforms, iOS and Android.

noooooooooooooooo

PC SHOULD STAY1!!

Sadly it's the same old story. It happened with a lot of indie studios.

1. PC gamers buy casual games and support indie studios.

2. Indie studios get higher profile and more money thanks to these PC gamers.

3. Indie studios decide to move to Android and iPhone to bleed people dry with annoying in-app purchases and advertising, but still release new games on PC for their original supporters.

4. PC gamers who purchased computer games and helped those same indie studios build up their profile and stay in business are told to take a long walk off a short pier when they ask about new PC releases, or in the case of LDW, not told anything at all. I contacted two other studios who went the same way as LDW to ask about PC games, and at least the people there told me plainly (albeit politely!) that they were no longer releasing any more PC games. Disappointing but at least I could stop haunting the website

Someone did comment that in the very beginning, mobile games were pretty much unheard of, and I think that's probably true. But even after LDW moved onto mobile games, they always released PC versions later on.

I get that LDW is a business, and that they have to go where the money is. I've always been okay with them releasing PC games after mobile ones. But I find it very hard to believe that the cost and subsequent sales of any PC versions will be so bad that it'll cancel out any profits that LDW might make from the mobile games.

However, getting an official statement from LDW on, well, just about anything at all is like getting blood out of a stone, so right now your guess is as good as mine.

If LDW do release VF3, FT2 and the next VV game for PC, I'll be more than willing to eat my words right here on this forum, but I really don't think it's going to happen. I've pretty much given up on these guys.

Hi, JudasFm,

I cannot address all of your concerns here, but I can give some background on a few things you mentioned...

LDW started as a mobile game developer (back in 2002 - remember Palm and Pocket PC devices?) starting with a series of casino games and moving into Little Pocket Pet, Fish Tycoon, and Plant Tycoon (all on mobile). The VV series actually began on mobile - a game called Village Sim for Palm OS devices - in 2005, three years before Apple opened their iTunes App Store to developers. We expanded that game and released it as Virtual Villagers: A New Home for PC and Mac, but the core of VV1 is Village Sim. That game, and the earlier release of Fish Tycoon on PC and Mac, marked our move away from those early mobile devices and solidly into desktop casual games.

It's been a while since Arthur's post on the effects of the proliferation of mobile devices on LDW and our development choices, but I can tell you that the gaming landscape has continued the trend toward mobile and so-called free to play games. Pretty much everything he said 4 years ago applies even more today. We stayed with desktops games as long as we could. We know how many of you still love to play PC games, and we didn't take the decision lightly to, once again, focus on mobile.

Arthur's comments about being "saved" by mobile were true then, and they're true now. The simple fact is that not enough people buy desktop games to keep the lights on at LDW. With every new PC game we released, sales were lower and trickled off to near nothing sooner than the game before. Also, we're still pretty much the same size now as we were years ago.

Mobile has enabled us to keep making games instead of riding off into the sunset, like so many other indie developers have done. We've really tried to make sure that we're not like the developers who "bleed people dry" through in-app purchases. Our goal is to give people games that they can play and enjoy without feeling exploited. For example, our VV series was released on mobile with free versions that had no IAPs; the only limitation was tribe size, but the entire game could be played the same as the paid versions. VV:O had IAPs that added fun features, but didn't require IAPs to play the entire game.

We know that there will always be people who absolutely loathe the current trend in mobile gaming, and you will never see us defending some of the exploitation we see out there. However, for us, it's either make games that fit with today's market, or stop making games altogether. It's simple arithmetic.

Thank you Barbara for explaining why LDW has moved to mobile ,I for one hold my hand up for slanging LDW off for the so called free games ,but now you have explained why I now understand and I don,t blame them as no one wants to flog a dead horse as they say,and by what has been said you can play them without paying out cash,so keep up the good work LDW and continue to produce some really good games that can be played over a long period,not just a couple of hours.I have them all up to now and Im looking forward to a new VV to add to my collection ,once again thank you all from this Old Timer.

But still you should at least occasionally put some of the games on PC because people like playing in the big screen.

Actually I never heard of Pocket PCs or Palm devices away from this site But now that you say it, I do remember Little Pocket Pet purely because there was talk about redeveloping it for PC. When I first heard of LDW, VV2 had only just been released, so while I've been around a long time, I haven't been here right from the start.



I would say there's a thriving community of PC gamers on Steam, but I'm approaching this from the point of view of the consumer here and I have no experience of dealing games through Steam so I have no idea what might be involved re distribution costs. I'm sure you guys have already considered this



I apologize for the 'bleed them dry' comment. I was talking about games like that in general, not targeting LDW specifically. I should have made that clearer in my original post



Absolutely. I've never had any kind of issue with that. My biggest problem was that people have been asking and asking about new games, whether those games will be available on PC etc, and never got a response.

I get that you can't commit to specific release dates. I also get that you don't want to give a definite yes or no answer about whether there will be a Fish Tycoon 3, Plant Tycoon 2 or another VV game until you're 100% sure you won't have to change that answer at a later date.

But I'm not the only person who's been asking about PC releases, and reading your post it seems like LDW made the definite choice to stop releasing PC titles a little while ago. If that's the case, it would have helped a lot if someone at LDW had taken five minutes to create a sticky thread to explain what you just set out in your post above. Because I still stand by my statement that it's very, very rare to actually get an answer from LDW (whether it's yes, no or maybe) no matter how many people ask the same question.

We do have some of our PC games on Steam, but it hasn't worked out very well for us. We tried getting getting VF2 through the Steam Greenlight process, but there wasn't enough interest from our fans to make that happen. At least we tried.

We know that it's frustrating to be without answers, but (being honest here) we don't have answers to give you. No hard decision has been made about whether or not we will release more PC and Mac games in the future, so there's nothing I can say one way or the other. When we have news, we'll post it. Really!

If you stop making PC games and only make mobile games you will lose me as a long time follower. I am not in my twenties and it is hard enough to see everything now but if I have to play only on a tablet or cell phone, I will have to stop buying from LDW

have you investigated steam direct now that the greenlight program has been terminated?

For those of us with uhm senior? Eyesight, I recently discovered a program that allows me to sync the screen on my phone to my computer.
This not only allows me to see EVERYTHING larger, it also allows me to use my mouse and keypad instead of the touchscreen.
The particular app I am using is "SideSync" by Samsung, but there are at least 3 other programs for Windows/Android pairing. I apologize, but I do not know about availability for iOS devices. I do have an iPad, but it has a large enough screen for me to be comfortable.
Here's an odd thing: Even though I own over 30 "Core" games for PC, I find that I rarely play them anymore. Even my old VV games have migrated to the iPad. I suspect this is primarily due to the extreme variety of new games in the App Store & Google Play Store.
What I do now is download the game to my iPad and play, or to my Android phone then either play directly or on the PC via SideSync.

I'm in my 20s and have decent eyesight and I still don't want to play these games on mobile; they just don't seem suited to it, in my opinion, but that's just me. I tried Virtual Town for a few days, it was too annoying for me, playing it on mobile, so deleted that game pretty quickly. Unfortunately, if games are going to be mobile only, I don't see myself playing them, anymore, which is a shame because I have a lot of games from LDW and was waiting for VF3 (and who knows when that'll be out). Will it even be on PC or will it be mobile, too? Because if it'll be mobile, I can stop waiting for it and move on, completely.

I wish LDW well, though. Apparently, mobile is the way to go and if it's making more money, I don't blame them for going that route.

I hope that PC users are kept in the development loop. I like a big screen and a mouse.

It's nice to be able to sit back comfortably rather than with one's nose pressed up against a screen not quite the size of a postcard.

I agree with Lia. I love playing all your games and will continue to do so. However playing on a small android screen gets frustrating. Where the pc is big and you can maneuver easier. I just downloaded virtual villagers origins 2 which is kool but its hard to find items. Continue with the great work you all are doing.