Asmongold TV - They RUINED This Game.. | Asmongold TV

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

They RUINED This Game.. Asmongold show for all of his stream highlights, competitions, reactions & more. ------------------------- --------------- Keywords: video game analysis, gaming commentary, gaming takes, mmo gaming, gaming drama, gaming community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I love how it says how micro transactions destroyed. You could just put a blank here and add in 15 or 20 other games. I remember this game used to be so popular for a while. And then somehow, everybody just stopped talking about it for some reason. I don't even know why. It just disappeared. So I forget I'd watch this. Plants for Zombies 1 was truly video game perfection.

Reviewers couldn't find even one thing wrong with its simple, addictive gameplay. Compare this to the recent Plants vs. Zombies 3, which people have called a game that straight up comes from a garbage can, in which watching 30 second ads for double coin rewards is more fun than the game itself. Steam, I don't know if you guys saw this, Steam made one of the most base things recently. They said you can't put ads in your game, period. No ads in your fucking game. Let's explore how Plants Verst Zombians, is eventually lost its way. So annoying. From an amazing tower defense game, fall into the extremely predatory mobile game landscape.

Firstly, what made the original so damn good? I think this is what happens with a lot of games, is that video games reach entropy, where they reach a climax of player base, and they reach a climax of sales. And then in order to continue growing the business, they then start trying to make money through micro transactions or some other form of bullshit. That's how it happens. There's $2.99 in the app store, with no ads or extra in-game purchases, Plants versus Zombies 1 was simply amazing value. The easy first level gets players addicted immediately.

It's just one level, the game already indoctrates you into his gameplay cycle flawlessly. It's so simple. With one five-star review writing, I won't say that the game is a cakewalk, but it isn't particularly challenging either. Still, the game offers enough mental stimulation that I never once grew bored. This is due to the game's incredible variety, offering loads of different plant zombies and music, with comments stating the soundtrack alone is enough to make you want the game. This makes it so entrancing that people can play for hours, which led to crazy commercial success. In addition to almost perfect professional reviews, Plants vs. Zombies

became the highest rated App Store product, having sold more than 300,000 copies in its first nine days available, a new app store launch record. Another reason why games like this start off being very successful and then they become less successful is because in a lot of cases what happens is that they start off being simple and then they add in more and more complexity to the game that makes it harder for people to understand what to do and then they lose interest in the game. Like I think that wow had this happen and a lot of games had this happen where just as more and more and more, installments of the game come out, they add in more and more complexities, and then it just

becomes overwhelming. I think that's what happened with Angry Birds. It's what happened with Wow. It's apparently what happened with Harstown. I don't know about that. It's old people problems? No, it's not. It's actually young people problems. Kids can't get into it because they can't understand it. Has expanded the game to 13 other platforms, creating so much success for pop cap games that'd be bought by EA for 650 million. Damn. The company was such an extreme reputation for greed. There's an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to criticism of the company.

Jesus. People have called their use of micro transactions a plague, which sadly began to infect plants versus zombies. So they bought the game to infect it with micro transactions and to suck the life out of it? Okay. On the 15th of August 2013, Plans vs. Zombies 2 came out with 1K difference compared to the first. Popcap found a way to cram this game with as many in-app purchases and micro-transactions as humanly possible.

To the point where it's... Erdus. Erdus? No one wants this. People in some cases will tolerate it, but no one wants it. Stop doing it. companies do, players don't want this.

Having a store, this is what I think a lot of these companies don't understand. This isn't like, people that play video games don't see this and they're like, oh, wow, this is so exciting. I get to spend so much money. No, it just sucks. The only reason that it works for gotcha games is because it's full of a bunch of fucking sims that take their mom's money and buy it on their wifus. That's the reason why. Other than that, nobody likes this shit. Cramed this game with as many in-app purchases and micro-transactions as humanly possible.

To the point where it's too much of a hindrance to me to actually enjoy the game. Plansperor Zombies 2 features micro-transactions. Unlike in the previous entries to the series, new plants can be purchased with real money, as well as upgrades and coins. What a bunch of fucking bullshit. This, I, I, dude, I hate video games nowadays. I do. Like, this is why, like, I, I've been going back.

Like, actually, I don't even hate video games nowadays. I just hate, I hate mainstream AAA, multi-billion dollar corpa games now. It's like they're all the same brand of slop, but there's just a different color to it. It's so annoying. Because the thing is, there are so many great games, but there's so many games that aren't so great, too, right?

items can also be bought in bundles to save some money certain plants could only be accessed using cold hard cash and while coins could be... What? Double damage. Ignites a whole shoots pairs that slow... That's insane for a tower defense. Like, I played tower defense games before.

These are insane. I don't think you understand how dumb people are. Well, I don't think EA did. either. They thought they were really dumb and it turned out that they were just dumb. Because the game isn't doing well. Points could be naturally earned in game. You could pay up to $52 to instantly unlock them. The Pirate C's in Wild West Levels can also be unlocked without earning all of the required stars.

They cost $5.49 each to instantly access. I get it. You've got to make money. I get it. It's just like, it's like, I go back. and I play a game. The thing is, like, you go back and you play, like, Elden Ring. You play Dragon's Dogma One. You go back and you play Dark Souls 1. And there's just none of this shit in the game. There's none of this fucking bullshit in the game.

Like, why? It's just, it's so weird. It's so fucking annoying and weird. And also, by the way... I don't know. Should I say this or not? This is a massive downgrade of the character model. because it's much easier to imagine you putting your dick inside of this one than this one.

Massive downgrade. They did the same thing with Berto in Super Mario Brothers 2. Okay. Now I'm the weird one. Let's take a step back. We all agree that video games with attractive characters will be more successful. I don't want to connect the dots. bro it's a plant

okay if you go to the Rule 34 website do you think they're using the model from the first game or the second game more often the first one everybody knows that so everybody calling me stupid you're not calling me stupid

you know I'm right that's why everybody says the first one because we all know you all know I'm right the thing is that I'm the only one saying it bad take everyone wanted to fuck the sunflower not this one it doesn't

I guarantee you that well let me see the sunflower at comparison then you're right no I'm not I'm not like I guarantee you I'm not crazy I'm not I'm not crazy I'm telling you guys

like this it's I'm telling you Like, you don't want to admit it. Nobody wants to admit it. But it matters. It fucking matters. Controversial for whatever reason was the game's new... Here, let me think about it like this. If I think of the name of a Pokemon...

Never... All right, let's just move on. Art style. People argued that every single character looked to be designed by a totally different person, each of whom had their own way of drawing. There's full videos dedicated to the poorly designer. See, everybody, see, people are talking around it.

They don't want to say the real reason. Plants, with the excessive discussion about this floor, being a meme within the community. This was because they'd hired a whole new team of designers and under suspicious circumstances fired George Fan, who designed PVZ1 all by himself. Well, an article later confirmed, a fired plants versus zombies creator

for refusing micro transactions in sequel. Fucking based. Damn. Damn. Explaining that George had lost his job, as he didn't agree with the pay-to-win model. He'd partially confirmed this by tweeting, regarding recent rumors,

it is true I was laid off by EA slash pop cap and also true that I was against making PVZ2 a freemium game. That's all I'll say on the matter for now. Sure do miss paying for a. at game once and unlocking cool things by... And look at this, look at the profile picture. We're all that's left, okay? This is it.

You can look at this man right here. And this man is the woolly mammoth of gaming. Soon in maybe 20 years or so, many of these guys are going to be extinct. And you're going to have in between them, actually even now, this is what happens. You have the stupid little kids that have grown up buying advantages in video games. And then you have the old people.

I guess they're sitting down because they're old. It's hard to stand up when you're old. And they're okay with it because they don't even care about video games to begin with. They're just addicted to candy crush. But this right here is the only group that's holding the line against video games becoming even more of a hellscape than they already are. If you are between the ages of 23 and 45, you experienced the golden age of gaming. Actually, 55.

You experienced the golden age of gaming, where you could put a quarter in a machine and you could play a game. And then you could buy a game and it was complete and you would play it. Nowadays, that's it. It's over. We've only got a few woolly mammoths in the comments trying to hold the line. Actually, you know, playing that game, you and me both, man. These elements led to videos claiming, plants versus zombies one is better than plants

versus zombies too, but that's not to say that the second game was awful. It featured so many different plants, it's hard to even count them. Bryce said about being too complicated? What the fuck is all this? You really think some brain-dead retard kid that's playing on a mobile game wants to understand all this bullshit? Absolutely not. It's way too complicated. It's way too complicated.

What are you doing? Settle down. Stop it. There's beauty and simplicity. Offered 312 levels compared to just 50 in PVZ1. See? These PVZ2 levels where it's at varying levels of difficulty and better serving a wider range of players.

It's not, bro, like, I just, oh my God. Nobody understands. nobody understands gamer psychology anymore. They just don't get it. All they understand is how to make money and eat hot chip and lie. That's it. That's all they do in video games now. It's awful.

More plants, more monetization options, yes. Second game therefore also received amazing feedback. With critics stating the game is just as enjoyable without spending a dime and that you'll only need a pay if you're exceptionally impatient or just not very good at these kind of games. The micro-transaction model also meant the game was totally free, leading to 25 million downloads in the first two weeks, more than PVZ1 had achieved in four years.

In fact, according to Hey I'm Jay, for every dollar the original was making, PVZ2 made 26,000. What? Oh, fuck. There it is. Yep, that's it. I hope it was fun, guys.

We really had a great time playing video games. Blame the pay pigs. Here's the problem. Is that in like an election, you can vote for or against something. But the problem with this is that you can't vote for or against this. You can either vote for it or not vote. You have one guy that's voting $1 and the other guy voting $26,000. Well, I wonder how that's going to go.

I wonder who they're going to listen to. They'd therefore make the original free for every player, although this meant people would be paying with their time. It's free now, which naturally means that the game absolutely bombards you with ads. God, I love mobile games. There are ads before and after levels now, and even during, where the game tries to distract you as much as possible to watch a video for an extra item.

So your lawnmower is despawning unless you watch an ad? This is ridiculous. Holy fuck, guys. How does this even happen? An extra item. Before every level, you have to watch an unskippable ad. Then sit there prompted to download what you watched. At the end of every level, you're forced to briefly play a different mobile game with the hope that you'll download it later.

Items can be earned. Why? By watching further ads, which are even served to those who initially paid for the game. I paid to remove the ads, but now the ads keep... Oh, my God. See, this is what they do. They add in ads, and then they give you an option that you can spend money to avoid seeing the ads. And then they add in an option to where you have to spend even more money to avoid sending the ads.

So at that point, they've already conditioned you to not liking ads. And they've also conditioned you to spending money to avoid seeing ads. So a lot of people just pay up the extra money and then they keep not seeing ads. It's a ransom. I know. It's awful. It's even more annoying. Netflix and Amazon Prime do the same thing. A micro-transaction model, which was earning so much money for PVZ2, that start to build plants for zombies three.

In the meantime, developers took a detour and put out plants for zombies garden warfare. This third-person shooter was certainly different. but extremely well received, achieving consistent reviews of 7 out of 10 or higher. Garden Warfare was surprisingly amazing. I remember spending definitely over 500 hours grinding it as a kid. They'd therefore released Garden Warfare 2, which was even more successful than the first, confirming the third-person shooter style was perfect for the series. So when they announced what was basically Garden Warfare 3, developers likely expected another successful title.

It was called Plants First. Zombies Battle for Neighbour... Let me guess. They tried to make it like Fortnite. Bill, which featured an epic trailer in 2019, gaining over 15 million views from super excited fans. But with people eventually stating, This whole trailer was fantastic and I love it.

Too bad I love the trailer more than the game. The game was a total flop. Plans for Zombies Battle for Neighborville is one of the worst games you've never heard of. Extensive posts like this called it, A complete and utter disaster in almost every way, and one of, if not the worst multiplayer game, I've played in 2019. It referenced problems such as bugs and graphical errors, textures and map designer are absolutely horrible, whilst the characters all control awfully and feel very unenetetic. So it's not even that it was like Fortnite, it just sucked.

Yeah, it had nothing to do with Fortnite. It's just a piece of shit game. I think, since the sound design is absolutely garbage. Damn. Then of course there were the micro-transactions. These need to be unlocked. And the way you unlock these characters is through a specific challenge called giving EA $30. But the game already... See, there's still a few young guys that are out there that are still holding the line.

Great. ...is through a specific challenge called giving EA $30. Yeah. But the game already costs $30 to buy. And you expect players to spend that twice in order to play the new characters? As mentioned, the game already costs. cost $40, but demanded an extra 30 to unlock every character, which could be unlocked by grinding the game, but would take a... So you have to spend $70 to play this fucking, this mobile game?

About three months to earn one costume. Players therefore... This is what, this is what Overwatch 2 did, is they said like, okay, if you want to earn something in this game, you have to, if you play for six months, you can get one thing that's worth $5. Like, I swear to God, like, you'd be better off just playing, like, the games at Chuck Echee Cheese, you'd have a better return ratio. It's awful. Missed the game completely, writing as a player who played the two previous games of this one, I can say that this game is a joke on the Plansworth zombies franchise. Bad graphics, boring gameplay, boring characters. Compared to Garden Warfare 1 and 2, this game is very bad.

That therefore, we'll stop updating it after only 11 months, leading to comments like, Like it is so sad how fast this game died. If it had a little more time to develop and didn't have micro transactions, then it would have never disappeared. But it would have never appeared if it didn't have the micro transactions. The problem with micro transactions and a lot of these video games is that once these video games evolve to incorporate micro transactions into them, the entire video game acts like a funnel to get you to the store. That's what happens. And that's the problem with a lot of these games. It's never enough to just make a good amount of money.

You always have to make more and more and more money. It sucks the fun out of it. Yeah, it does. Apparently, the franchise didn't learn their lesson, as during that very same year, Plants vs Zombies 3 was nearing completion. Uh-oh. That had seven full years since PVZ2,

setting high expectations. It's got to be good then, right? It's got to be good. However, when the first bit of gameplay was posted to YouTube, people instantly did. However, when the first... This is horrible. First bit of gameplay was posted to YouTube, people instantly disliked it.

PVZ1, skill. PVZ2, wallet. PVZ3 won't download it. Why? For starters, the game was now in portrait, which to be honest was probably more convenient, but at the same time, it looked extremely weird. The lawn is literally horizontal. Why?

Why is the display vertical? The game had also... It looks like shit. You've over designed it. You want to know what this reminds me of? Big surprise. World of Warcraft. If you go back and you look at a lot of the old weapons from like BWL,

if you look at the NACs swords, like the original NACs swords, you look at like a black temple. You look at like Soul Cleaver. The old weapons and the old armor in the game was, it had a fantasy vibe to it that wasn't incredibly, incredibly well detailed, but it had flare. This doesn't have any fucking flare. This just looks like a retarded oddish.

Who the fuck wants to play this? This is even worse than... It's just weird. Wait, you fuckable or not? Well, no, no. Here, I can give you an example. Okay. Okay, I'll give you an example. Okay. Give me one second

Just a minute Sorry, I've got to figure this out Domination Where's the I have to find the sword that he drops And I want to compare two weapons Okay Where's the loot?

Wait, it doesn't show the loot What's the name of the sword that drops from Kelthazade That's the remake of the Hungring Cold? What's it called? I don't remember what it's called Betray of Humanity? No, that's not it. Betrayer of humanity drops from Kelthazade 25 men. Nax, it's a two-handed axe, and it is item level 226. That's not it. Might of Minnithel? That's not it either. That's the mace that drops from Kelthazade,

and it also was re-skinned, and it drops from, I think, Hegan, on the 10-man version of Nax. Sword of Thousand Trues, Slayer of the Lifeless, that's not it. Frostsaber, that's not it, devouring cold. There it is. Finally, somebody fucking knows. Holy shit, guys. So, this is a really good example of what I'm saying. The old items had like a certain, like, stylistic flair to them. That made them appealing and enticing. And the new ones are like over-designed, overly shaded, and they just don't pop.

They don't have that artistic flair. Am I crazy to think this? I don't think I am. It just, yeah, like the new one's, no, no, bro, like, uh-uh. Like, the new one is 10 times better looking? No, no, this one popped out. This one popped out. And it was clean.

The thing is, is that it's fucking clean. Yeah, no, you're right. The left one is sick. Look, I know a lot of people like this, and it looks like a cool weapon, definitely. But I think this is much more memorable. I think it's more memorable. more stylized and more interesting to look at. That's what I think.

It's stylized, man. It's unique. Yeah, exactly. It's unique. Bad example, but true? Well, I think, I think that's it. Here, I'll do one more, right? One more.

Wait, Dave. Fuck, I didn't mean to do that. Okay. Okay. So, you look at this and you look at the old one. Again, there's a stylistic, flair to this. I think that flare is lost

a new one. Like the skull is totally different. Look at the spikes around the skull. That's not the way it looked like. The old is better. The problem with a lot of new video games is that it is design entropy.

Things get over designed and over designed and over designed. Here is the best example. How many of you guys were in a graphic design class and the first thing you did when you got Photoshop is you looked at

all of the text filters and you applied all of them and your words looked really stupid and like for a moment you're like oh this is really cool let's put all of these on there but then once you got better at it you realize that it's actually better to just have a more simple style

that is easier to read and understand that is what's going on with games like this. That is why this one sucks Sucks dick Gone from 2D to 3D And had another change in rock style Prompting memes such as this

It is evolving just backwards Then you... Look at this Yeah This is like idiocracy Or something like that Bad example in my opinion But yeah you're right

No I People just don't understand style Like you've got to have style Hey shoot a model Looked absolutely awful which sadly couldn't be upgraded through micro-transactions. With videos like Plansper Zombies 3 is mechanically broken, gaining over... And look at that original Bowser.

That Bowser is the Super Mario World Bowser. Completely fucking clean, iconic, well-designed, simple but badass. That's Paper Mario? It's based off of Super Mario World. 2 million views. was taken off the App Store. They'd re-release it one year later, to which people said compared to the alpha,

this looks great. However, again, it still wasn't good enough. This happened... That style is not subjective? No, I know what looks good, what doesn't look good. I just do, I just know. And in 2022,

then again in 2024, receiving the same feedback at every single point. The game was simply boring. There is just nothing to do in this game. This sucks. Who the fuck asked for a garrison? This looks like shit. Literally. It's awful.

It's slop. It is. It's slop. It's awful. What is this garbage? Looks like an imitation of the real thing? Yeah, it does. And besides Brian the stupid... It's like whenever... You know what it's like? It's like when people are like,

hey, I fixed your art for you, and it's just worse. Yeah, it's just worse. that just sucks. 90-something levels of doing the same thing over and over and over is so boring. I've just spent three hours playing the fourth beta of PVZ3, and I've got to say, how does EA get away with this? The game is 10,000% dumbed down, no more collecting plants, no more input on plant choosing, sun is now worth one and plants cost one to five plus, animations feel capped at 10 FPS, gameplay feels unfun. The EA is special. It just had a scummy feeling.

Right out of the gate seems to just have that manipulative, mobile game feel about it. You know that feeling. Well, it looks like one of those games where it's like the person, there's like an obvious way that you can play the game to win. But the person who's playing it intentionally gets the character killed. And then it says play the game now. And it's like, okay. And then you do and it's like not even the same game. Yeah, like one of those fake game ads, exactly.

Everything about this game feels all. It's like I'm watching an app store ripoff of PVZ. As a result, it's still in development five years after its first alpha launch. For sure, they're going to get it, guys. For sure. That's what's going to happen. It's going to be fine. And Vegas video style, yeah, Epic started the graphics race.

Others followed because people always want to be better. But that isn't the best in the most cases. The difference is that a lot of people that... People don't understand the concept of less is more. that's the problem this is worse than this this is simple

easy to understand clean like in a lot of design like this is the way I look at it if the question is should we have this extra little element in the game for like graphics or not the answer is usually no

no keep it fucking simple keep it simple that's it also the vibrant colors. Yeah, it's the vibrant colors. Like, this is you. This is you before you take your antidepressants and this is you after. Now you're happy. Wow, the world looks so much better. Oh, wow, I'm so happy. That's it. Yeah, especially on mobile. Exactly. And this game is meant to appeal to like six-year-olds. I'm sorry, but when you're adding in how many new fucking plants, that's too many fucking plants, man.

What are you doing adding all this bullshit in? All these modes and everything. The reason why Fortnite is so popular and it's continued to be so popular among young kids is because they've never scope creeped Fortnite. They've always scope changed it. It's not like you have to deal with like seven different levels of complexity that has built up over the years of Fortnite.

They've just simply like basically shifted the complexity to something new. And that's it. And you compare that to Blizzard, Blizzard, and like even Overwatch. Think about Overwatch. All of the new characters, oh my God, there's so many new characters. It's harder to get into. Yeah, in the Marines, we had an acronym. It was called Kiss. Keep it simple, stupid. Yes. Keep things simple. They did actually, but they removed a lot of it. So yeah, fair. Yeah, I think that, yeah, well, they did because it was, and the reason why they probably removed it is because they had people that were leaving the game. That's the reason why. It's because people get overwhelmed with choices, people get overwhelmed with complexity, and they don't want to deal with it. And so they

stopped dealing with it. That's really what the difference is, right? And I feel like that's been the case for so many of these games. And I just don't know why so many people don't understand that. And it's disappointing for me to see this happen because a lot of, and this is what I was saying before about how like, you know, people get hired for jobs and they shouldn't be hired for the job. There are a lot of people that they have like on paper and understanding of like what things should be, but they don't understand it on like an intuitive level. That's the problem. Did devs even play video games anymore?

No, they do. It's just that they don't understand what makes some things popular. I think that's it. And that's the problem. that's the reason why League of Legends has a hard time finding new players. Oh, well, I mean, there's a lot of reasons. Like, I'll tell you this, right? For League, for me, if they ever decided and they said, you know what,

we are going to make a new League of Legends. We're going to make a brand new game. We're going to reset all the characters and we're going to do everything else. You know what's going to happen? You're going to have tons of people who are going to come back around and they're going to come and play the game. I would play League of Legends too, but I'm not going to play League of Legends. I remember all them

They were making a team I think it was like Emmy and Soda and them And they're like oh do you want to play league You should play league you should play league No there's too many characters It's too complicated I can't get into it Like if I want to get into a really complicated game

I'll go play civilization or something like that right Why the fuck would I go do that? He's right yeah I'm just I'm just being honest It's too much to keep up with There's too much to keep track of I'll be right back