Hey there loyal Appspy readers!

Not much of a response this week, but we did have those site issues over last weekend. I do want to thank Taekon and DarkScience for their replies. I had completely overlooked the possible positives of the push notification, or more specifically, why they were created in the first place.

For many of the games I review, push notifications will appear regularly as long as the app is on my phone. It’s not exactly the concept itself that annoys me, but rather at the start of every app with them, it gives you an option to turn push notifications off. I always do this, and even so, these games will always notify me to keep playing, to return. Perhaps it’s a flaw in my settings, but i’ve even turned off the notifications in there and still had certain games message me. I hate to sound paranoid, but it seems to me that many developers purposely bypass this system.

If you’re playing a game like Words With Friends or any other title where the game notifies you of your turn, that’s all well and good. If you can put up with the constant interruptions, this system is a great way for always informing you when you have a new move to make. Even in the freemium sphere I can see the benefit of the game informing you when something is complete, as a lot of those game require waiting if you do not want to spend money.

As with a lot of gaming concepts (such as gamification or freemium), it’s not that the concepts themselves are necessarily bad, but they are exploited a lot by developers and publishers to their detriment as a whole. Personally, I’d just be happy if the option to turn off push notifications actually worked.

The Answer this week is a little late into the weekend, but I hope you all enjoy what’s left, and I’ll be back on Monday with another question. Happy apping!