How freemium games are tearing you a new one

Let’s be honest – freemium mobile games are the absolute pants, and have set a nauseating standard which has now crept into mainstream studios.

A freemium game, if you’re oblivious to the concept, is a game offered for free which makes money through the sale of in-game bonuses or benefits.

In mobile terms, these games are often based on waiting x hours for a task to complete, giving a player the option to pay in-game currency to move the task ahead.

But really, the end game is always the same thing: make loads of money. Let South Park spell it out for you.

Some freemium games aren’t terrible, and allow you to play the game and enjoy all aspects of it without having to purchase premium currency (Brave Frontier is a good example).

Other games simply take the piss.

Kotaku pointed out that the new Transformers: Battle Tactics game, while fun, could see you spend $40 and not even get a guaranteed premium item.

While that’s a shameful tactic, it’s not the worst one employed by freemium game developers. Here are some of the most abysmal freemium in-app purchase wastes.

Final Fantasy: All The Bravest

Final Fantasy: All the lamest

Square Enix has some of the most notoriously high-priced games in the app store. But those are full prices for full games – so they’re almost forgiven.

But Final Fantasy: All The Bravest is a blight on the face of all gaming. The free game has you tapping on heroes to battle it out against demons.

When your characters are KO’d, you can wait and have them regenerate over time (or use premium ‘energy’ to skip ahead). That’s not why it’s here.

If you want to add premium characters to your party, it will cost $0.99. But the character you get is completely random, so you may not get the one you want.

To get all 30 premium characters (at $0.99 each) and all the extra levels (at $3.99 each) – you will have to fork out close to $45 (R520) for what is effectively a shallow, bland, and repetitive tapping mess.

Super Monster Bros by Adventure Time Pocket Free

Even for free, this game cost too much

Thankfully this game is no longer available, but if you’re looking for the biggest rip-off in mobile gaming this is a contender.

The shameless Pokemon/Mario Bros. rip off sought to prey on unsuspecting kiddies who don’t know any better by charging $99.99 right off the bat to unlock another knock-off character.

Run out of fireballs? $0.99 for 30, thanks. Want to unlock easy mode? Another $99.99 please.

To unlock everything (not including the unlimited amount of fireball purchases you can make), it would cost upwards of $250 (R2,900).

No wonder Apple has pulled this poo from the store and changed its purchasing rules.

The Simpsons: Tapped Out / Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff

Donut make the mistake of paying for this tripe.

This is the exact type of game South Park was referencing.

As a former player of both titles, I can attest to both their addictive quality as well as their absolute shittery in trying to suck out any cash you may have.

The games offer a lot of premium content, bought with in-game premium currency (doughnuts or clams). The real world value attached? Well over $300 (R3,500) for the Simpsons and over $200 (R2,300) for Family Guy.

Did I mention that these games aren’t really games? They’re city builders at best and the basis for justifiable planetary destruction by an alien force at worst.

Clash of Clans

Clash of gems

Surprisingly, looking at the top-grossing apps in iTunes the top earners aren’t games that offer premium items (Clash of Clans, Candy Crush, Game of War).

Instead, these games rake in the most cash by simply offering users a way to skip the waiting. And there is so much waiting.

That’s right, the games making the most money – enough to publicly list companies worth billions – are playing off users’ inability to wait weeks (yes, weeks) to complete a single process.

The highest-grossing app, Clash of Clans, carries a staggering real-world amount if you were to skip ahead to a fully-upgraded everything.

Now, to be fair, you don’t have to skip ahead – but here’s some perspective: to do it the long way – without gems – it would take you a total of 3,036 days to do everything (cumulatively, assuming you do nothing else with your life).

The gem equivalent to skip that is 1.4 million gems. The real money value? $12,400.

Yes, that’s right: for just over R140,000 (or just over 8 years of your life), you too can have the best digital fortress to show off to your friends.