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How is Plants vs Zombies 2 still not on PC, or anything other than mobile?

dmr87

Member
Seriously, the game came out in July-Aug 2013. I enjoyed the first game on PC and I've played some of the 2nd game on my iPad but I'd rather play it with a mouse and on a big screen. How hard can it be to port it over, especially for a company as big as EA. I guess the ones that supported your first game doesn't matter much, oh well, it's EA after all. Easier to exploit your microtransactions on the mobile platforms eh?


PvZ
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PvZ 2
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They are still trying to work out the right business model for it and are on their fourth try I believe. Unfortunately they are yet to give "make a good game and sell it for a fair price" a go.

Seriously.
 
or how is Peggle 2 not on PC?
PopCap went from PC only/first to no PC at all. I guess casual market moved away from the platform but still makes no sense to not release it at all.
 
I've been waiting for it to come to PC so I can actually play it. My Galaxy S4 runs it at half speed. Although I suppose I can try it now with my Shield Tablet.
 
Doesn't matter, it's pretty disappointing. Play through the first one again and you'll have a better time, honestly. I had them both on my iPad, but only the first remains.
 
They could easily adapt the game to a non-F2P model and charge $14.99.

It is relatively free money, so I do not know what is up.
 
The second one was pretty egregious with the microtransactions and gating, pushing very aggressively for IAP. It'd be Origin-only anyway.

Real shame.
 
Its a bad game, so whatever. Peggle 2 is a loss though, legitimately good, only a little EA style bullshit. Maybe they want to put pvz2 behind them and stop shitting on the popcap name. ...ha ha.
 
i tried to like 2 but the strategy of levels isnt self contained anymore because they want to make you use in app purchase by ruining normal strategy. you can play for free but progression is gated by you spamming limited resources you accumulate not how good you are at strategy. in other words they undermine the fun factor of the game to try to extract $$ from players. i was very disappointed coming from the first game which is fun due to plant choice and a bit of micro. they add like 20-30% more crap than you could deal with playing normally and some levels are obvious walls to get you to spend all freely accumulated specials
 
How is Garden Warfare not on WiiU ???? =(

EA hating Nintendo aside, makes perfect sense both for co-op each with their screens and the fun colorfull nature of the game would feel at home at the wiiu, specialy with splatoon around the corner
 
Why would they bring it over from a F2P format where they will be coining it in, to a model where they would have to charge a fee, and as such would not make anywhere near as much

as much as I don't like it, they aint going to do it ever, just makes no business sense at all
 
I was stuck in a hospital with no reception and the game didn't even want to start on my phone. So I refuse to play it untill there's an offline mode on suited platform
 
Considering that they are still rolling out content updates (aka new chapters, new plants, new zombies and daily challenges) for PvZ 2 on iOS and Android, the PvZ team in PopCap company may not have enough resources for porting the title to other platforms.

Or it could just be EA trying to make the highest possible revenue with the least cost.
 
Of all the large scale umbrellas Popcap ended up under why EA of all groups *sigh*

From PC first or only to waiting indefinitely for a chance to even get two games that took off on PC first.
 
I want to like PvZ2, but as ofhers have said, it gets too bogged down in trying to force you to buy IAP. :/ I don't hate F2P, but I don't know why they didn't just make it a game you pay for upfront. Plenty of people would've been willing.

Regarding the actual question, maybe because they don't want to deal with the backlash from gamers over the f2p mechanics?
 
My mom plays, like hours, of PvZ every day to kill time and she uninstalled PvZ2 off her tablet because the microtransactions frustrated her.

So... I'm wondering it it's less that it's doing so well they don't have to port and more it's doing so poorly they can't afford to bother porting.
 
Why would they bring it over from a F2P format where they will be coining it in, to a model where they would have to charge a fee, and as such would not make anywhere near as much

as much as I don't like it, they aint going to do it ever, just makes no business sense at all
Why not? Lots of F2P games on PC already.
 
It's been all said in different posts but the collective agreement is this:

The game relies HEAVILY on micro-transactions and time based gameplay (putting limits on when you can or can't play). This works fine in mobile games. The market embraces it. But for console gamers? Hell no. This game features micro-transactions the like console gamers have yet to see.

It's a pretty crap game too. I'll take the HD version of the original on iPad over the sequel any day.
 
The game design of PvZ2 is made around F2P model, so yeah, wouldn't work in other plataforms. (maybe a F2P version for PC, but the risk is higher than in mobile)
 
I'll happily pay $20 for a fully-featured, no BS version on the PC.

I tried to give it a chance on Android, but one of the in-game currencies randomly wiped itself for me so I just uninstalled it.
 
I have a better question.

How is Peggle 2 still not on PC ?

I'd like to think we Peggle PC gamers made Popcap the sucess it is. I bought Peggle on like 3 or 4 plattaforms.

It's no wonder EA is one of the most hated companies.
 
They are still trying to work out the right business model for it and are on their fourth try I believe. Unfortunately they are yet to give "make a good game and sell it for a fair price" a go.

Seriously.
To be fair, they are adding new free worlds pretty regularly. I doubt they would be able to do that without iap. And the game is currently at a good spot in terms of not feeling like you have to pay to win.
 
I agree that Peggle 2 is the real issue here.

I bought Peggle for my entire family, it's the one PC game they all playe,d gamer and non-gamer alike.

Peggle on PC put that company on the map (IIRC) And I personally also bought PEggle nights for everyone I knew.

This game should be on PC, and shame on EA/PopCap for not putting it where it belongs.
 
because PC players would not accept the 'you can not get past this level without paying real money' design of the game on app stores...

whole different mindset

PC players would probably just hack the game to get around the silly little time wasters.
Is that considered piracy?
 
No loss, honestly.
I'm in love with the first game but this one was so built around its F2P approach that they'd have to seriously redesign it.

As other people have mentioned, Peggle 2 is the real issue here, as it is still an awesome game.
 
i tried to like 2 but the strategy of levels isnt self contained anymore because they want to make you use in app purchase by ruining normal strategy.

The game was a dud and it was built too much around micro-transactions.

The game relies HEAVILY on micro-transactions and time based gameplay (putting limits on when you can or can't play). This works fine in mobile games.

Every time I read something like this about PvZ2 I think: "What they are talking about?"
Seriously why everybody says that that game is ruined by in app purchases? I've beaten EVERY SINGLE LEVEL of that game, played throught daily pinata parties that they reward with powers and coins, and without paying an euro. Ok, I admit, I bought 2 plants in the first year because I play that game every day and work needs to be paid, but nothing else and I have a ton of money, gems and a full garden.
I like it so much that I play it on both iPhone and iPad, but I could also play it on Steam if available.
 
PvZ2 is a really weird beast.

The original release was really good--all the IAPs were for frivolous plants or to skip ahead in the game instead of collecting more stars.

This was the version that actually got reviewed in publications.

After the reviews were written, they took out the entire stars mechanic (and issued a press release about how they were making it "better") but what they actually did was force you to have to play every level, with stricter win conditions that made it harder to get the money used for the power-ups. The truth is that the original release was deliberately F2P-lite just long enough to get the positive reviews.

At this point it has gone so far down the F2P rabbit hole that you'd effectively have to remake the game from scratch in order to properly balance it for play without the microtransaction model in place.
 
PvZ2 is a really weird beast.

The original release was really good--all the IAPs were for frivolous plants or to skip ahead in the game instead of collecting more stars.

This was the version that actually got reviewed in publications.

After the reviews were written, they took out the entire stars mechanic (and issued a press release about how they were making it "better") but what they actually did was force you to have to play every level, with stricter win conditions that made it harder to get the money used for the power-ups. The truth is that the original release was deliberately F2P-lite just long enough to get the positive reviews.

At this point it has gone so far down the F2P rabbit hole that you'd effectively have to remake the game from scratch in order to properly balance it for play without the microtransaction model in place.

Yup. Stopped playing a few months ago for this exact reason. Sad.
 
It's the exact reason why I didn't update my PvZ2. The revamp made the game worse by putting a stronger emphasis on spending money.
 
Popcap might be the biggest tragedy in the history of EA Aaquisitions.

There's a long way to go before they land in Bullfrog/Westwood/Origin terrirtory.
This. However, it may perhaps be one of the worst relative to the rest of the industry: they seemed to have the right idea how to go about casual games while the likes of Zynga spearheaded the F2P stuff. Now? They're half in that same spot, half in some... really weird spot, where they make Peggle 2 an Xbox exclusive (then port it to Playstation) and make a surprisingly well received but ultimately more core focused shooter out of PvZ. I suppose that still puts them ahead of most other acquisitions though albeit by being a very mixed bag rather than the same but better.

... Also that Popcap seemed to be on pretty good terms with Valve and Steam. How many of us found out about Peggle via the Orange Box's complimentary Peggle Extreme?
 
As others have said, where the hell is Peggle 2 for PC? They expected casual gamers to buy an Xbox One for it?

Last I checked, the newest Peggle Android version was really selective about what devices you could install it on, too. Hopefully they've fixed that.
 
Sorry to revive this thread, but my kid is asking me this every single day: Why PvZ 2 is not in PC or consoles? Is there any reason?
 
They really did kill it with the f2p model. I found it really boring after really enjoying pvsz1

Yup, F2P ruined it. After a few hours it just isnt fun anymore unlike the original PvZ which just got better and better as you played.
 
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