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[Zangi]

Interesting till you hit the wall.  Where you must wait days to collect days worth of resources(while hoping it doesn't get stolen during that build-up) and/or taking literal days to upgrade.

[kaian-a-coel]

I remember playing relatively similar games (there I feel compeled to precise that I'm not calling the piece of garbage known as "clash of clan" a game, only the softwares I previously played).
It was years ago, back when such things didn't have a cash shop and sustained themselves on ad money only.
It was fun until I hit the "noob protection" ceiling and got raided by 500 battlecruisers who bombarded my infrastructure and stole all my money. Twice. In a single night. Then once again within 24 hours.

[Aklyon]

I've played a number of these mobile objects, but only the first of these in the list up to the point where you run into the kind of wall Astral described.

Samurai Siege: Neat theme. Gives you more starting building-constructors than clash. Commander unit (it points other troops at targets) helps significantly in avoiding the sort of stupid and fight-loss-causing AI I saw in clash later for 'Any' priority troops, but doesn't completely fix it. Troop unlocks based on PvE map advancement, not dojo level. Left it on my phone in case i ever felt like returning.

Clash: Tried it because friend said it was better. Isn't. Deleted.

Battle Islands: Has an interesting concept and only one resource, not two, but I don't think theres anyone actually playing the bloody thing. I'd messed with it for two weeks, and had a single attack against me. If i looked for attacks either people were broke, or had heavy defenses not worth hitting. Deleted it and then laughed when it somehow snuck into the F2P list on steam.

I remember playing relatively similar games (there I feel compeled to precise that I'm not calling the piece of garbage known as "clash of clan" a game, only the softwares I previously played).
It was years ago, back when such things didn't have a cash shop and sustained themselves on ad money only.
It was fun until I hit the "noob protection" ceiling and got raided by 500 battlecruisers who bombarded my infrastructure and stole all my money. Twice. In a single night. Then once again within 24 hours.

Would you happen to be talknig about "browser games" like Battle Dawn? Because that sort of insta-pwn outside of noob-protection reminds me of that, a long time ago when we had a terrible computer.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Ogame?

For a brief while in my teens I thought it was a fun game to play.

[Shadowlord]

I've avoided playing games like Clash of Clans myself, for the most part. Part of the reason is that it and similar games are designed as time-sucks which try to convince you that you're in a serious competition and in order to seriously compete you need to throw money at them. And then keep throwing money at them or you'll fall behind, and you'll let down your friends/allies/teammates in the game!

If you haven't read this article before, this is what high-level Clash of Clans play is like (and it is pretty horrifying): http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/technology/master-of-his-virtual-domain.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[Zangi]

Hmm.... yea.... a good number of iThing games really are great at coaxing money out of people.  (Game of War is on a whole nother level over Clash of Clans... for example.  If you truly want to see it....)

[itisnotlogical]

Hmm.... yea.... a good number of iThing games really are great at coaxing money out of people.  (Game of War is on a whole nother level over Clash of Clans... for example.  If you truly want to see it....)

You mean the one with this hilariously infringe-tastic advertisement?

Anyways, I played a similar game called Total Conquest set in fake-Roman times. There was a fair share of OP real-money units, but rebuilding resources was always quick so I didn't mind. It wasn't very deep either, so you could play it briefly, set something to build and come back later and not really miss anything. What really killed it was that construction often didn't progress unless you had the app itself on the screen, i.e. you couldn't close it or have it in the background. And no matchmaking service meant it could take forever to get a profitable raiding situation, because you either get matched against noobs with nothing to steal or mega-powerful players with impenetrable defenses.

[Astral]

I guess what really hit home for me was a Cracked article, specifically this one.

Making games that prey on human psychology doesn't sit well with me, even if the maker of those games end up filthy rich. The article mentioned by Shadowlord is about 9 months old, and I'm sure the company who made Clash is still raking in somewhere close to the $2.4 million a day, all off of making a frustration-ridden game that can be bypassed by paying them a few bucks. Until your gems run out.

Reminded me further of the title of a book. Simply put:

10 Pay money
20 Run out of gems
30 Goto 10

[Levi]

I don't get why people just don't play real games.

[Zangi]

I don't get why people just don't play real games.

Human psychology.   They have engineered the honey, enticing at first glance, to draw people in.  They have constructed the web that pulls them back into its slimy embrace again and again.  And finally, they have learned where the buttons are and in what sequence to push those buttons in order to have those caught in the trap to spend money.  In the thousands.

I see people spending that kind of money.  It fascinates and sickens me.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

I don't get why people just don't play real games.

Human psychology.   They have engineered the honey, enticing at first glance, to draw people in.  They have constructed the web that pulls them back into its slimy embrace again and again.  And finally, they have learned where the buttons are and in what sequence to push those buttons in order to have those caught in the trap to spend money.  In the thousands.

I see people spending that kind of money.  It fascinates and sickens me.

I play real games but the reason I play games like that is because I can't brink a whole computer to school
Also unlike some I don't spend any money at all on games like clash of clans
I guess I don't have the urge to please people I don't know in some random group I joined by spending money to help them

[Glloyd]

As for articles go, this is the best one IMO:

http://insertcredit.com/2011/09/22/who-killed-videogames-a-ghost-story/

[kaian-a-coel]

Ogame?

For a brief while in my teens I thought it was a fun game to play.

Yeah it's Ogame. Also Travian and another I forgot the name.

[Levi]

As for articles go, this is the best one IMO:

http://insertcredit.com/2011/09/22/who-killed-videogames-a-ghost-story/

Yeah, that is my favourite one too.    I was looking for it the other day but couldn't remember the name for some reason.