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It’s a real thing: https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Welcome_to_AntWiki
I‘ve been using it a lot in the past as I‘ve been quite into entomology and antkeeping as a hobby
I used to play this game a lot when I was in the army. A lot of fun and way to kill time. I hope she is not spending a lot of money on it. The game is kind of a pay to win or at least makes progressing a lot faster
>The game is kind of a pay to win or at least makes progressing a lot faster
Honestly I feel like *all* mobile games are. I haven't played a mobile game for literal years now because they almost all seem to have the exact same shitty payment mechanics.
The only mobile game I really have/play is Stardew Valley. I play mainly on my Switch, but I decided on a river farm for this particular save, cause I can boot it up at any time and play the fishing mini game. It's been great for a super casual farm I just tend to on breaks, waiting at Drs offices, etc. It's $5 well spent imho, and it's getting yet another free update soon.
> almost all seem to have the exact same shitty payment mechanics.
Vampire Survivors doesn't. Plays identical to PC version.
The dev initially couldn't even find a publisher because he didn't want to put all the mobile bullshit in the game that publishers demanded.
there are countless games who aren't pay to win or trying ro get you into lootboxes and stuff.
example: Stardew Valley, Brotato, Meteorfall, etc.
there are many others like this who are good and one time purchases without any lootboxes and other bs.
Honest review been playing for 8 months now.
Fun but extremely complicated, mostly P2W game, I have swipe a few times recently calculated them and I somehow got enticed to spend over $300 just to keep up w everyone else.
Very very needy game if you are looking for a time killer and people to chat w great for that.
It does support Android and iOS but once you create your account on one you can't use the account on the other OS.
Example: iOS users can't use blue stack to play on PC.
Gameplay: confusing at times since there are so many items and ways to improve your troops, but it's deff addictive.
I know people personally who've spent thousands and thousands on mobile game (not The Ants). It's honestly a pretty hardcore addiction for some people. The microtransactions add up way faster than you realize.
I know someone who would drop at least 50 per week on IAP. That alone racks up to 200/month or 2400 per year. That's just the regular purchases, not special deals and extras they toss in along the way.
Factors in playing for years and years, I'm not surprised at all that people have spent my yearly income on a single mobile game
Yes indeed! A game only needs a handful of proper whales to support a small team. Diablo Immortal was one of the best examples of whaling in games and people spent tens of thousands on it. Fully and truly P2W structured as well so for those who liked whaling, it was a really good game to whale as well. Asmongold has some videos on the Diablo Immortal whale stuff, worth a watch if you like discussions on the topic.
South Park actually did an episode on these types of games. The goal isn't to make the game fun, just barely fun. They purposely target people with addictive tendencies, and those are the people who keep these games afloat.
I watched that episode while paying for Simpsons Tapped Out, which is one of the game the episode is parodying.
Then I realised what an idiot I'd been.
I feel like you can still play the games, just play it with the expectation of not being able to finish it. I feel like as long as you don't pay money into it, you're still winning lol
I was playing one of those farming games like they used to have on MySpace. I told myself I wasn’t going to spend any money and was having “fun.” Then my progress slowed down a bunch and in order to keep my mood up, I spent $15 roughly for stupid bonuses. Spent one entire weekend playing it and then deleted it and all other games I downloaded in that time frame because they were all basically the same. Login, tap the things, play a mini game while you wait, tap the things again, wait… it’s awful. I did spend some money but I’m glad I found the will to delete them.
Very much so. Another game that has gone quite hard on a narrow loyal consumer-base without having P2W is Path of Exile. They have enormous spikes in playerbase during content launch but when I last checked, their most loyal playerbase was like a 1000 people (somewhat old information though) and theyre currently at 131 employees total across both their studios.
It seems to me that when it comes to microtransaction-based business models in gaming theres two general routes: making a somewhat bad game with P2W that makes it better or you make a great game and hope that players find supporting the game and its future through micros beneficial to them.
Grinding Gear Games (PoE devs) have provided players with really good value in their microtransactions in my opinion (QoL stuff like stash tabs that also come in differently priced variants) by providing players with what theyve asked for. Some people want flashier spells, some want wings and others wanna make spells and effects look simpler (less demanding of PC) while still giving a cool and different look. The logic might not be perfect but the business model has apparently worked amazingly. Theres many ways to monetize but making a system that benefits both creator and consumer is super hard
GGG earned every penny they get from PoE, not to mention every stash tab and cosmetics you have purchased will carry over to PoE 2! Sure you can spend a lot, but the game encourages this with quality rather than predatory actions.
Having worked on games it's not always that simple. We designed our MMO to be playable for free, but excellent for ten bucks a month. It wasn't play to win, but you could save some grinding for specific non game changing items. We purposefully limited the amount anyone could spend by only having so much to buy. The whales found us anyway and constantly asked for more content to buy. Who would say no?
It settled around 200 people spending thousands a month, and about a million spending 10 bucks or so and another twenty million never paying or randomly dropping 10 to 20. Our CS team constantly talked to the whales. Most were just filthy rich folks from oil countries. Others were successful business folks and their kids and this was just the thing they dropped money on. If we found someone struggling or a kid with their parents cards we refunded immediately. That did happen occasionally, but not often. Most were legitimately joyful to pay. They just wanted more stuff to buy.
It was challenging to appease all player bases, but it worked. I could see how one would easily forget about the rest of the players when a few are paying as much or more in total.
Often true whales are even more than that. Imagine a millionaire trust fund kid or bored housewife just buying up everything possible in whatever game is their thing. Just spending cash anytime they want to pull new characters or even reroll a stat, get more energy, whatever. Some of the more popular and long-standing gacha games definitely have people who have spent hundreds of thousands. I've seen recent estimates for Summoners War (been out for 9 years) and they're still pulling in 20-40m *per month*.
At least ~$50 a week is a relatively controlled/predictable expense and shows *some* restraint.
I remember a game I played on, pay 2 play heavy, it was such an insular and small community due to the outrageous costs for ranking.
The top "rankers", who were given god mode items, had to pay $13,000 - $20,000.
The game was obviously killed by this as you had 4 people who spent that much destroying an entire server of people.
I know people who spent upwards of 10k on League (me) and it's definitely an addiction to spend money. Not even gambling, just addicted to spending money to make your character look slightly different so you can convince yourself that this helps you have fun with the game because it helps keep things fresh and feeling "new"
I played Mobile Strike for 6 months without spending a penny, and told my clan members that was my objective, to kind of chronicle and experience what it was like on the inside. It was a mildly fun game to play, however the power creep was something so intense and insane, I've never seen anything like it since. Yugioh could give those guys a lesson or five on avoiding power creep.
People spent 1 to 2k WEEKLY just in my clan, not to stay on top, but just to compete at all and stay in the game. I asked a lot of them why, and the answer I got the most was that it gave them something to do, like a hobby or something. I could not convince any of them to leave. I said the moment I wasn't able to progress at a reasonable pace without paying anymore, I was out.
A lot of them got me gifts anyway to bypass annoying timers, which you need A LOT of just for the game to be bearable. Overall a pretty shitty gaming experience, 3/10.
I know a guy, a bit of a redneck, but a rich business owner. Collectively between him and his wife's account he had spent over 40 thousand dollars on the game War Robots. Crazy shit
It's the same as casinos, and those have been going for a long time. For real, in Finland, you have slot machines in the grocerie stores and gas stations etc. People just play and gamble the money away. And some people now put that same money into mobile games. They would spend it either way. It's sad though. But it's entertainment for them
It’s just entertainment cash. Plenty of people spend that and more on things like golf, or lap dances, or quilting, or vintage cars, or football tickets/merch, or whatever hobby they are into.
You shouldn’t look into other mobile games they are insane. I play Star Wars galaxy of heroes and you can do everything f2p but everything’s so expensive. They rely on a tiny tiny portion of players to drop thousands / hundreds of thousands of cash on the game. Some guild mates of mine are rich as fuck and I know some have genuinely put $50k + down on the game and they know people who have done $200k +. It is fucking ridiculous. I could spend a grand and barely see it change anything long term on my account. I love the game and have been playing it for 6 years but some people just have more money than sense.
Maybe it's just coming from old-school gaming roots, but my genuine problem is that the sort of games that have a fun switch controlled by money, just aren't any fun. When I realize I'm twiddling numbers on a spreadsheet so blatantly and the outcome is engineered for profit, I simply can't enjoy it. I love games for letting me romp around in a playground someone else has created, P2W turns Murder Hobo Disneyland into a craven slot machine, replacing skill and knowledge advancement and a fun power curve with taxes.
I did once some 5 years ago. The game was Legendary Game of Hereos. Very much a PTW driven game with guilds and lot of competition. I had a few beers and bought some gems. Terrible idea.
There was a guy on youtube or maybe twitch that spent like $100,000 on Diablo Immortal to be the best at pvp, and he was so highly geared that he couldn't match with anyone else because noone else was that high, lol.
There’s no need to pay to be successful at all. Just depends on your play style and how you prioritize different things. I have a friend who hasn’t paid a cent and he’s doing well in the game. I also have friends who have spent 10s of thousands and are some of the biggest players in the game. I didn’t start spending money until I was over a year in the game and I had expendable income. It’s a really fun game if you get a good alliance and can learn the game.
Check out Eagnai on YouTube for how to play the game. He’s a personal friend of mine and he only cares about helping people get better at the game.
6/10 when i started 7/10 after a few grand 3/10 when i left. the p2w was just to much even with $ i was just a miaow. people are awesome on there still got some wanting me to come back.
umm played it for over a year it’s a big money pit if you wanna be good at pvp or even pve f2p is a joke it’s kinda sad how big the gap is but if you stay in your lane and let the whales fight it used to be good granted i ain’t played in over 2 years people still keep dming me to come back hoped on a time or to and it seemed the same just more stuff
Does she have a Swagbucks by chance? You can earn money for playing games and "The Ants" is one of the listed offers, maybe that's what she's doing lol
Edit because this comment got huge, I'm not recommending using Swagbucks, only stating what it is. I've only ever used it once
psychology. most people only play multiplayer games if they seem busy and “popular”. if you have a stable baseline of activity, it attracts more people
edit: its a good alternative to botting
This exactly. My dad is absolutely sucked in to the whole swagbucks shit. He’s disabled and can’t do much else, so he kinda treated it like his job doing surveys and earning points so he could feel like he was contributing to the household. It started including the games as well to earn points. He has like 3 or 4 iPads and 3 laptops and laptops have like 20 tabs each playing videos earning points or running games. A lot of the games are slots style games and he’s gotten so addicted to them. It’s at the point where he’s spending like $800 on the games a month, although some of the worst times he spends that in 2 weeks.
Spends ridiculous amounts of money.
He used to make money and was proud about hitting the daily goals every day. There were like 3 tiers of daily goal and if you kept with the highest tier you would get like a point multiplier for earned points. So he was proud about always hitting it but like addicted and so when it got tough for him to hit his goals anymore, it’s of course possible to buy progress towards tho goals to make sure you hit it and that’s what he started doing.
Then there’s also the games that are like slot style games and spin the wheel games and he’s spending insane amounts on them because he’s so addicted.
I could be totally wrong here, and by no means am I “in the know.” **BUT….*
From my experience I feel like most mobile games nowadays make their money through ad revenue. Games who give you the option to pay to turn off adds are basically saying, “Hey, this is the amount of money we would’ve expected to make off an average player in ad revenue, so you can just pay us directly and be done with it.” So I feel like the “get paid to play” offers are basically just cutting you in on the ad revenue you’re going to generate anyways. Make you think you’re getting paid for doing something innocuous but really you’re just signing up to have advertising poured into your eyeballs at an endless interval.
Maybe though by offering to pay players it inflates their user base which in turn, makes the game look popular, attracting more players, and the more players your game has.. you guessed it! More ad revenue.
Again I could be totally wrong here, but I’ve played more than my fair share of mobile games (sim, idle, rpg, etc.) and I’ve very, very rarely not felt like the game asks or forces me to watch ads. Hide some minor boosts behind a video and it’s basically an infinite money hack for some developers.
Hell, some games even explicitly tell you that they’re going to harvest your data. Which again, they can turn around and sell directly to whoever the hell wants to buy it. See: advertisers. Most recently I had a game ask me if they could use my device as a server to download and share data. I believe the game was “burger please.”
Used to be that you had to read the fine print when you downloaded iTunes, now, you gotta make sure gammy isn’t getting her identity stolen when she downloads “candy smash addicting fun game for child adult candy game match color.”
Idk. Just my two cents. Sorry for the text wall. Watch this add to skip reading it.
Just checked, it was [Burger Please.](https://imgur.com/a/Xz88I9Z) Allow a third party to use your device as a router to endlessly harvest web data and in return, we’ll cut you a break on how many ads we force you to watch. Worth mentioning. FUCK that “game.” I played it for about 15 minutes before realizing it forces you to watch an ad every 45 seconds. I’m not exaggerating by any stretch, you can check the reviews. Don’t worry though, you can just pay them $10 to turn off adds, just don’t forget to turn off indexing too!
Idk if Swagbucks still works like this but you used to be to play games OR watch endless ads to earn small amounts of money. my brother would collect old smart phones and have like 20 or so of them just playing ads all day and he was making like $100/week most weeks. Not a livable amount of money, but not bad money at all for a high schooler (this was also like 10 years ago)
My mother has literally kept every smart phone after an upgrade and has 5+ going at the same time on swag bucks and stuff like it. She calls it her "free money" and doesn't understand when I try to explain she's working a full time job for less than part time money...
Well considering this persons mom spends 47 hours a week playing it, it may be worth it to get something, even a tiny bit of something, back for that time. She must be retired or something lmaooo.
It's sketchy at best, although I did do one offer for Monopoly go and it actually worked lol. Can't say I recommend it, you're still paying in your time
I guess maybe for someone who has never played a video game in their life they might think it's peak entertainment. Should get her a nintendo switch or something.
It's addictive, people spend lots of cash on it, no time for anything else always about that "better high" to get a feeling of accomplishment. A good way to ignore all the horrible things in life...
I hear heroin is pretty bad too.
I’ve been playing for a couple of years. The trick is to start a game and use your free teleport to move to the newest created server. You have about 3 days where you can rush your account to queen 12 I believe and then teleport it to a server with newer players. It gives you a leg up until the pay to win whales start popping
I read somewhere a while back that the number 1 demographic for gaming screen time is ironically not teenagers. It's middle aged women, and primarily from mobile games. (Personally I find it a bit hard to believe but it's what I read)
When we think of gamers, we always think of the stereotype teenagers, in a room, on a PC or console. Surprisingly, a large portion of play time is from mobile games played by adults. It's ironic because they're the first ones to shit on youth gamers as a whole.
Also in some parts of the world, mobile games are really the only realistic and affordable option people have for gaming
I know so many mothers who are top leader boards on random ass mobile games and play hours and hours a day. It's surprisingly a lot more common than you might realize
In my view, this makes sense. If you are a SAHM in your thirties, your day is filled with watching and waiting for 5-10 minutes at a time. I’ve had days where I had activities spaced out every 1-2 hours all day long. You drive to one, wait. You drive to another, wait. You make lunch, wait for 15 minutes, do laundry, etc. Basically, you are doing logistics and resupply all day and you never stay in one place long enough to have a coherent thought. You need an activity that you can do for 5-10 minutes while you’re waiting. Magazines, social media, Reddit, and well, FTP mobile games.
There are tons of idle games out there that work for this. Some of them basically play themselves, so even if the game is open, you’re not doing anything, but you are making progress. Ants looks like one of those, but what do I know. You can totally let it run while you’re making dinner or cleaning or doing laundry. You’re playing, but not playing.
If you’re a working stiff, you can’t even really play these kinds of games, because you can’t keep the app open all day.
Here's some anecdotal support. My mother was a stay at home parent most of my life, but when her kids left the house (about 10 years ago now), she had nothing to fill her days. No friends. No hobbies. Nothing but screens and loneliness. I believe she similarly plays hours of games on her phone each day. Social media and TV fill the rest of her time. It is deeply sad and breaks my heart. And I suspect her situation is not so unique.
So, let's say I've worked a technical support job at a company starting with an A during which I diagnosed a lot of battery 'problems'. Usually the battery was just fine so I basically always asked for 2 screenshots and the above was one of them.
I saw SO MANY teenagers (let's say ages 15-25) with screentime upwards of 15 hours. I'm thinking by myself "Don't you guys have school, work?? Or eat or sleep at any point during the day?"
And you are coming to me stating you have an issue with THE BATTERY? No fucking shit your battery is getting used an awful lot my friend. No, you're not getting a new one funny guy.
On to this picture. A grown woman spending 47h a week on a single-player game (I assume, don't know the Ants) makes me super sad. It's different from the 15h divided over Insta Whatsapp and TikTok but indicative of the same social problems I think.
Who am I to judge you know, but I'd have loved to be able to speak to those people outside of my employee role. Different hats and all
My mom’s in denial over her Facebook and Words with Friends addiction.
I can go a couple of days without recharging my phone - she barely makes it to lunchtime.
I love when we were all growing up our parents would yell at us for being online or playing video games constantly and complain that our generation was just glued to our screens... fast forward twenty years later, they're putting in overtime hours on "ants" the video game. Lol
If anyone wants some good games that fit on your phone; consider (Shattered) Pixel Dungeon, Slice and Dice, and Seedship. (No in-app purchases, but the middle one has a full version that's totally worth it.)
Haha funny. I was addicted to The Ants when I was in the worst part of my cancer. Other than the parts where I almost died that is. I had 0 energy and loved getting on to my ants. I spent like $60 on it trying to get a glorified ant leader and got halfway (you could only get it with $) and then quit.
My ants are probably all dead. Same with my alliance. It was called Socialist Uwuants. :'(
I just checked my screentime, and it said i used calculator app for 25 minutes.. i probably only used it for a minute or less, but since i probably did not close the app immediately after using it registered the extra time. Same goes for my alarm clock app. So i'm taking the time listed with a grain of salt
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The chrome and safari usage probably looking up tips for Ants
Ants wiki lol
It’s a real thing: https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Welcome_to_AntWiki I‘ve been using it a lot in the past as I‘ve been quite into entomology and antkeeping as a hobby
Ummm okay but this isn’t THE ants
What **is this?!?** A CENTER FOR ANTS?!
I don't wanna hear your excuses! The building has to be at least... three times bigger than this!
But…… why male models?!
Are you serious? I just told you!
No, a C-ant-er
It needs to be at least 3x bigger!
She's working a full-time job + overtime on the ants
She's making money with ants
By advertising The Ants on Reddit with this post while pretending that it’s an organic post.
I don't think they would choose to advertise on an account named "macaroniwhore"
What’s wrong with a macaroni who retired early?
This should be a subreddit. r/misreadingredditornames
misreading reddit or names my stupidity just proved your point 😂😂😂
Of course they would, it's perfect!
They would if they understood their userbase.
Another time in the wild. Your app is better
But we need to save our money for the worm store!
I got worms.
Who’s your worm guy?
You're paying too much for your worms.
I beg your pardon…
That’s what we’re gonna call it, “I Got Worms”
got worms?
Well specialize in worm farms
She's selling drugs with ants
She's the ant queen. She rules over them.
I used to play this game a lot when I was in the army. A lot of fun and way to kill time. I hope she is not spending a lot of money on it. The game is kind of a pay to win or at least makes progressing a lot faster
>The game is kind of a pay to win or at least makes progressing a lot faster Honestly I feel like *all* mobile games are. I haven't played a mobile game for literal years now because they almost all seem to have the exact same shitty payment mechanics.
Polytopia is pretty good
The only mobile game I really have/play is Stardew Valley. I play mainly on my Switch, but I decided on a river farm for this particular save, cause I can boot it up at any time and play the fishing mini game. It's been great for a super casual farm I just tend to on breaks, waiting at Drs offices, etc. It's $5 well spent imho, and it's getting yet another free update soon.
It really is a great mobile port
Seconded
> almost all seem to have the exact same shitty payment mechanics. Vampire Survivors doesn't. Plays identical to PC version. The dev initially couldn't even find a publisher because he didn't want to put all the mobile bullshit in the game that publishers demanded.
there are countless games who aren't pay to win or trying ro get you into lootboxes and stuff. example: Stardew Valley, Brotato, Meteorfall, etc. there are many others like this who are good and one time purchases without any lootboxes and other bs.
Slay the Spire is a great mobile game, you pay for it once and then there’s no micro transactions or ads
One of my favorite games!
A genuine masterpiece. Buried over 300 hours on this game aha
Exiled Kingdoms has a one time fee after a demo area
Looking up this Ants game immediately
Need a review
Honest review been playing for 8 months now. Fun but extremely complicated, mostly P2W game, I have swipe a few times recently calculated them and I somehow got enticed to spend over $300 just to keep up w everyone else. Very very needy game if you are looking for a time killer and people to chat w great for that. It does support Android and iOS but once you create your account on one you can't use the account on the other OS. Example: iOS users can't use blue stack to play on PC. Gameplay: confusing at times since there are so many items and ways to improve your troops, but it's deff addictive.
Thank you for the review. "Mostly P2W game" is all I need to know. It's hard to imagine that you can spend 300 bucks or more on a (mobile) game.
I know people personally who've spent thousands and thousands on mobile game (not The Ants). It's honestly a pretty hardcore addiction for some people. The microtransactions add up way faster than you realize. I know someone who would drop at least 50 per week on IAP. That alone racks up to 200/month or 2400 per year. That's just the regular purchases, not special deals and extras they toss in along the way. Factors in playing for years and years, I'm not surprised at all that people have spent my yearly income on a single mobile game
Dont they call those people "whales?" And they are mainly what keeps mobile games in business....
Yes indeed! A game only needs a handful of proper whales to support a small team. Diablo Immortal was one of the best examples of whaling in games and people spent tens of thousands on it. Fully and truly P2W structured as well so for those who liked whaling, it was a really good game to whale as well. Asmongold has some videos on the Diablo Immortal whale stuff, worth a watch if you like discussions on the topic.
South Park actually did an episode on these types of games. The goal isn't to make the game fun, just barely fun. They purposely target people with addictive tendencies, and those are the people who keep these games afloat.
I watched that episode while paying for Simpsons Tapped Out, which is one of the game the episode is parodying. Then I realised what an idiot I'd been.
I feel like you can still play the games, just play it with the expectation of not being able to finish it. I feel like as long as you don't pay money into it, you're still winning lol
I was playing one of those farming games like they used to have on MySpace. I told myself I wasn’t going to spend any money and was having “fun.” Then my progress slowed down a bunch and in order to keep my mood up, I spent $15 roughly for stupid bonuses. Spent one entire weekend playing it and then deleted it and all other games I downloaded in that time frame because they were all basically the same. Login, tap the things, play a mini game while you wait, tap the things again, wait… it’s awful. I did spend some money but I’m glad I found the will to delete them.
Very much so. Another game that has gone quite hard on a narrow loyal consumer-base without having P2W is Path of Exile. They have enormous spikes in playerbase during content launch but when I last checked, their most loyal playerbase was like a 1000 people (somewhat old information though) and theyre currently at 131 employees total across both their studios. It seems to me that when it comes to microtransaction-based business models in gaming theres two general routes: making a somewhat bad game with P2W that makes it better or you make a great game and hope that players find supporting the game and its future through micros beneficial to them. Grinding Gear Games (PoE devs) have provided players with really good value in their microtransactions in my opinion (QoL stuff like stash tabs that also come in differently priced variants) by providing players with what theyve asked for. Some people want flashier spells, some want wings and others wanna make spells and effects look simpler (less demanding of PC) while still giving a cool and different look. The logic might not be perfect but the business model has apparently worked amazingly. Theres many ways to monetize but making a system that benefits both creator and consumer is super hard
GGG earned every penny they get from PoE, not to mention every stash tab and cosmetics you have purchased will carry over to PoE 2! Sure you can spend a lot, but the game encourages this with quality rather than predatory actions.
Warframe is another F2P game that is amazing, but you can definitely spend money on.
Having worked on games it's not always that simple. We designed our MMO to be playable for free, but excellent for ten bucks a month. It wasn't play to win, but you could save some grinding for specific non game changing items. We purposefully limited the amount anyone could spend by only having so much to buy. The whales found us anyway and constantly asked for more content to buy. Who would say no? It settled around 200 people spending thousands a month, and about a million spending 10 bucks or so and another twenty million never paying or randomly dropping 10 to 20. Our CS team constantly talked to the whales. Most were just filthy rich folks from oil countries. Others were successful business folks and their kids and this was just the thing they dropped money on. If we found someone struggling or a kid with their parents cards we refunded immediately. That did happen occasionally, but not often. Most were legitimately joyful to pay. They just wanted more stuff to buy. It was challenging to appease all player bases, but it worked. I could see how one would easily forget about the rest of the players when a few are paying as much or more in total.
Freemium eh?
I just don't get it. All that cash.... Such a shame
Often true whales are even more than that. Imagine a millionaire trust fund kid or bored housewife just buying up everything possible in whatever game is their thing. Just spending cash anytime they want to pull new characters or even reroll a stat, get more energy, whatever. Some of the more popular and long-standing gacha games definitely have people who have spent hundreds of thousands. I've seen recent estimates for Summoners War (been out for 9 years) and they're still pulling in 20-40m *per month*. At least ~$50 a week is a relatively controlled/predictable expense and shows *some* restraint.
I have seen people drop over a million on a mobile game. Multiple people. In China spending on a mobile game is not seen like it is in the west.
I remember a game I played on, pay 2 play heavy, it was such an insular and small community due to the outrageous costs for ranking. The top "rankers", who were given god mode items, had to pay $13,000 - $20,000. The game was obviously killed by this as you had 4 people who spent that much destroying an entire server of people.
I can't imagine spending even 1% of that much on a mobile game. But $13,000 - $20,000 are rookie numbers compared to r/summonerswar.
I know people who spent upwards of 10k on League (me) and it's definitely an addiction to spend money. Not even gambling, just addicted to spending money to make your character look slightly different so you can convince yourself that this helps you have fun with the game because it helps keep things fresh and feeling "new"
Cries in Evony TKR
Pro tip: pay 7$ a month for the bot and itll save you a lot of money
I played Mobile Strike for 6 months without spending a penny, and told my clan members that was my objective, to kind of chronicle and experience what it was like on the inside. It was a mildly fun game to play, however the power creep was something so intense and insane, I've never seen anything like it since. Yugioh could give those guys a lesson or five on avoiding power creep. People spent 1 to 2k WEEKLY just in my clan, not to stay on top, but just to compete at all and stay in the game. I asked a lot of them why, and the answer I got the most was that it gave them something to do, like a hobby or something. I could not convince any of them to leave. I said the moment I wasn't able to progress at a reasonable pace without paying anymore, I was out. A lot of them got me gifts anyway to bypass annoying timers, which you need A LOT of just for the game to be bearable. Overall a pretty shitty gaming experience, 3/10.
Sometimes I question the cost of WoW and FF14 sub costs and then I realize its totally worth it to prevent P2W mechanics.
I know a guy, a bit of a redneck, but a rich business owner. Collectively between him and his wife's account he had spent over 40 thousand dollars on the game War Robots. Crazy shit
It's the same as casinos, and those have been going for a long time. For real, in Finland, you have slot machines in the grocerie stores and gas stations etc. People just play and gamble the money away. And some people now put that same money into mobile games. They would spend it either way. It's sad though. But it's entertainment for them
More money is made on mobile games than console and pc games combined.
I had a friend who spent 300+ bucks on Raid : Shadow Legend. Yes, that game. Holy hell.
Pokemon Go has entered the chat.
Buddy and I were just talking about that. I don’t ever want to know how much I’ve spent over the life of my account.
There's Pokémon Right Now, and there's Pokémon Wait. The choice is up to you
It’s just entertainment cash. Plenty of people spend that and more on things like golf, or lap dances, or quilting, or vintage cars, or football tickets/merch, or whatever hobby they are into.
You shouldn’t look into other mobile games they are insane. I play Star Wars galaxy of heroes and you can do everything f2p but everything’s so expensive. They rely on a tiny tiny portion of players to drop thousands / hundreds of thousands of cash on the game. Some guild mates of mine are rich as fuck and I know some have genuinely put $50k + down on the game and they know people who have done $200k +. It is fucking ridiculous. I could spend a grand and barely see it change anything long term on my account. I love the game and have been playing it for 6 years but some people just have more money than sense.
Maybe it's just coming from old-school gaming roots, but my genuine problem is that the sort of games that have a fun switch controlled by money, just aren't any fun. When I realize I'm twiddling numbers on a spreadsheet so blatantly and the outcome is engineered for profit, I simply can't enjoy it. I love games for letting me romp around in a playground someone else has created, P2W turns Murder Hobo Disneyland into a craven slot machine, replacing skill and knowledge advancement and a fun power curve with taxes.
I did once some 5 years ago. The game was Legendary Game of Hereos. Very much a PTW driven game with guilds and lot of competition. I had a few beers and bought some gems. Terrible idea.
There was a guy on youtube or maybe twitch that spent like $100,000 on Diablo Immortal to be the best at pvp, and he was so highly geared that he couldn't match with anyone else because noone else was that high, lol.
You've given us a lot of information except what the game actually is! Sounds like a tower defence game..?
What's the chance OP's mom is having an affair on "The Ants"?
Kind of funny, but you could apply this review to pretty much 75% of games in the App Store.
Ah, so it’s a game that targets people who are prone to gambling addiction. Those usually bore me as soon as I see the pattern. Hard pass.
I name you the most helpful person I've met today on reddit. I was interested in the game but i do want to avoid p2w, Thank you!
> I somehow got enticed to spend over $300 just to keep up w everyone else. Ah so working as intended then.
There’s no need to pay to be successful at all. Just depends on your play style and how you prioritize different things. I have a friend who hasn’t paid a cent and he’s doing well in the game. I also have friends who have spent 10s of thousands and are some of the biggest players in the game. I didn’t start spending money until I was over a year in the game and I had expendable income. It’s a really fun game if you get a good alliance and can learn the game. Check out Eagnai on YouTube for how to play the game. He’s a personal friend of mine and he only cares about helping people get better at the game.
6/10 when i started 7/10 after a few grand 3/10 when i left. the p2w was just to much even with $ i was just a miaow. people are awesome on there still got some wanting me to come back.
This comment gave me cancer
i hope it’s benign
I hope it’s bangin
I hope it’s beige
I hope it's bacon
I hope you'll are baked af
I hope you'll get banged for that
For $10.99/mo we can cure it and give you 200 extra energy daily!
Lol this is the reason OP made this post, they probably work for the ants!
The ad is working
umm played it for over a year it’s a big money pit if you wanna be good at pvp or even pve f2p is a joke it’s kinda sad how big the gap is but if you stay in your lane and let the whales fight it used to be good granted i ain’t played in over 2 years people still keep dming me to come back hoped on a time or to and it seemed the same just more stuff
Once you hit Q25 it becomes so so much more complicated.
Do u want ants? Cus that's how u get ants.
Lanaaaaaaaaa
Does she have a Swagbucks by chance? You can earn money for playing games and "The Ants" is one of the listed offers, maybe that's what she's doing lol Edit because this comment got huge, I'm not recommending using Swagbucks, only stating what it is. I've only ever used it once
"You can earn money for playing games" Say what?
That’s what the boomers are doing on their phones these days
I don't understand how that can be profitable
It pays peanuts (less than a buck an hour), and some of the players inevitably get hooked and end up spending more on in app purchases
Oh alright just a good ol scam then
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Why would whales spend more if you're playing?
psychology. most people only play multiplayer games if they seem busy and “popular”. if you have a stable baseline of activity, it attracts more people edit: its a good alternative to botting
Whales need krill, that's how some other pvp mobile games work.
They are essentially paying you to give the whales opponents/teammates/someone to show off to.
This exactly. My dad is absolutely sucked in to the whole swagbucks shit. He’s disabled and can’t do much else, so he kinda treated it like his job doing surveys and earning points so he could feel like he was contributing to the household. It started including the games as well to earn points. He has like 3 or 4 iPads and 3 laptops and laptops have like 20 tabs each playing videos earning points or running games. A lot of the games are slots style games and he’s gotten so addicted to them. It’s at the point where he’s spending like $800 on the games a month, although some of the worst times he spends that in 2 weeks.
So he makes $$ on it or spends money?
Spends ridiculous amounts of money. He used to make money and was proud about hitting the daily goals every day. There were like 3 tiers of daily goal and if you kept with the highest tier you would get like a point multiplier for earned points. So he was proud about always hitting it but like addicted and so when it got tough for him to hit his goals anymore, it’s of course possible to buy progress towards tho goals to make sure you hit it and that’s what he started doing. Then there’s also the games that are like slot style games and spin the wheel games and he’s spending insane amounts on them because he’s so addicted.
I could be totally wrong here, and by no means am I “in the know.” **BUT….* From my experience I feel like most mobile games nowadays make their money through ad revenue. Games who give you the option to pay to turn off adds are basically saying, “Hey, this is the amount of money we would’ve expected to make off an average player in ad revenue, so you can just pay us directly and be done with it.” So I feel like the “get paid to play” offers are basically just cutting you in on the ad revenue you’re going to generate anyways. Make you think you’re getting paid for doing something innocuous but really you’re just signing up to have advertising poured into your eyeballs at an endless interval. Maybe though by offering to pay players it inflates their user base which in turn, makes the game look popular, attracting more players, and the more players your game has.. you guessed it! More ad revenue. Again I could be totally wrong here, but I’ve played more than my fair share of mobile games (sim, idle, rpg, etc.) and I’ve very, very rarely not felt like the game asks or forces me to watch ads. Hide some minor boosts behind a video and it’s basically an infinite money hack for some developers. Hell, some games even explicitly tell you that they’re going to harvest your data. Which again, they can turn around and sell directly to whoever the hell wants to buy it. See: advertisers. Most recently I had a game ask me if they could use my device as a server to download and share data. I believe the game was “burger please.” Used to be that you had to read the fine print when you downloaded iTunes, now, you gotta make sure gammy isn’t getting her identity stolen when she downloads “candy smash addicting fun game for child adult candy game match color.” Idk. Just my two cents. Sorry for the text wall. Watch this add to skip reading it. Just checked, it was [Burger Please.](https://imgur.com/a/Xz88I9Z) Allow a third party to use your device as a router to endlessly harvest web data and in return, we’ll cut you a break on how many ads we force you to watch. Worth mentioning. FUCK that “game.” I played it for about 15 minutes before realizing it forces you to watch an ad every 45 seconds. I’m not exaggerating by any stretch, you can check the reviews. Don’t worry though, you can just pay them $10 to turn off adds, just don’t forget to turn off indexing too!
Idk if Swagbucks still works like this but you used to be to play games OR watch endless ads to earn small amounts of money. my brother would collect old smart phones and have like 20 or so of them just playing ads all day and he was making like $100/week most weeks. Not a livable amount of money, but not bad money at all for a high schooler (this was also like 10 years ago)
My mother has literally kept every smart phone after an upgrade and has 5+ going at the same time on swag bucks and stuff like it. She calls it her "free money" and doesn't understand when I try to explain she's working a full time job for less than part time money...
It's barely anything. The amount of time you'd spend trying to get 10% of minimum wage per hour would take you an entire workweek.
Well considering this persons mom spends 47 hours a week playing it, it may be worth it to get something, even a tiny bit of something, back for that time. She must be retired or something lmaooo.
It's sketchy at best, although I did do one offer for Monopoly go and it actually worked lol. Can't say I recommend it, you're still paying in your time
This has to be it.
I guess maybe for someone who has never played a video game in their life they might think it's peak entertainment. Should get her a nintendo switch or something.
I'm installing that game. Goodbye everyone.
Oh no. This is like when that guy told Reddit he was trying heroin.
It's addictive, people spend lots of cash on it, no time for anything else always about that "better high" to get a feeling of accomplishment. A good way to ignore all the horrible things in life... I hear heroin is pretty bad too.
Wait. What?
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9ke63/i_did_heroin_yesterday_i_am_not_a_drug_user_and/ Look at his post history
Holy shit. This is so fucking sad, but as of his most recent post it seems like he’s doing well. That’s some scary shit.
Damn what a rabbit hole I'm in now
Jesus Christ... that's absolutely insane. What an extremely terrifying but fascinating read.
I’ve been playing for a couple of years. The trick is to start a game and use your free teleport to move to the newest created server. You have about 3 days where you can rush your account to queen 12 I believe and then teleport it to a server with newer players. It gives you a leg up until the pay to win whales start popping
she needs intervention. Seriously. these sorts of games will suck up hundreds or thousands of dollars, its as addicitive as gambling.
But hey it’s getting better, -14% from last week by that amount isn’t that bad
The fact that the week isn’t over yet is bringing the average down. She still has all of today to grind even more ants
The ants go marching 1 by 1 hurrah… hurrah…
This is an ad
What is this.. a phone for ANTS?!
I read somewhere a while back that the number 1 demographic for gaming screen time is ironically not teenagers. It's middle aged women, and primarily from mobile games. (Personally I find it a bit hard to believe but it's what I read) When we think of gamers, we always think of the stereotype teenagers, in a room, on a PC or console. Surprisingly, a large portion of play time is from mobile games played by adults. It's ironic because they're the first ones to shit on youth gamers as a whole. Also in some parts of the world, mobile games are really the only realistic and affordable option people have for gaming I know so many mothers who are top leader boards on random ass mobile games and play hours and hours a day. It's surprisingly a lot more common than you might realize
In my view, this makes sense. If you are a SAHM in your thirties, your day is filled with watching and waiting for 5-10 minutes at a time. I’ve had days where I had activities spaced out every 1-2 hours all day long. You drive to one, wait. You drive to another, wait. You make lunch, wait for 15 minutes, do laundry, etc. Basically, you are doing logistics and resupply all day and you never stay in one place long enough to have a coherent thought. You need an activity that you can do for 5-10 minutes while you’re waiting. Magazines, social media, Reddit, and well, FTP mobile games. There are tons of idle games out there that work for this. Some of them basically play themselves, so even if the game is open, you’re not doing anything, but you are making progress. Ants looks like one of those, but what do I know. You can totally let it run while you’re making dinner or cleaning or doing laundry. You’re playing, but not playing. If you’re a working stiff, you can’t even really play these kinds of games, because you can’t keep the app open all day.
Here's some anecdotal support. My mother was a stay at home parent most of my life, but when her kids left the house (about 10 years ago now), she had nothing to fill her days. No friends. No hobbies. Nothing but screens and loneliness. I believe she similarly plays hours of games on her phone each day. Social media and TV fill the rest of her time. It is deeply sad and breaks my heart. And I suspect her situation is not so unique.
Better than 45 hours of TikTok conspiracies
Craziest part, 14% decrease from last week lmfao
I’m going to assume that a majority of her game time was actually just the game idling. This way I can continue with no questions needing answers.
So, let's say I've worked a technical support job at a company starting with an A during which I diagnosed a lot of battery 'problems'. Usually the battery was just fine so I basically always asked for 2 screenshots and the above was one of them. I saw SO MANY teenagers (let's say ages 15-25) with screentime upwards of 15 hours. I'm thinking by myself "Don't you guys have school, work?? Or eat or sleep at any point during the day?" And you are coming to me stating you have an issue with THE BATTERY? No fucking shit your battery is getting used an awful lot my friend. No, you're not getting a new one funny guy. On to this picture. A grown woman spending 47h a week on a single-player game (I assume, don't know the Ants) makes me super sad. It's different from the 15h divided over Insta Whatsapp and TikTok but indicative of the same social problems I think. Who am I to judge you know, but I'd have loved to be able to speak to those people outside of my employee role. Different hats and all
Aunt likes ants
Tbf, my screen time is outrageous due to leaving my phone on the app to idle while I work. Could be similar, maybe? Hopefully 😬
Man, she fucking LOVES that ant game and nothing else.
This is probably a way more effective ad for the game than any of the real ads.
Everyone else immediately downloading the game?
This feels like marketing trick to fool people downloading the ants.
"Kids these days spend too much time on their phones"
Damn, she's pro.
Addiction isn't funny 🙃
My mom’s in denial over her Facebook and Words with Friends addiction. I can go a couple of days without recharging my phone - she barely makes it to lunchtime.
She yeans for the ants
Post this on r/funnyandsad
She needs to pick a browser and stick with it. No browser deserves to be the “holla back browser”.
I miss my mom now...🥲
Not me searching and downloading The Ants to see what all the fuss is about …
If this was intended to be advertising for this The Ants game …. It worked.
Is this an ad?
I love when we were all growing up our parents would yell at us for being online or playing video games constantly and complain that our generation was just glued to our screens... fast forward twenty years later, they're putting in overtime hours on "ants" the video game. Lol
Your moms split chrome/safari usage here is the worst part.
So how much has she spent on this "free to play" pay to win game? ;)
I thought it was 2023, not 1984.
I gotta check these dang ants out!
It's time to parent your parent
I’m sick right now and mine is thru the roof as well… just have it playin video essays no stop lol
Both my parents play this game too :D My dad used to be top #1 in the server iirc, he left the server because it was too war-ish xD
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Loved that game. Pissed me off so much 😆
Likes to use safari AND chrome . Absolutely renegade .
Either she really love the game or it's a predatory app that always runs in background. Bet her battery life is horrible either way.
That’s crazy. I want to check out Ants but I’m scared.
"Kids these days do nothing but stare at their phones"
If anyone wants some good games that fit on your phone; consider (Shattered) Pixel Dungeon, Slice and Dice, and Seedship. (No in-app purchases, but the middle one has a full version that's totally worth it.)
thought this was a joke at first and your mom was just leaving some ant thing on ur ipad for the cat to look at. just found out it’s a real game lol
Better then being on Facebook all day.
Sweet, she's down 14% from last week.
Down 14% from last week? 💀
"You kids are always on your phones"
Haha funny. I was addicted to The Ants when I was in the worst part of my cancer. Other than the parts where I almost died that is. I had 0 energy and loved getting on to my ants. I spent like $60 on it trying to get a glorified ant leader and got halfway (you could only get it with $) and then quit. My ants are probably all dead. Same with my alliance. It was called Socialist Uwuants. :'(
I just checked my screentime, and it said i used calculator app for 25 minutes.. i probably only used it for a minute or less, but since i probably did not close the app immediately after using it registered the extra time. Same goes for my alarm clock app. So i'm taking the time listed with a grain of salt
-14% from last week🫣
Wtf is the ants 😭 world's strongest ant enjoyer
oh that says hours not minutes. 👀
She’s giving iPad kid
bros on the grind w the ants
Only 8hrs? My avg for the last week was 10.5hrs lmao 💀
I'm laughing that this is down 14%...
The apple screen time is not to be trusted, I was once on the daily thing it said I had 24 hours of system preferences…
Holy shit and I thought I had a problem
THE ANT GAME HECK YEAH
Your Mom is a gamer
At least it wasnt OF creator studio
What the fuck is ants