I've read the entire comment chain and the myopic focus on roguelites makes me feel like there's something that isn't being said.
Roguelites are designed for huge replayability so of course there's an element of randomness and difficulty in place of pure linear progression. Personally I don't see exploitative gambling/addiction mechanics in a game like Spelunky or Risk of Rain or Dead Cells.
It's utterly disingenuous to put these on the same level of cynical mobile titles that rub their exploitation in your face and continually blueball you with arrays of counters, timeout mechanics, fake currencies (backed by real money), and loot boxes. It's absurd to draw equivalence to the practice of exploiting 'whales' and young children, to squeeze as much money out of them as possible.
If Spelunky or some other roguelite had a mobile version that monetized every element of gameplay and made it 'freemium' then it would be another scummy mobile game, and would warrant the comparison. But not until then.
Roguelites are designed for huge replayability so of course there's an element of randomness and difficulty in place of pure linear progression. Personally I don't see exploitative gambling/addiction mechanics in a game like Spelunky or Risk of Rain or Dead Cells.
It's utterly disingenuous to put these on the same level of cynical mobile titles that rub their exploitation in your face and continually blueball you with arrays of counters, timeout mechanics, fake currencies (backed by real money), and loot boxes. It's absurd to draw equivalence to the practice of exploiting 'whales' and young children, to squeeze as much money out of them as possible.
If Spelunky or some other roguelite had a mobile version that monetized every element of gameplay and made it 'freemium' then it would be another scummy mobile game, and would warrant the comparison. But not until then.