The App Store is a SCAM

- Your phone is one of the most capable gaming devices ever made. So why are the most popular games in the App Store absolute garbage? Well, I have spent the last four months playing all 100 of the top free games to find out. Surely something is good here, right, right? Anything? All right, kicking off things at number 100, Brain Test: Tricky Puzzles. This is a kid's game. Simple brain teasers, it's perfectly harmless, and it also immediately asks for notification access, which is going to be a running theme. We're off to a great start. Dark War Survival has actual voice acting, which is more than I expected. It's a base building survival game, a little repetitive, but honestly not terrible. Cookingdom is a cooking game that's also a match 3 game. It's mediocre, it's clearly aimed at kids. Ah, moving on. Now, Evertale has Japanese voice acting, and it actually kind of plays like a budget Final Fantasy or Pokemon. It's fine? It's the best word for it. It's more than I expected. Kick the Buddy asks for a subscription before you even get into the game, and the game itself, it's a torture simulator where you beat up a ragdoll. I don't even know why this is on the App Store. (buzzer buzzes) Foodie Sizzle is a super generic match three with a cooking skin. I wanna just point out that we're only five games in, and I've already played two cooking match games. It's not the last. (laughs) Solitaire Classic 2026 advertised a completely different solitare game before my first match even loaded, bold strategy. While I'll say that the games I've played so far are pretty much between terrible junk and vaguely interesting, the first game on the list I've actually seen before, play and recognized is Pokemon Go, number 93. - Woo. - I gotta be honest with you. I have not played Pokemon Go since it came out in like 2015, 2016? - [Alex] It came out in 2016. - But let me give it a try again. I assume that a lot of things have changed in the last nine years. Oh, I... Whiffed that one. - Boo. Yeah, distance is- - Ah, (quacks), got 'em. All right, this is kind of fun. I'm not gonna lie. I'm slightly into this right now. - [Alex] Yes. - You know what? This is a good example of a game that quite simply would not work without being on a mobile platform. Plenty of the games I played so far are like match three games and solitaire or like kind of (quacks) turn-based RPGs or whatever. This is a game that makes sense, because you're using GPS, you're using your camera, you're sort of taking advantage of the full feature set of a phone that just simply wouldn't work with a console or something like that. Number 92, Duet Night Abyss, a hybrid action fantasy RPG. That sounds great. It's launching globe... Oh, this thing launched three days ago, okay. Duet Night Abyss. (rewind whirs) Can I maybe get into a game perhaps? That would be great. You can't even log in. You can't even check for updates, cool. Well, number 92. (scoffs) Sorry! World Board Game. What's the point of this? (characters grunt) Three, yeah, buddy. (laughs) Sorry. This is actually like kind of fun. This is not bad. Pizza Ready is a pizza shop simulator that's actually kind of decent? It's not amazing, but it's also not offensive, although I will say that this is the first of many, many simulator games in the App Store. A pattern is quickly emerging here. While some games are fine the first time you try it, there are so many clones that I'm actually gonna bucket a bunch of them together to save you time that I had to spend playing each one of these. We're gonna call these the copycats, and this is a great example, Domino Dreams. It is literally a completely generic matching game, and the Yarn Fever game that came right after it isn't much better. This yarn format seems like a good idea in theory, and it looks nice in the ads, but it is so repetitive. Uno is just Uno. It's a totally fine version of the card game, and I mean, come on, it's hard to mess up Uno, right? Happy Color by Numbers has a Disney license, and, look, I gotta be honest with you, this is legitimately my favorite game so far. Yes, it's a coloring book app. No, I'm not ashamed. TDS, Tower Destiny Survive, is a side scrolling zombie survival thing, eh. Paper.IO is actually decent. It's kind of like Osmos where you're painting the biggest area on the board. It's just a simple fun concept. Match Villains, a generic Bejeweled knockoff. I truly don't have anything to say. Brain Puzzle: Tricky Quest is such a weird concept. So this is exactly one of those like ad games that's come to life. You're supposed to like tap on different things to like help your grandma or like clean stuff up or whatever, and it is the most like slop kind of concept I've ever seen. Like the fact that this passed App Store review is wild to me. All you need to know about this one is that they couldn't even come up with an original name. Tile Explorer: Tile Clear! doesn't even make sense. At number 80, we have Fanduel Casino, and, yes, my friends, this is a legitimate casino. So in California, it is not legal for me to even play this, but the thing is, I did not realize that you can actually just straight up play gambling games, I'm sorry, "games" in the App Store. Now, obviously, there are a lot of apps that, for years, have kind of skirted that, but this is, as far as I could tell, a straight up casino game, slot machine, put money in, get money out. Like are we doing this? Block Crush! goes straight into the copycats. But Pokemon TCG Pocket is legitimately a fun game. Now, as a Pokemon card fan, this one is not a hard pitch for me, and while the game is a little bit more simplified compared to the real TCG, there's a reason why this has become a very, very popular game. When I first saw Offline Games, I thought it was the most generic thing I had ever seen, but here's the thing. It's actually pretty fun. So it has a huge selection of different titles inside of it, and they're true to their word. You actually don't need Wi-Fi, something that I haven't really mentioned for a lot of the other games in this list. Some of them will straight up not work if you're not connected online, but this one not only works, but it's free, and it has a bunch of really fun games, like actually good job. A super forgettable one is Match Factory!, straight in the copycat bin. Hole.IO is a fun concept. You're a hole swallowing up an entire city. I'll say it's actually not only a ton, ton of reviews. It's clearly been a popular game for a while, but I appreciate the fact that it immediately gets into the action. That is until the ads come, and then they don't stop. Now, when it comes to Chess.com, I've actually played this one before. The presentation, I'll say, looks a little bit plain and simple, but look, it's chess, it's good, and this is sort of the standard. PUBG Mobile is an incredibly popular game that you're probably familiar with. It is the genre defining battle royale, and it's great on mobile. I do wish it had controler support, which unless I'm missing something, I couldn't find, which is weird, but PUBG Mobile is definitely a high-quality game, especially compared to some of the other things we've been playing. Wool Craze is actually the most egregious copycat I've seen. It is almost one-to-one compared to Yarn Fever. Exposed is supposedly a Jackbox style game, but I used the word supposedly, because I didn't try it. This is the beginning of a new bucket for us called monetization hell, and it is because even though it's a free game, they try to force me to pay for a subscription to play the game, which I will not be doing. I don't understand how you can have a free game that tries to force me to pay a subscription? Like I don't think that's the way that's supposed to work at all. Associations Colorwood actually isn't bad. It's just simple word matching that's genuinely chill. It is a rare and much needed surprise, (Austin sighs) and, now, it is time for number 69, which is Fruit Merge: Match Game. Drop fruit and merge them. Okay, oh, okay, so I'm what? Okay. (sighs) I wanna play good games, and I feel like I've not played any good games in a while. Wood Turning 3D, God, this looks... It does not look any better at all. Oh, this is it, okay. So I'm going to... Oh, so it uses the haptic motor so I can feel it as I'm carving out this shape. I will say the haptics are nice at least, and another ad. Yup, this is not good. (laughs) 67 to go. Brawl Stars, have my prayers been answered? I kind of trust that Supercell wouldn't actually make literal garbage? Ah, that's a nice little mechanic, okay. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, I like the fact that I've like just learned how to play this game, and I'm already having a good time. Ah, that felt, no, let me go. Let me through, let me through, let me through, no! I think I'm actually having a fun time. I forgot what this felt like. (laughs) Sniper 3D, gun shooting games. This looks dumb. Sniper 3D is a murder simulator, where you're just assassinating people from rooftops? Like I'm not even kidding. This is in the top 100 free games, yikes. Wow. Just murdering random people. What a great thing that is. What the (quacks). (gentle music) (candies pop) New York Times Games asked me for a subscription right out of the gate, which I do not appreciate. I will say, even though I was able to get past it, I'm just kind of bad at these games? So I'm sure it's very popular for a reason. I will not be playing this anymore. Episode: Reality Stars is a Netflix style reality show game, and this is extremely, extremely not for me. Oh, poor, innocent past Austin. I did not realize how deep the Episode meta really was. This is a game that has such egregious monetization that as you play through it, it will lock dialogue options behind a paywall. So if you're talking to some cute guy over there, and you go, "Oh, hey, what's up?" If you wanna say something to impress him, you gotta pay money, otherwise you fart in his face. Slight exaggeration, but not by much. Now, we've got a whole batch of copycats. There is Solitaire Clash, My Perfect Hotel, Zenword. These are all almost identical to games that we've already played. Moving on. My Supermarket Simulator has surprisingly nice first-person 3D graphics, and it's also got really good sound design. Unfortunately, it is absolutely ruined by the ads. Once they start, they don't stop. Kinda fun though. Okay, now, I get to play the game of where is the x button here game. (finger boops) Color Slide is another copycat, oh, my God. If I have to play one more color matching game! Which brings us to Stake. Yes, my friends, another straight up casino that I legally cannot play in the state of California, nor do I want to. Arrow Out is actually fun. It's a neat little puzzle concept where you're clearing arrows from a board. It's not super complicated or deep, but it is really worth highlighting. Like this is actually like a decent little game. Disney Solitaire is fine, but it's also a kind of weird take on solitaire? I know that this is becoming very popular right now, and maybe I'm just missing something, but I don't know who asked for this. That's My Seat, might be one of the worst games on this entire list, and I think it actually deserves a brand new title, Slop. I mean, just I lost brain cells playing this, and it really, I think, is a good time to take a little pause here, because when I started this video, I figured that, you know, playing all 100 of the, you know, top games would be kind of fun, there'd be some junk, but like whatever, but so much of it is so just depressing? Like I wanted to learn, and I've learned more than I needed to, but I wanted to get an idea for what the App Store really is like, because, you know, it's one thing to look at all the apps and everything, but to actually see what's really popular, it just really has ruined my humanity. I have none left. (Austin sniffs) I think I've added three games that I haven't just deleted, which is not great. So we have Kingshot. Oh. (people chatter) I have help here. - [Son] Are you, did you got a gun? - I don't even know what I've got here, man. I'm not entirely sure. Oh, getting my buildings? No, not my buildings, ah. All right, we did it. What do you think about the game? - Cool. - I don't think it's cool. I think it's bad. - Finish him. - Okay, so... Oh, so you just get to drive a car. This seems fine, I guess? I'm not good at this game. What do you think? - [Son] That one's so bad. - That one's so bad, I agree. - [Son] How about the Halloween one? - Do you wanna click on all the ads? And that's how they get you. That's how they get you. Epic Plane Evolution is simple, but I genuinely had a lot of fun with this one. Like this is probably going on the keep list, probably. Oh, wow, is that a game that goes directly in the copycat bin that I don't have to say a word about? I think it is. 8 Ball Pool is actually kind of fun though. So it's a simple online pool and actually really works well with a phone and a touchscreen. Like I don't really think you need to ask more than this. If you like the idea of playing pool, I mean, it actually works. Solitaire Smash is yet another way that they have put gambling in solitaire, and Coin Master might have the holy trifecta of being full of monetization, absolute slop, and a copycat. This is like 75 games in one, and they're all terrible, imagine that. Meta Horizon? This is not a game. I'm not doing this one. (laughs) This doesn't count... Tricky Puzzle: Brain Quest. - My grandmother is freezing. Please help us get through the winter. Thank you. (Austin laughs) - It's the dumbest thing I've ever seen, oh, my God. - Well, this is utterly useless. (Austin gasps) - Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay. (upbeat music) Matt. - Yup. - [Austin] Why don't you try a game? - Oh, God, what? - Thank you. - Am I just giving them money? - Well, this is utterly- - Oh, God. - I only have eyes for you. - At least it's voice acted. - [Austin] You can stop playing, by the way. You don't have to play anymore. - No, I'm, oh, oh, hello. Mommy, Mommy, sorry, Mommy. I hated that. Thanks for making me a part of it. - No problem. Jigblock Puzzle. (laughs) (pieces swoosh) (bright music) Wow, another copycat is Tasty Travels. It's a merge game that's even worse than most of the other ones. Animals & Coins is ADHD in game form. I mean it's super similar to Coin Master. It's just constant sensory overload. You've got lights and sounds and awards. Like playing this game legitimately makes me feel anxious. Royal Match, Royal Kingdoms are actually fairly popular games that are somehow almost actual clones of each other. There's also Travel Town, which is another merge game, and there's Word Search Explorer, a Sudoku generic clone, all copycats, man. I literally cannot play one more match game or I'm over it, I'm over it. Lamar Idle Vlogger is a YouTuber simulator, where you literally can just hold down a button to make money. As a YouTuber, I can confirm that is not how it works. Are there any good games anywhere? Call of Duty Mobile is actually pretty good. Now, I have played this one before, and it still holds up. This is what a real mobile game feels like when someone actually invests in the experience. Gossip Harbor is yet another merge game with the weirdest story attached. I don't even understand the plot, and I'll be honest, I don't think I want to. Last Z is that classic bullet hell shooter from literally every mobile game you've ever seen. It is silly, it's mildly fun, and it gives me PTSD. No more seeing this ad, please. Mahjong Wonders is actually my first time playing Mahjong or this version of it, I guess, and I'll say it's actually kind of fun. Red Dead Redemption through Netflix games, finally, a genuinely incredible game. This, if you have a Netflix subscription, is absolutely worth playing. Speaking of games, I've somehow never played Subway Surfers. I mean, after 30 seconds, it is immediately clear why this has been such a massive game for so long. Speaking of big games, we have Monopoly Go. Now, I heard a lot about this one and almost immediately, I get it. I feel like we're finally, finally hitting the stretch of games that are actually legitimately good. Clash Royale is the game that I have sunk a lot of hours into. Now, full disclosure, Clash Royale actually sponsored one of my videos like seven or eight years ago, but when they did that, I started playing, and I've actually spent a lot of real money on this game. I haven't played it in a minute, but coming back to it here, all of the dynamics, all the mechanics, it really still feels good, and number 28, we have Magic Tiles 3. I'm feeling a little bit better about this challenge. I think the last few games I've played have actually been pretty good. I'm not mad, man, I'm not mad. All right, so Magic Tiles, so I am not gonna sign up for premium access, but at least it's not like confusing. Like it's pretty obvious. Is this copyright music? Oh, no, it is, okay. - Nice. - Ah, perfect. (Ken laughs) Yeah, that's actually kind of fun. Even though this one is Howie Mandel approved, Whiteout Survival is just another one of these survival games. X-Clash: Survival Challenge, I don't even know how long I've been working on this video. I think I started on this video, has it been two months now? Something like that, yeah. Okay, just draw a circle. (bees buzz) Oh, okay. I don't hate that, that's kinda cool. So you try to keep the dog safe from the bees. Oh, okay, so now, we're in the survival mode. - My journey, it's so not over yet. - Wait, I'm protecting a dog, there's zombies, I've unlocked a character... What is this game, dude? It is so random. Next up, we have a couple of copycats, Jigsolitaire and Water Sort, ASMR Water Match, SEO garbage. This one is completely generic except for the fact that it has some lovely ASMR water sounds, and I gotta say, the more I play it, the more I really think existentially about what are we actually doing here. I mean, not just here on the App Store, but as humans. You know, we just sit here and we look at water, shapes, colors, temperatures. We really just think a lot about all kinds of things that really don't matter at all, and really, if you can... Let's do it, all right, time for Among Us. Oh, my God, wait. (suspenseful music) All right, I'm not an imposter, got it. Okay, what do I do? Okay, I don't know what I'm supposed to... What? Oh, my God, someone's already dead. Tangycrow is dead, okay, what happened? I don't know who the imposter is. (puke blasts) Ah! Did someone kill me? Wait, was that me? All right, look, here's the thing, Among Us, clearly a high-quality game. I think I will play with friends next time. (laughs) Heartopia has surprisingly high production value. It's almost given me Sims kind of vibes. Now, I didn't play this game enough to really get into it, but it's not bad. It's just really not my thing. Fortnite is actually one of the games that I tend to play more on my phone than anywhere else, and it is obviously a terrific title. I think everyone's either heard of or tried Fortnite at this point. Now, I will say, when I play, I typically use a controller, and it's funny, without playing with controller, the touchscreen controls are bad. I don't know how people play like this. Also, your phone gets really hot, or at least my phone got really hot without, you know, having a controller around it. Glow Fashion Idol is all about dressing up your characters and earning points. It's not maybe my favorite kind of game. In fact, I would say it's very, very much not my game at all. Royal Cooking is another one of these generic matching games, but Geometry Dash, now we're cooking. I will say that I do not have the reflexes that the 13-year-olds in my life do to play this game incredibly well, but I will say it is actually pretty fun if I could get past the first level, which I could not. Speaking of games that you've seen in every mobile ad ever is Last War Survival. Now, this is, I think, the original, but they've all been copied so many times I honestly don't know which ones are which, but I do know that I played them all. Pixel Flow isn't the worst, but it is an absolute copycat. Next we have Roblox. This is a game that I have never played. Now, I've seen my nephews playing it, and I have never felt older, but let's give it a try. Wait, what? Use the camera to do an age check. Are they about to call me old? This will help confirm you're 34 years old. (person stifles laugh) It's an age check with a camera? (person laughs) Let's play Steal a Brainrot. That feels like exactly what I need. 57 billion visits with a B? Go buy a new Noobilini Pizzinini. Okay, I'll, oh, wow, oh, wow. Steal brainrots from other people and bring them back to your base. Wait, what, what? - One borolo. - I'm so confused, dude. I feel so stupid. Let's play one more. Top playing is Fish It with 552,000 people? Okay, I'm in. So I'm gonna go fish. Okay, starter rod. Oh, my God, is this an actual game with somewhat of a tutorial? This is incredible. I don't get what I'm doing right now, dude. I need... I don't need an adult. I need a child to help me understand. I feel like I do not get Roblox. Brilliant Sorts is... (groans) Are we almost there? It's another one of these (beep), whatever (beeps). New York Times Crossplay is actually a legitimately fun word game. Again, I am terrible at these, but this new one actually feels like I could kind of get onboard. Township is a Farmville clone that has way too many tutorials. Last Plague is another survival game that has annoying voice acting, and I think I'm going to get out of here. I'm just, I'm over it. I'm just not playing any more games. I'm just not doing it. You can't make me. We have finally reached it, my friends, the top 10 and the final games for this video that, as of recording this, I started this video four months ago. I have a lot of thoughts. I'm gonna play the last 10 games for you really quick, and then we can find out, did we learn anything or did I just lose brain cells for no particular reason? First, (laughs) we have Cider Casino: Real Money. Um... (sighs) Okay, this game is not available in your location. Ooh, wait, okay, first of all, they misspelled oops. They've locked me. I can't even retry again. You know what, great, cool. I don't have to play this one, sweet. Moving on to the next one, we have Rips by Triumph, which is a mystery box for playing cards or trading cards. Is this not just gambling with Pokemon cards? Because I'm a big fan of that kind of gambling. That kind of gambling I'm in on. So you get pulls, and then you can immediately sell them back. How about, because we've made it to the end of this video, and Pokemon cards are a special weakness of mine, let's do... Hang on, what packs do we wanna do? There's a dollar, a $5, a $10... - [Alex] Do a dollar, man. - Why don't we do like 20 bucks on it? - Oh, my God. - Well, we just put 20... Look, 20... Look, I get these weird looks. - [Alex] This video went from zero to $20 immediately. - 20 bucks is totally worth it. I can, I'll pay $20, that's fine. So let's start with doing the $1 pack, 'cause, obviously, we got to do that, right? Oh, I get to slice this? This is exactly like TCG Pocket. What do I get? Oh, it's really a casino. A basic energy card? Okay, you know what? Just to say (beeps) you to these guys, send me the card. I want my energy card. You gonna send me the energy card. - [Adriana] You are gonna get it PSA graded? - I'ma PSA grade that (beeps). Next up, we have Hexa Away. This seems like much more the kind of nonsense that I've been playing for months. What am I trying to do here? Am I trying to get the same colors to match? Oh, you just wanna push them off the edge of the thing. Oh, I see, oh, okay. Whatever, I don't care. I'm over it already. Next, we have Order Crazy: Water Sort Puzzle, also known as SEO slop. (sighs) Again, I feel like there's like a limited amount of puzzle games that I feel like are actually remotely worth playing, and I don't understand why I would wanna play this one. Okay, we got to keep going, got to keep going. Game is Hard. I'm sure it is. Gaming is really hard. Can I pass this level? Uh, ah, yes, I can. Sick, that's cool. Unlike almost every puzzle game I've tried, this actually feels unique, like it actually is doing something different. Oh, my God, that's crazy. Look at this one. This, it's too loud. It literally requires me to turn the volume down on my phone to get past the level. That's so cool. Outside of the egregious advertising that I feel like is probably enough to keep me from recommending this game, that might be the best puzzle game I played yet. Next up, we have Arrows: Puzzle Escape. This is the same kind of concept that I played several times for this video already. Like it's just not unique. Let's see what we got with our magical new update for another water sorting puzzle game. (laughs) So why, why am I not surprised? It's just I love it so much. Just like, wow, imagine your games can be (beeps), and feel like a chore. Okay, we're here at Solitaire Associations Journey. I will say, when I was going into this video, I assumed I was gonna be playing like 75 solitaire games. I played a couple, but a lot less than I thought for the 100 top free games. Peony, bed, pets, cat, what? I already hate this. Oh, it's a word association game. So it's not like solitaire with like an actual deck of cards. It's solitaire where you put cat on top of pets on top of dog. Oh, I don't like this. Cinema, drama, Western, ticket, comedy, popcorn. (gasps) I just crashed out with one move left! One move! I had one, but... I got a couple words, (beeps) you. How do those go together, huh? Sorry, you know what? It's been a long, long four months. I'm just really ready to be done right now. Let's find the next game. What's number two, what's number two? - [Alex] It is Block Blast. - Block Blast, okay. So I've got to swipe things, wait, what? - Excellent. - Wait, what? Oh, so you get like Tetris style blocks, but you're supposed to build rows and whatnot? Oh, so it's like dumb Tetris, okay, got it. I understand why this is so highly ranked. I don't know if I'm gonna play it more, but I get it, I get it. Vita Mahjong, all right, let's play some mahjong. Okay, don't let the holder get full, got it. Oh, you, oh, I'm a... I'm, Oh, I am a dingus, 'cause I just can tap instead of swipe, okay, cool. (pieces clatter) Killtastic. I think, my friends, I've done it. I've played 100 mobile games, and, now, it is time for me to take a nice little break, play a game with some substance, and I wanna give some thought to what I've learned, because all I know is that I have a lot fewer brain cells I did than when I started this video four months ago. So after playing all 100 of the top free games in the App Store, I kept 14, and, really, there are only four that I really liked, Clash Royale, Fortnite, Red Dead, and Vita Mahjong. Vita Mahjong actually, legitimately really fun, but what I found in the other games was really just that same handful of ideas recycled over and over again, and, I guess, I saw 95% of the apps I tried ask for notification access the instant I opened them, because let's be clear, most of these games are not designed to be fun. They're designed to bring you back, and here's the thing, most of these games just aren't built to last. They pop up, get advertised like crazy to push as many users through as possible, the money gets extracted, the game falls off the chart, and the cycle starts all over again with the next clone. It is a hamster wheel that we can never get off of. The system is working exactly as designed, just not for the people making games or for the people playing them. The best example of this is Red Dead Redemption. It's proof that genuinely great games can absolutely exist on your phone, but even Red Dead is here in spite of the system. It's free, yes, but it's free because it comes with a Netflix subscription. Most people are just straight up allergic to paying for mobile games, and guess what? The paid version of Red Dead in the App Store has like 13 people. It's probably more than that, but not by much. I mean, the problem is just the economics have trained people, that if you see a mobile game, it is free, and that expectation is exactly what feeds the slop. You know, back at the dawn of the App Store, I started this channel and my very first videos were reviewing apps on an iPod Touch, and you know, it's funny, like back then, reviewing apps and games when the App Store felt like it was full of promise, it was a totally different world. I mean, the iPod Touch was the device that made me want to do all of this, and what has become today this, this hellscape of free-to-play AI slop, clone after clone after clone. I mean, it's not because we ran out of good ideas it's because everyone who has the power to change things is profiting too much to do anything about it. 14 out of 100, man, (sighs) and that's being generous. (laughs)