TouchArcade Rating:

Straight out of the “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things" department is some amazingly depressing news from the dudes at ustwo following the release of the Monument Valley ($3.99) expansion, Forgotten Shores. Backing things up a bit, Monument Valley is an incredible game. We effortlessly gave it five stars in our review, and it’s included in any list of games I tell people to check out when constantly asked “What games should I get?" Its expansion launched this morning, essentially doubling the amount of content in the game for $1.99.

iTunes reviews of the new version of Monument Valley in the US App Store are currently split 50/50 between people rating it five stars and people rating it one star because the expansion isn’t free.

Seems quite a few people have gone back and 1 star reviewed Monument Valley upon update because the expansion was paid. This makes us sad. — ustwogames (@ustwogames) November 12, 2014

I don’t know how many of those angry single star iTunes reviewers read TouchArcade… But, seriously guys? It seems like the hive mind of the App Store is continually pushing developers in to this unrealistic corner of demanding absolutely everything but not being willing to pay anything. The fact of the matter is Monument Valley is an amazing game, made by real artists, working in a real studio, getting paid real salaries, with real families they go home to and support. They’re selling their game for a total of six bucks if you buy both the game itself and the expansion. I don’t fully understand what happened to get us on this horrible Biff with the almanac timeline of Earth where this kind of thing is unacceptable to iOS gamers.

If you hate free to play, you need to support awesome premium experiences like Monument Valley. This weird position so many people have of hating free to play but also being wholly unwilling to pay for anything isn’t realistic, sustainable, and won’t end in any kind of result that will make anyone happy. If anything, it’s pushing more developers to abandon iOS and try Steam instead, where they can sell a game for $15-$20 without anyone screaming bloody murder. This is not a good thing for us.

So, yeah, check out Monument Valley. It’s a great game. The expansion is really cool too. If you have it in you, leave ’em a positive iTunes review. Seeing a game as awesome as Monument Valley as a one star game on iTunes is seriously one of the saddest things I’ve seen lately.

UPDATE @ 11:00 PM: Well, this has spread like wildfire on Twitter and it looks like the review counts are starting to turn around. Great job everyone, keep it up!