Clickers are a weird genre. When played as intended they offer nothing of substance and provide almost none of the benefits that video games usually offer. They don’t offer the player challenge, narrative fulfillment, immersion, fantasy or space for creativity. The only thing clickers have to offer is engagement and they manage to do that without gameplay and almost always without narrative. The mechanics of idle games are simply designed to give our little lizard brains dopamine hits and to promote addiction. In this sense they’re honestly more like actual drugs than conventional video games. Clickers however, instead of promising to get you high, promise to make time disappear and nothing else.

I understand the desire to escape your worries and pass the time, but you’re better off doing literally anything else. You’re better off wasting time with something that will at least provide you with fun, relaxation or laughter. Clickers are the epitome of a waste of time - one of the only uses of one’s time that I can think of that provides literally nothing be it good or bad - at least in the immediate sense (playing clickers for multiple hours a day would almost certainly have a net negative impact on your life in the long run).

The only caveat to my point is this: I think there is some fun to be had if you engage with the clicker genre outside the bounds of the normal player experience. For example, this could be creatively exploiting a game’s systems or programming and trying to do a speedrun or figuring out how to break the game in other ways. These could probably be rewarding and mentally stimulating endeavors, and I’m sure there are more worthwhile unintended uses that I’m not thinking of. However, I am wholly confident that when clickers are played as intended they offer the player absolutely nothing of substance and serve only to waste their time and promote addiction.

I’ve spent thousands of hours of my life playing video games. Would my time have been better spent doing something else? Probably, although I don’t view this time spent as a waste. Gaming has given me plenty of fun, it’s given me fond memories, it’s challenged me to be creative, and, in exceptional cases, has even given me creative new frames through which to view the real world.

When I think back on the 100 or so hours I spent playing clicker heroes I see a gaping meaningless void stemming from an experience so deeply stupid I can’t help but laugh. I know it’s not healthy to feel this way, but I feel frankly ashamed that I let my addictive and compulsive tendencies be exploited by a game that seeks to prey on its users. Playing this game made me feel ashamed to have these tendencies in the first place. (Just a note for clarification - I don’t think I should feel ashamed about this and I absolutely don’t think anyone reading this that has struggled with addiction or compulsive behavior should feel ashamed either. I just wanted to be honest about the emotions this game inspired in me despite them being unhealthy and counter productive.)

The worst thing is I’m clearly not alone in feeling this way either. One skim through the reviews of this game and you’ll see a bunch of people lamenting the hundreds or thousands of hours they spent on this game despite knowing that it’s addictive and meaningless trash. It honestly makes me sick to my stomach to see how many people have had a similar experience to myself when it comes to this game.

But anyway - this game and the idle genre fucking suck. Regardless of how a game like this is monetized - whether it has predatory micro-transactions or a one time purchase - even if it’s not monetized at all - it’s still exploitative. Any game that is devoid of active play and drives player engagement through addiction and psychological trickery is exploiting and harming its players - regardless of whether or not the devs are aware of or intend to do this. I wholeheartedly regret spending any time on this game. To me, playing this game for 100 hours was indistinguishable from shortening my lifespan by 100 hours.