Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-18653705-20131203021029/@comment-11482499-20131203025228

I didn't buy chains, but if I had, I'd feel pretty bitter and burnt right now.

It's clearly a desperate move by Mobage as this event is very slow moving (T1 cutoff is not as high as last few campaigns). It's slow moving partly due to holidays, and players quitting/no-spending due to Mobage's horribly apathetic attitude.

Separately: Wow. The Decline has begun.

Instead of actually improving gameplay, Mobage's cheaper/easier solution is to discount things. Even the leaked upcoming "frequent flier miles" Teletraan 1 programme is a discount programme.

These "desperation discount" moves may be a hint that Mobage doesn't expect TFL to carry on much longer, so they're doing a "fire sale" to milk as much money as they can before Hasbro takes their Transformers licence back, or before more and more people jump into other games (including better Transformers games such as Transformers Universe) and TFL goes dark.

As a business strategist myself, I can read the signs - declining/stagnating product quality, apathetic/incompetent staff, shrinking paying customer base, desperate corporate management, fire-sales to clear stock. All of this points to an impending wind-down of TFL.

My prediction:

As the game gets crappier and staler and fails to improve, more paying players will leave /turn no-paying, and Mobage will get more desperate, and things will get cheaper over time. Notice even the Space Bridge is getting (slightly) cheaper.

My advice would now be: Never spend unless it's on discount/offer. We now know Mobage is not in a strong position and will crumple like paper if we squeeze them. As time goes by and people continue to refuse to spend on a crappy product, Mobage will continue to slash prices, meaning you can get this shit for very cheap (eventually) if you wait long enough. But by then you may be the only person left in the TFL universe.