Team Meat lays into "abusive, manipulative" free-to-play devs

Free-to-play mobile developers who exploit players by charging for incremental power-up and add-ons represent everything that's wrong with mobile and casual gaming today, according to Super Meat Boy studio Team Meat.

Speaking via a new blog post over the weekend, the outspoken duo of Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes promised that their debut mobile offering - Super Meat Boy: The Game - will go in another direction.

"As many of you may have noticed, there is a whole s*** load of wrong out there these days, from abusive and manipulative money making tactics, to flat out stealing," they wrote.

"To us the core of what is wrong with the mobile platform is the lack of respect for players, it really seems like a large number of these companies out there view their audience as dumb cattle who they round up, milk and then send them on their way feeling empty or at times violated.

"There is an on going theme these days to use a very basic video game shell and hang a 'power up carrot' in front of the player. The player sees this carrot, and wants it! All the player needs to do is a few very rudimentary repetitious actions to attain it, once they get to it, another drops down and asks them to do more... but then the catch... instead of achieving these 'goals' by running on the tread mill, you can instead just pay a single dollar and you instantly get to your goal! Better yet pay 10 and unlock all your goals without even having to ever play the game!

"Words can not express how f****** wrong and horrible this is, for games, for gamers and for the platform as a whole," they continued.

"This business tactic is a slap in the face to actual game design and embodies everything that is wrong with the mobile/casual video game scene."

They went on to assure fans that they were approaching the development of Super Meat Boy: The Game "with very open eyes".

"We want to make a game that WE would love to see on the platform, a feature length reflex driven platformer with solid controls that doesn't manipulate you with business bullshit in order to cash in," they explained.

"We want SMB:TG to show the player we respect them, not only by not manipulating them, but also by understanding they want a real challenge and they want a real sense of fulfillment when they have achieved something that's difficult... you know, like real games do."

There's still no word on when the game will be out, though the duo did offer up a quick glimpse of a chapter screen, which you can check out below.

"Don't let the fact that there are only 8 level pads make you think that SMB:TG will be bite sized, its content will rival the original, but in very different ways... more on that later," they added.

As revealed earlier this year, Super Meat Boy: The Game isn't a straight port of the revered PC and XBLA platformer, rather a new game built for touchscreens from the ground up.