10 Worst Things Video Games Made You Pay For

Many long-time strategy fans will fondly remember 1997’s Dungeon Keeper. This PC management title Cast the player as an unseen Keeper, developing and maintaining an underground lair with the help of recruited minions. The goal was to wage war against the Heroes of the surface world, who invade in an attempt to stop your evil plans.

2014 mobile ‘reboot’ Dungeon Keeper, with EA at the helm, also proved to be a microtransaction machine.

The crux of the classic series gameplay was in tunnelling through the earth to make empty space, which was claimed by Imps tile by tile and then could be built upon. Not only does the mobile iteration employ a strict timer for such digging, but the Horned Reaper advisor even makes insulting jokes to the player about a ‘polarizing’ system that will remove said time requirement (real-life cash, of course).

Peter Molyneux, producer of the original title, put it best in an interview with the BBC on the mobile title’s launch in 2014: “This is ridiculous. I just want to make a dungeon. I don't want to schedule it on my alarm clock for six days to come back for a block to be chipped."