[CobrastanJorji]

Gacha is a good example, but those base builders that feature fun characters and start slowing and slowing you down more, promising you can unlock the next level of cannon or whatever for just a few cents more, those are nasty.

Or the ones that offer a way to battle baddies with your friends but your weapons are just not quite good enough, but there's a premium upgrade...

I remember my kid playing a little "My Little Pony" game on iPad that was free and pleasant and then four levels in, suddenly "oh, you need Twilight for the next missions. Parents, Twilight costs $5."

[sixothree]

I downloaded a puzzle game for iOS and was enjoying it. I was maybe 5 or 8 levels in and of course it got harder. But the last level was literally impossible to complete without some additional purchase. I tried a few ways just to prove that it was a trap. And it was.

I have literally not played an iOS game since that moment.

[dumpsterdiver]

> I have literally not played an iOS game since that moment.

Do you still play games on other mobile operating systems? What does iOS have to do with the puzzle game interaction?

[nirvdrum]

I'm in a similar boat. I'll just play on a handheld gaming system (e.g., Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo 3DS). I realize that's not convenient when waiting in line wherever, but I cope.

Apple created a race to the bottom and created the environment for these predatory games to take root. By pushing IAP and making the prices hidden for so long, it made it very difficult for games to make money on an up-front sale. Not having the ability to demo further pushed companies to a free download with an unlock later on. For a long time those prices were hidden, now they're just really annoying to find. To this day you can't tell what's going to be locked or not until you play the game for a while.

By hiding the prices up front and making transaction seem small and making the purchases incredibly easy to make, they encouraged developers to exploit human psychology in negative ways. Apple isn't particularly incentivized to fix it because they get to take 30% of all those whale purchases. And no one is going to dump their phone for a portable console and Android isn't any better, so they have a very captive market.

Many of us are addicted to our phones and/or need them for other things. They don't need to be great gaming machines. Game console manufacturers, on the other hand, need to ensure quality games or people just won't buy or use them. That market is seeing microtransactions creep in -- I think largely because of the profitability of mobile gaming -- but Nintendo/MS/Sony won't allow their platform to get flooded with garbage; it'd be the death of the brand.

I think Apple realized they could set the rules for this form of gaming, too. Plenty of people that wouldn't ever play a game on a console download games on their phones because it's convenient. They have no expectations of what a game should provide or how it should be priced. Free in attractive to everyone, even if the game turns out to not really be free. Every iPhone release Apple touts the latest GPU improvements and how it'll unlock 3D gaming, but they all but killed the market for console-like games. The reality is most gaming on their platform is some variation of a Unity slot machine.

[MichaelZuo]

People who get addicted to playing the ‘Unity slot machine’ would have just gotten addicted to something else, porn, drugs, real slot machines, online poker, sports betting, etc…

So it’s not clear if it’s a net negative at all.

[effingwewt]

Not true.

Sure some people may have addictive personalities but by and large these things are designed to get people addicted. Someone who was never addicted to, nor ever would have normally become addicted to anything can become addicted by trying something supposedly benign as a 'game'.

[MichaelZuo]

How is this relevant if Apple didn’t create this ‘race to the bottom’? And the fact that even if they disappeared tomorrow, it will still continue.

Likely with even lower average scruples among the ‘racers’…

[danielbarla]

This is a problem highly targeting mobile OSes, to the point where sites like [1] exist. The norm is superficially free / cheap games which are pay to win-ish, and the days of simply paying a slightly larger price upfront and just getting a full game seem to be behind us, for these platforms at least. It's hard to make the same statement, to the same degree, for PC games or console games; there are _tons_ of full games one can buy, it's pretty much the norm on anything except the two main mobile platforms.

[1] https://nobsgames.stavros.io/