Comment by alsetmusic

> … from a designer perspective, is it good that a game is so boring that players are willing to pay real-world money to skip parts of it?

This was addressed brilliantly in a South Park episode, “Freemium Isn’t Free.” In it, a character, Stan, blows a ton of money advancing a by-design boring game. The game is revealed to be a sham to bleed players of cash. It likens addicted gamers to alcoholics. This mock commercial appears in the ep:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_n5nbx0Z9s