6

Paying for Healing

Gameloft

The Dungeon Hunter series isn't just a tragedy -- it's a mobile museum exhibit on the greedy destruction of a game franchise. The first game was a great idea, the second improved on the first, the third razed everything to sell shovelfuls of the ashes, and the fourth started digging through the ruins to extract treasure from the corpses. You're only meant to do that when you're playing a game, not when you are one.

Gameloft
Notice that the lower right potion is yellow, because it is literally taking the piss

In Dungeon Hunter 4, your options are "FIGHT," "ITEM," and "CREDIT CARD," because you have to buy healing potions. Note that we didn't say "better" healing potions. You start with three each day, and cash money is the only way to get more. Never mind enchanted armor and game-breaking weapons, we're now expected to pay for the most basic of power-ups. Expecting people to pay for medical care? Gameloft's importing the absolute worst things about the real world into fantasy.

5

EA's Rating Scam

EA

Our first line of defense against bullshit like this is online reviews. EA knows this, and decided to destroy the rating system instead of making a good game. The new Dungeon Keeper asks you to review it. If you give it five stars, then the rating goes through. Give it anything else and you're routed to a feedback form. And your review doesn't go through. And an EA executive really thought players were stupid enough to be fooled by that.

EA
"We put an actual demon on the page, in case our evil wasn't clear enough."

As gamers, working out the scores that result from pushing buttons is our only skill, and they still thought they could screw us over. Especially since the only authentic review of the new Dungeon Keeper would be grabbing it by the throat and screaming "HOW DARE YOU TAKE THAT GREAT GAME'S NAME?", and then it taking 24 hours for that action to complete unless you want to pay real money.

4

Retroactive Ruination

EA

Mobile gaming unleashed a plague of clickfarming bullshit when it should have heralded a golden age. Portable technology has passed through the exact same levels of power as our old consoles -- a hardware resonance should have opened a portal of nostalgic joy. There are countless retro games aching for another lease on life. Cheap downloads should see them arisen renewed to share joy with us again. Instead they're being resurrected as zombies -- shambling wrecks wracked with hunger for our wallets.

EA
This screen literally says "go to hell" while demanding 60 dollars.

3

Breaking Pieces Off the Game to Sell

Capcom

"Zero Day Downloadable Content" is how game developers add their own tax to their retail price. The game carves itself into pieces, which you have to buy and feed back to it to get it up to size. It's an awful autocannibalistic menu advertised as an extra feature. And every time the game offers "Hail, great hero of Ass'kickeroth, wouldst thou like to buy the next level for seven American dollars?", it ruins the immersion like a grenade in a sensory deprivation tank. But while games used to extract non-essential parts, some are now hacking off their own heads and trying to sell them to you. But looking stupider and clumsier in the process.

Capcom
Then again, "looking stupid" seems to be this guy's entire deal.

2

Undoing Your Money

EA

They're not just breaking their games to sell you the pieces; you're only renting that wreckage. Gaming extras are worse purchases than magic beans, and only slightly less imaginary. EA casually informed players of SimCity Social, The Sims Social, and Pet Society that they'd be shutting those worlds down. "What's that, players? You'd spent thousand of real dollars? We can't hear you. Our ears are blocked by thousands of real dollars." No apology, no offline mode, not even a receipt reading "ONE SCREWING PAID IN FULL." The closest they came to acknowledging it was recommending that players move on to their PopCap games. That's what EA thinks of the players: "We have finished screwing you with this product. Proceed in an orderly manner so that we can screw you on the next product."

1

Turning Games Into Chores

Darrin Klimek/Photodisc/Getty Images

The defense of the indoctrinated (criticize any game online and you'll find that even the worst title has cultish devotees) is to say, "Just don't buy the in-app purchases." I presume they also say "just don't breathe" when someone farts. But it's not a matter of choice when the atmosphere is so poisoned that solid chunks of shit are congealing out of the air to splatter all over our favorite hobby. If someone leaves a burning bag of crap outside my door, I don't think it's okay because it was free. And uninstalling Dungeon Keeper 4 is even more annoying than disposing of the dogshit, because I didn't go into that paper bag expecting to find free candy.

David Oxberry/Photodisc/Getty Images
"It's free to play, kids! Take it out once every eight hours to level up!"

In-app purchases change the core mechanic of a game, and we've seen the tragic results. Instead of aiming to make something that's fun to play, games like Angry Birds GO are engineered to balance on the very cusp of the phone-flinging frustration curve, annoying you so much you want to spend money but not quite enough to stop playing. Their perfect customer isn't an entertained player, it's an addict justifying their own empty wallet in online forums.

We understand that the franchises we love only like us for our money, but they're mercenary in the same way the A-Team is mercenary: They need the cash, sure, but they're also a tremendous amount of fun and you don't mind paying for the entertainment. Modern games might be free to play, but they're expensive in wasted time and frustration. In the old days, developers had to make a good game and sell it to each player once. In-app purchases have freed them from both of those limitations.

Behold more appalling electronic mistakes with Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare's Advance Order Madness and The Worst Romantic Lessons from Video Games

Enjoy gaming mistakes with 5 Videogame Sex Moves (Reviewed), and 7 Reasons Assassin's Creed Is The Least Playable Game Ever.

Luke McKinney writes about red shells and psychopaths, tumbles the most exciting videogame character this year, and responds to every single tweet.