In a shock move, it's been revealed that the entire $25 billion F2P mobile games market was a complex Ponzi scheme.
Fueled by inputs of outrageous amounts of VC money and constant spending on user acquisition from developers - notably in Japan, followed by the US, Europe and Korea and finally pumped into overdrive from billions of soft loans from Chinese banks - the scheme worked for a number of years as money was quickly passed between companies' bank accounts.
"It was like a very fast, high risk version of pass-the-parcel," commented Marvin Adder, the CEO of UA outfit Kisu.
"As long as everyone booked the incoming cash and then immediately paid it out again, the cycle grew and grew.
"But as soon as someone got scared, greedy or lazy, the whole thing collapsed."
Just imagine
"Don't blame me," commented well-known lazy, greedy scaredy-cat Herman Moneycollector, of funding outfit Lend, Grabbit and Runne.
Who would think an actual human being would spend hundreds of dollars a week to upgrade their castle faster?
"It's really not my fault either," added Ally Ying-Yang of Upstart Media.
"I'd hadn't had a holiday for five years. How was I to know that Stellarcell would dump $4 billion of advertising spend into my account the morning I left for a four week trip to an internet-free island in the Pacific?"
Yet others claim the situation had been slowly unravelling for years as UA companies started spending large sums of cash on in-app purchases in order to fool developers that players were actually spending real money on gems to speed up in-game actions, and hence increase the money spend on advertising campaign.
"I mean, really," exclaimed Simone Falah of UA outfit Furries.
"What grown man in his right mind would think an actual human being would spend hundreds of dollars a week to upgrade their castle faster or unlock a virtual Ferrari?
"It was the Emperor's New Clothes, but while the cash was rolling in developers wanted to believe that 'Whales' could be real."
Yo-yo
The result of crash has been remarkable, with most developers immediately moving to a paid game model.
"It's the race up to 99c," remarked Miles and Miles and Miles of London developer PleaseNotYouToo.
One of the few companies not to be following the F2P model, it's found its game Monumental Vision boosted into the top of the global top grossing chart despite it only generating $12,011 last year.
"Actually, I'm pretty happy about the whole situation," said Gabriel Leadworn of developer Organic Splash.
"I've had enough of updating my game every week. Stuff it! We're going to stop development and stick what we've got on some DVDs and sell them on eBay for $50."
