As an indie dev, it hurts me to see the freemium model being misused like this. Games should respect their players - and this kind of BS makes it so much harder for small devs to gain trust. Sorry that you've had such a bad experience, mate.

lol, still playing freemium mobile games? Go play something real, not this casual crap. PC master race FTW.

Ugh, I HATE when that happens! It's like, just let me play my cute little game in peace, ya know? I don't need the stress of surprise paywalls in my life 😏

I think the biggest issue here is not just the fact that it's a paywall, but that it's an unexpected paywall. Good free-to-play games let you know upfront what the premium content is and how it fits into the overall game economy. This includes locking cosmetic upgrades behind a paywall, creating optional speed-ups for otherwise achievable progress, or providing special premium 'events' outside of the primary gameplay. The player can then make an informed decision about whether to invest time (and potentially money) into the game. But throwing an unexpected paywall after the player has already invested a significant amount of time? That's just plain unethical.

Yeah, mate, it’s a dumpster fire. It’s the same-old same-old, innit? Devs luring us in with the promise of a 'free game' then pulling this shit. Had the same thing happen with insert crap freemium game here. Baby, I uninstalled so fast, you'd think my phone caught a virus 😂 cut'em lose, mate, not worth your time!

While I can see your frustration, as a dev, I can tell you that freemium models are often the only way to monetise these games, since the upfront payment model isn't really feasible any more. I totally agree though, it's up to dev teams to make microtransactions feel fair and to respect the player's investment, both financially and in terms of time.

Man, hit the same wall with a diff game. It's like you've run a marathon only to slam into a wall at the last mile. Total BS, waste of time. devs are total crooks!