About me:I enjoy all sorts of games, discussion forums and social networking sites. I just found out about t...
Member since:24.05.2007
Reviews:1
Review rated by 18 Ciao members on average: very helpful
This review received a counterstatement by a party concernedRead Comment
Wouldn't it be great if you could make a lot of money playing games that rely more on your skill than on chance. This was the original concept of King.com (formerly midasplayer.com).
King.com is an international skill games site founded by Riccardo Zacconi and Toby Rowland who at the time of writing have their headquarters in Shaftesbury Avenue in London. However rather than focussing on the founders success and failures (see clickmango.com) and the amount of investment that has gone into the site, I'd like to write an actual review of the site itself.
A skill game site is one that allows you to play games that have more to do with your ability than luck. I will come onto what "skill" means in a second.
Winnings and Payouts ================== It is possible for you to win substantial amounts on this site if you are a good player BUT please don't sign up straight away until you finish reading this review because there is a nasty sting in the tail. If you will be playing their various money games, then you will need a Paypal account. You can pay via other means but they will return your money via Paypal for which they charge a small sum (£1.00 or a few dollars) for doing - so you are better off setting up a paypal account. Winnings can be as low as a few cents to hundreds of dollars depending on the tournament you are playing.
The Games ========= They have an excellent range of games. These include shoot em ups, card games, thinking games such as chess and soduku, click and switch games and so on. I'd love to give a full explanation of each but previous reviewers have done their best and really there are just too many games to go into - best you have a look for yourself if you like playing games. In order to play them it is best for you to have the latest browsers and "flash" software installed on your PC. In addition you will need
to allow the site to install a number of activeX controls on your PC.
Skills or Thrills? =============
As they have over 50 games, it would not be appropriate for me to go through each one - but you can see each of these games for yourself if you went to their website. An example of one of their skill games is the traditional game of solitaire. You play the game and get a score depending on how fast you complete (or not) the game. Your opponent(s) will have exactly the same deck of cards with the cards in exactly the same order as your game. web-sites>.
Fairness Ratings ============= Now you can see for example in the above game that if your skill at Solitaire was not very good, you would be constantly beaten by other people. So to try and make the system fair, you get a starting rating if you play the money games (you do not get any rating for the free games unless you are a fully PAID up member). This rating begins at 2000 and goes up or down dependent on your first 5 money games.
After your first five games you are only matched against players of a similar rating. In other words if you had a rating of 2000 a user with a rating of 5000 would not be allowed to play you (unless of course you made a direct challenge). These ratings are very similar to league tables and go up or down dependent on your win/loss ratio.
Other Facilities ============ One of the interesting aspects of King.com is the social aspect where you can message other players, sign their guest books, have a profile, post to blogs and so on - very much like the Ciao community but aimed at gamers. You do not get immediate access to all of these facilities - you need to earn them by playing as many games as possible to get "jewels". The more jewels you have the more facilities you get access to (eg 500,000 jewels currently allows you to give other users virtual gifts).
The Registration Process ==================== The registration process is similar to most social networking sites where you provide a user name and an email address. Then they will send you a confirmation email to ensure you are a valid user.
Types of User Accounts =================== There are three types of user accounts. The Royal User allows you to play gambling games as well as skill games (you need to provide a small deposit of £5.00-£30.00 for this). The Gold Player allows you to play skill games (you need to provide a small deposit of £10-£30 for this).
The club player allows you to play some but not all of the games for free but you can still play for jewels and so potentially get other facilities such as a guest book and the ability to send messages.
If you remain as club player you will be bombarded with constant incentives to upgrade to paid membership such as bonus cash incentives - however these incentives are not withdrawable so don't think you will make any money from this!
Just a little tip here:- if you want access to the gambling games you need to go directly to king.com rather than signing up via some of their partner web-sites such as Yahoo.
Protecting from Cheating =================== It is possible for people to create automated scripts that get phenomally high scores and for people who are good at games to have multiple accounts. If you suspect people are cheating you can contact their abuse department and report your findings. This is good and helps protect the community (and your money) from charlatans. This is the plus side of the abuse department.
TIP: Do not allow more than one person in your family to have an account on your computer or else they will disable your King.com account and keep your winnings
Technical Support and Abuse Departments ================================== In many respects this skill gaming site is excellent apart from their support and abuse people. This is a crucial component of any skill gaming site and unfortunately if you ask too many questions or for some reason they don't like your attitude you will find yourself banned or prevented from receiving any legitimate winnings. I have a catalog of transcripts of conversations where their abuse department has either deliberately not understood or confused the issues in order to "bludgeon" the poor user. Either that or their support department really does not understand the language being used....in which case you must ask why they are doing their job!
The problem is increased by the fact that they seem to lack any basic professional and communication skills and are easily upset which if you are not careful, will result in your account being terminated.
Therefore if you have a legitimate complaint which is more complicated than the standard ones, you cannot complain.....unless of course you wish to be thrown out and unfortunately the internet is full of people who have played legitimately and been thrown out.
This has caused a huge shadow over the King.com site as to whether they do actually allow the majority of huge payouts - (they must let a few out for publicity purposes).
This is an absolute shame because this has to be one of the best sites I have played on but until the situation changes I cannot recommend anyone play here unless you are just playing for fun.
The Downsides
======
There are several major problems with this site in addition to the afforementioned problem with technical support.
If you are in some states or countries, you will not have access to some of the games as the country's law considers it gambling. For example, in one state any game that has a ball in it (eg luxor, pool and so on would be banned as it is considered gambling - weird I know!)
There is no procedure for 24x7 support. In other words if a site update is required all players are logged off. You would not see this on for example Amazon. Updates are normally installed at 4:00am UK time so roughly 20,000 people in other countries are affected by these updates.
In addition to the poor support, many players have suffered from harrassment either from other players they've beaten or from people who use the site facilites for purposes such as advertising or other activities (eg I was constantly pestered at one time by a club user offering sex). Both these problems are generic to all social networking sites including Ciao.
Summary ======== There are some great people on this site, the games are fun to play and the social networking and promotional facilities are excellent. The downside is that many genuine winners whose details I have, have been banned and their winnings withheld causing some to seek compensation against the site and having the site reported to several governing bodies.
Many many parts of me would really really like to give this site a huge thumbs up but because of the unfair treatment of some of their site members and the incredibly bad, unprofessional and abusive behaviour of ironically enough their "abuse department" which has been experienced by many, I have sadly rated the site as Poor.
AFTERTHOUGHT ============== There is a real need in the industry for a site like this. If you have a documented grievance (eg a trail of emails please let me know at betheotherone AT yahoo.co.uk).
But please do not email me if you are just going to tell me what a bunch of thieves these guys are. I know there are a lot of you guys out there that have been hurt and I sympathise but I dont need hearsay - I need hard proof similar to stuff I already have in my possession.
One day I would like to get you guys your money back but I need you to take the emotion out of your anger and help me to remove the people causing you the problems - so help me out ok and perhaps we can all give these guys a five star rating one day.
by (83%):
by (17%):
01.06.2007 15:10
A great first review, welcome to Ciao :o)
26.05.2007 10:50
Great review
25.05.2007 19:59
Hi and welcome to Ciao. Great review