Then Facebook dropped the hammer hard on World of Blood's developer, Patrick Shyu. They banned all of his apps this past April after he broke the Facebook Terms of Service multiple times (i.e. illegal notifications, misleading links, etc.).
Now three months later, the World of Blood games have been revived as a series of Twitter games in the same vein as Spymaster. Prepare yourselves for a Twitter bloodbath.
The basics
If you're unfamiliar with the World of Blood games, they are essentially massive multiplayer online RPGs (MMORPGs), similar to the popular World of Warcraft. While each Blood game is different in theme (i.e. Skies of Blood is post-apocalyptic in setting, while Blood Lust focuses on vampires), the core gameplay is the same: earn cash, construct buildings, embark on missions, buy weapons, level up, and build alliances with friends.
The World of Blood games were infamously known for their viral tactics, and 140blood is no different. When you first join (via Twitter Oauth), it automatically tweets from your account that you've joined. It also sends out tweets for events like your purchases, completing quests, etc. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any discernible way to turn off these auto-tweets as well. If you're going to play a World of Blood game, prepare for a lot of game-generated tweets.
As we discussed in a previous article World of Blood games have sneaky monetization tactics. Like Mob Wars, if you want extra cash or life to upstage your competition, you can purchase points to help you do just that. Avoid completing the shady offers though - you'll just end up paying for strange supplements and products you never wanted.
There's a good reason Facebook banned World of Blood
While the actual gameplay of the 140blood games is solid, the entire World of Blood series still concerns us. Without any way to control when you tweet, World of Blood has a great deal of control over your Twitter account, though their implementation of Oauth eases our concerns. We're also wary of any service that offers you benefits in return for "completing offers" of free trials that end up not being so free.
Facebook banned Mr. Shyu and all of his games back in April for a reason. In fact, the Facebook team made a concerted effort to completely cleanse the Fb Platform of his influence:
“If you have evidence of any apps still available on Platform that are operated by Patrick Shyu, then please let us know.
To reiterate an earlier post, there are more enforcements on Platform than you are aware of, since Facebook does not publicize enforcement actions.”