Words With Friends, one of the most successful free multiplayer online games over the past few years, developed further. Like all good stuff that is free at first, it became partially charged. The developer Zynga invented certain pay-to-play-features last year to make some more money. So far you don’t need to worry since you can still use the good old Words With Friends free version. At least, until you feel threatened by successful paying opponents who use these feature.
Words With Friends free
You can download the free Words With Friends app for nearly all mobile devices. It is available for Android phones, iPhone and tablets. If you don’t mind the permanent advertising banners or ads between your moves, this version should be sufficient. Sometimes, it can be annoying if you unintentionally click on one of the banners since you will automatically be redirected to other pages. But with some attention and exercise you can avoid this.
Another free possibility is offered to you if you have a Facebook account. Just log into your account, choose the Facebook Words With Friends app and play with your real friends or random strangers.
Get Words With Friends for free…
There also is a paid version available which is ad free. You can upgrade to an ad-free Words With Friends for $2.99. However, you have to be aware of the asterisk behind this fee! *Applies only to Third Party Ads means that you will still see in-house advertisement of all kinds of Zynga products.
Pay-to-play-features
Playing Words With Friends free is only one possible way of gaming. Words With Friends also contains an inbuild store. Here you can buy Tokens which in turn allow you to buy special items. Depending on how many Tokens you need there are different Token packages in different pricing levels. Here is an overview of possible packages currently available:
Amount of Tokens
Price
940
$115.00
465
$57.50
170
$23.00
80
$11.50
40
$5.75
15
$2.30
The pay-to-play-features that you can buy with these Tokens are subjects of controversial discussions since some of them can give you certain advantages over a non-paying opponent. Certainly, this brings up the question if the game is still fair. However, let’s see what features we are talking about and make yourself a picture of this issue.
No More Video Ads
Investing 36 Tokens allows you to enjoy a new and unhindered gaming experience: No Ads! This means no nerve-racking and time consuming ads between the moves. If you ask me, quite a good purchase if you have a bit more money in your pockets. It’s not essential for survival but makes life a bit easier. The best is, this feature does not affect the relationship between you and your opponent. The upcoming have quite a potential to do so.
The Count
For 30 Tokens you will get unlimited help in counting your scores. Using The Count means to see your score as you place the letters on the board. Usually you get to know the value of your word after you submitted it. This feature seems to be quite helpful, but to be honest, mental math like this never hurt anyone.
Word-O-Meter
How strong is your word? The Word-O-Meter helps to push your vocabulary to better words. It tells you whether you can get a better word with the tiles you’ve got. For 32 Tokens you get a quantity of 99 requests. This add-on for example is perhaps no direct cheating, but at least it motivates you to find alternative words you wouldn’t have searched for if you were using the Words With Friends free version.
Tile Pile
10 Tokens can save you a lot of maths. We all know that there are 104 letter tiles in Words With Friends as we analyzed in a former article called How many letters in Words With Friends? To have an overview on how many letters there are left you need to bear a lot of letters and numbers in mind. The Tile Pile feature tells you e.g. if there are any S’s or E’s left. Simply, it tells you which letters remain. The 10 Tokens allows you to use this feature 10 times.
What do you think of all these possibilities? Do you feel threatened by these advantages offered to paying opponents? Do you fall for it or do you prefer Words With Friends free?
how do you buy the tokens?
Hi Gen! Actually now you can pay directly for an option you want to use at the Store section of the game. I have checked and could not find an option to buy the tokens any more. It seems that they were scrapped at one point in favor for direct purchases.
Is it true, or untrue, that one can purchase certain letters?? Against a few opponents I find it a miracle that they always seem to come up with the right letter. It makes me think perhaps they are buying them. Thanks for any input.
We’ve never heard of this possibility.
I’ve been playing the free version of WWF for years and never minded the ads but last week I got a video ad of Big Brothers (Global TV Ad) for the show coming up and the Done button to exit freezes or disabled so stuck!! Frustrated I am considering the upgrade now but have tried to contact to report the issue to WWF Support and Zynga to no avail so now have deleted the free and trying to warn ppl cause from what Aive researched it can be hacked by the site the banner at the bottom of the Big Bro’s. Ad came up showing www. googlleads. And when I looked that up it stated that Google is selling leads to advertisers and one comment said it could cycle through your browser from your back end mentioned Safari which is what so had installed and deleted chose another but still popped up and froze my game.. Now I’m thinking of deleting all my Zynga games.
Hi Jocelyn,
I`m sorry for the problems you`ve got. But we are not Zynga and can`t help you with the problems.
Best regards,
Anja