I came across an unusual post today that talked about how a certain block blast game isn't just a game but a massive ad engine optimizing game difficulty levels to generate the most ad revenue per user and I genuinely had a great laugh.
Apparently, the game tracks it's users heavily to figure out players that'd generate the biggest bucks and the optimize the game to force these users to watch high-paying ads.
Get this, people are upset about this.
I mean, I get it, tracking, ads, these things are frowned upon heavily since most people began to understand how their innocence has been making a couple of people really rich, but tell me honestly, what do you expect?
It's a business, not just a game
Here's the part a lot of people missed. Maybe due to this conversation being centered around "a game."
There might be an unconscious expectation that developers should simply be aiming to give the players a source of entertainment and expect nothing.
In less words, it should be a "free" experience with no built in costs to profit.
That's just stupid thinking.
This is a business. You can only expect that a business will optimize its operations for the most profits and since ads are their primary means of monetization (I assume) then it should be expected that their games are designed to get users to watch ads that make them a profit.
Games that monetize through in-app purchases also optimize difficulty to force users to pay for things in the game. Why shouldn't the ad route be optimized too?
People ought to take a step back and understand that it's all going to come down to business and that will mean making a profit, after all, how else can the game be maintained and new games be developed?