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Comment by guard-of-terra | Hacker News Reader

Is it good? Article is silent on that. Not one screenshot.

Nope. The graphics are overly intricate and look messy on small screens. The UI is incredibly cluttered and has distracting animations you can tap to spend money. The game is essentially about optimization, spending resources to get more resources and hopefully make your numbers higher than other players' numbers. That kind of management game can be fun, but when the most powerful resource you can spend is real-world money, it's little more than a spending competition.

You can play it, but to compete well you need to spend money. Pay to win, like any other game. So no, it's not good. It's based on wallet size, not skill.

Is there any competitive simulation game for mobile that is not pay to win? I'm looking for something along the lines of League of Legends business model.

Vainglory

Hearthstone is also a good one if you're more into CCGs. Prime World Defenders has gotten me lately too, though that's just a single-player game.

For me the question is are there any games where you can trade time for money. Which is to say you can be just as good/powerful/equipped as any other player who spent $x by putting in y minutes of play time. And then what is the factor 'k' such that $1 = k? Basically what level does skill play in your cost of levelling.

it's a little older and more for tablets than phones, but Frozen Synapse is well regarded

It's just the new way of things: The game is free, but the fun costs extra.

That's the best way I've heard it worded. Makes it more obvious than "pay to win."

Does it matter? It's compulsive. That's why whales will spend $40k of money they don't have on in-app purchases.

I got the impression the whales can afford it. I'm sure there's counter-examples, but I'd imagine the "whales" are just very wealthy people, generally.

There is a reason at least one the really big casual gaming company allow you to deposit checks to get in game currency - because the really big whales are in the middle east and that is how they like to spend their money.

The people spending 40k can afford it, don't worry - and they might as well use the oil money for something.

Which company would that be? A quick google search doesn't turn anything up.

I think it was Zynga, they may have discontiuned it.

Thanks, sure sounds like it could have been them.

Gawker reported that Zynga had set up a "Platinum Purchase Program" allowing members to purchase virtual currency in amounts over $500 at favorable rates by making a payment via wire transfer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zynga#Platinum_Purchase_Progra...

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