Also candy crush at least is exploitive as absolute fuck. It starts out playable to make you an addict, but it’s tuned very carefully to become as unplayable as possible without just shoveling money at them.
Take this with a grain of salt, because I haven’t played in years, and am only vaguely aware of others playing it.
But my understanding is that you have ads, then get finite lives per day, which you can buy with actual money, and you can buy powerups with money, and (without seeing the code to verify) over time they get you to the point where most of the levels are generated to be either impossible without powerups or you have to get really lucky with how the level plays out to succeed without powerups. I know someone who gets like 5-10 minutes a day (with ads, of course) of gameplay without spending money.
Also candy crush at least is exploitive as absolute fuck. It starts out playable to make you an addict, but it’s tuned very carefully to become as unplayable as possible without just shoveling money at them.
valuable context - thank you
Take this with a grain of salt, because I haven’t played in years, and am only vaguely aware of others playing it.
But my understanding is that you have ads, then get finite lives per day, which you can buy with actual money, and you can buy powerups with money, and (without seeing the code to verify) over time they get you to the point where most of the levels are generated to be either impossible without powerups or you have to get really lucky with how the level plays out to succeed without powerups. I know someone who gets like 5-10 minutes a day (with ads, of course) of gameplay without spending money.