A reputable gaming application known as Hungry Shark has sparked some controversy across the online community.
Hungry Shark, an arcade style mobile application created by Ubisoft Entertainment, is a reputable online mobile application with over 50 million downloads to date and high user ratings.
Functioning as the Official game for Shark Week, Hungry Shark has recently become a trending subject of discussion after the parents of a 12 year old had allegedly over $600 in bills charged to their associated payment methods without their knowledge.
Discovered roughly 15 months after the first purchase, the estimated costs ran up over time without the parents knowledge equating to a sum floating around $600.
About Hungry Shark
Hungry Shark is a popular mobile application available in the Google PlayStore for Android and the App Store for iOS devices.
Hungry Shark, now referred to as Hungry Shark Evolution, is a virtual arcade game that is rated Teen friendly and reflects a 4.5 out of 5 star rating out of over 6.3 million reviews in the Google PlayStore.
The main objective of the game would be to, “Take control of a very Hungry Shark and go on a frantic ocean rampage, surviving as long as possible by eating everything and everyone in your way!”
The mobile application does contain advertisements and offers in-app purchases.
It is the in-app purchases featured at Hungry Shark that has landed this shark game into ‘hot water.’
An Expensive Lesson
The Hungry Shark mobile application, despite whatever their popularity may have reflected before, has recently become a trending subject of discussion again across the net.
Back in 2017, the parents of a 12 year discovered that around $600 in in-app purchases were charged up to purchase “virtual gems” and other in-app goods.
Regrettably, it wasn’t until roughly 15 months after the first purchase that the parents began to really see the charges on their debit card.
Shared below is part of their experienced shared at CommonSenseMedia:
“if your child has this game (or maybe any game from future games of london) then beware!!! in 2016 our child had a tablet for the first time and one of his friends got this game put on the tablet. somehow, google allowed this neighbor to purchase around $600 of “virtual” gems/other labels (yes, just words saying you ‘bot’ some gems or other nonsense – nothing else – nothing real) and charged the account – how it got my wifes account is a mystery – it was a debit card on her brokerage account – no statements sent to her… all add up to around $600. contacted google, then future games of London. google first stated that we would need to return anything purchased – i was all in!!! … well you might have the same happen to you.”
This was the first time that this sort of incident came to light.
However, just over a month ago on January 16th, 2019 an entity also reported over $600.00 in charges.
“My 5 year old boy had been playing this and purchased over $600.00 in upgrades. Biggest problem is that it looks like he is upping his coins when he is really purchasing them. Contacted Apple (purchase had been on the Apple TV) and they had not even been willing to cancel half of the purchases and it had not even been a day old…”
Hungry Shark Reviews
Despite the tough lessons experienced by parents above, Hungry Shark reflects really good reviews across the net.
As of February 18th, 2019, Hungry Shark reflected a 4.5 out of 5 star rating out of 6,305,170 reviews in the Google PlayStore.
Most of the negative reviews regarding Hungry Shark come from mobile users who believe the difficulty of the game is too high or how their game progress got deleted.
As a whole though it appears the majority of the feedback regarding Hungry Shark is positive.
Hungry Shark Complaints
Hungry Shark doesn’t reflect a significant pool of complaints for a mobile application that reflects over 50 million downloads to date.
While some mobile app users state that the price for in-app purchases are predatory that doesn’t stripe away any legitimacy that Hungry Shark may have.
The same could be said in regards to those parents who loss several hundreds of dollars, unknowingly, through in-app purchases made by their childen.
More feedback regarding Hungry Shark can be found at Reddit.
Is Hungry Shark Legit?
After carefully weighing all the information shared in our review above we believe Hungry Shark to be a legitimate gaming application for mobile devices.
Despite the negative user reviews and the unfortunate financial losses endured by those who did not have full supervision over their accounts, Hungry Shark is a highly popular mobile application on most mobile devices.
Hungry Shark Game Review
Hungry Shark is a popular mobile application that has over 50,000,000 downloads to date.
Created by Ubisoft Entertainment, Hungry Shark reflects great ratings across the net.
If the lessons shared in our review above render any lessons of value, it would be to make sure you have full supervision over your mobile applications along with parental controls enforced where needed.
With this in mind we are going to bring our honest review to a close but if you have some important feedback to share we invite you to leave a comment below.
Outcome: Hungry Shark appears to be Legit!
Mobile App: Hungry Shark Evolution
We invite you to share any experiences, feedback or insight you may have below!