Idleon - The Idle MMO. The dev billed himself as a non-predatory mobile dev; premium currency could be reasonably earned for free. I was happy to support the dev by buying seasonal bundles. Then he started adding stuff that had to be purchased directly with money. Then he implemented FOMO with rotating bonuses. This guy makes millions a year and rants on Twitch streams about having to pay too much taxes.

Recently, he added a gacha system with a separate premium currency that cannot be earned for free so that the very few players who are running a hacked version of the game can’t pull the best equipment. F2P players get one pull a week and will statistically likely pull the best bonus in 1-3 years, but there are already plans to add more bonuses and rotate out existing ones.

This was right after another controversial incident when many players exploited an infinite currency bug which was predicted and could have been removed well in advance. Historically, the attitude was “you guys had your fun” and he removes the bug with no punishment to players. This time, he went into full meltdown mode, posting walls of text on discord with screenshots of Steam reviews that hurt his feelings, then reset a bunch of exploiters’ skill - not just rolled back but reset to remove months of progress.

He’s recently removed a statement from the Steam page that stated mobile game developers don’t have to be predatory, so at least he’s self aware I guess? Steam reviews were very positive; recent reviews are mostly negative. He’s responded by offering a concession that the best bonus is guaranteed after 200 pulls, which equates to 3.8 years if you’re F2P.

I haven’t quit the game yet, but I’m pretty close. My wallet is closed for sure.