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Candy Crush Saga: ‘70% of the people on the last level haven’t paid anything’

1. King’s games guru is Tommy Palm, on the game that’s
2. being played 700m times a day on smartphones and tablets!
   
   
3. Candy Crush Saga has become a craze on Facebook,
4. iOS and Android alike.
   
   
5. The key stat is right there in the headline: seven in ten
6. people who’ve reached the last level of wildly-popular
7. mobile game Candy Crush Saga haven’t spent any money
8. on in-app purchases.
   
   
9. This may come as a surprise. Hardcore gamers (and a fair
10. few developers) often attack King’s puzzler as the epitome
11. of dreadful, money-sucking freemium gaming, exploiting
12. people too stupid to realise they’re being exploited.
    
    
13. It’s gaming snobbery of the worst kind, and not because
14. Candy Crush doesn’t sometimes feel over-aggressive
15. in the way its difficulty curve nudges players towards
16. in-app purchases – it sometimes does – but because it’s
17. based on a view of casual gamers as little more than lab
18. rats, tapping buy-buttons when commanded rather than
19. seeking “proper” games elsewhere.
    
    
20. As a player, I ducked out of Candy Crush Saga when I hit
21. my personal ceiling of fun versus payment. As a journalist,
22. though, I feel like defending the game against its fiercer
23. critics, who seem to think its players are incapable of
24. making similar decisions.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/appsblog/2013/sep/10/candy-crush-saga-king-interview

According to the author, the reason why hardcore gamers’ opinion on Candy Crush players is “snobbery of the worst kind” (line 13) is that