Angry Birds Go's in-app purchases cost as much as a budget smartphone

Rovio has been one of the companies that did microtransactions somewhat well. Its Angry Birds games have had some in-app purchases here or there, but they were mostly unnecessary for finishing levels. The upcoming Angry Birds Go, however, seems to be on another level altogether. According to a hands-on preview of the game by Pocket Game, Go has in-app purchases oozing out from every orifice you can imagine.

Upgrading vehicles has a dual currency system, with immense levels of grinding required to earn a respectable amount of in-game currency. The other currency has to be bought with real money. There's even the much-hated energy system, which forces you to play only five races with any bird, after which they're tired.

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Yeah... no (note: that's $124.99 in New Zealand Dollars)

If you want to play some more with that bird, you'll have to either wait for some time or pay real money. To make things worse, some of the cars you can buy with real money have premium price tags—the Big Bang Special Edition Car costs $99.99 (Rs 6,235 approx). We guess this is what Rovio meant when it said that it was "built from the ground up as a free-to-play title" in its launch trailer.

Angry Birds Go is a kart racing game which pits the titular ticked-off birds against the ever-villainous pigs. The game is hitting stores all over the world on December 11, but New Zealand got the game first. Rovio will be gradually rolling it out to the rest of the world over the coming week.