Wauies - The Pet Shop Game

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[quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtransaction]Warning: Microtransaction infested browser game![/url][/b] This game is infested with a toxic mobile app style cash shop. You will be prompted to and expected to give money to the developers through this cash shop to buy in-game goods so you can play the game.[/quote] "Wauies - The Pet Shop Game" is just another low-effort browser game polluting the "free" section on Steam, and it carries hidden, toxic monetization... this is a glorified webpage. It should be noted that the developers pulled the browser element from the game back in 2020, so you can't actually play this in a browser anymore, you need to use their wrapped either direct from their website or on Steam if you want to play this HTML game. It's still a HTML game. "I can't believe it's not a mobile app" was the first thought I had when I saw this pointless cash shop infested screen tapper... of course the pet shop veneer is appealing, but this German Flash/browser game is less about real gameplay and all about the toxic cash shop. Nobody likes that kind of toxic monetisation. So there's a thin veneer of a "tycoon" game here where you click around and pretend you run a pet shop, but you quickly find unless you buy "diamonds" you can't progess in the game. Nasty. This is a purely superficial game-like "experience" designed for a web browser, repackaged to look like a real PC game when it isn't. The graphics and the mechanics are Adobe Flash-tier... imagine the gaudy, cheap plastic casing on the slot machines at the casino. That's what this is, a cheap flashy veneer on a shallow non-game with one purpose... to bleed you dry through mobile-tier microtransactions. Ignoring the greedy mobile-tier monetization and toxic cash shop... this is just a browser game masquerading as if it was a PC game. I didn't drop thousands on a high-end gaming rig just to use it as a web browser, and I doubt you did either... Steam is not here to compete with Chrome. This website is just a desperate cash grab by a greedy web developer to find a wider audience for their browser scam. As with all browser scams, you're forced to sign a highly questionable yet legally unenforceable End User License Agreement... for such a relatively low effort, low quality webpage, this is specifically designed to invalidate your consumer rights and destroy your right to privacy. This agreement includes questionable requirements that may attempt to revoke consumer law protections that gamers expect to have, which is also highly problematic. Developers must learn they are here to serve gamers, not control them. I had my cat walk over the keyboard while the EULA was displaying, which fixed that problem for me. With no way to change the resolution or tweak graphics settings, you probably won't be able to run the game at your screen's native resolution. This design decision means the game will look bad on just about every modern PC. This game is fairly dated at 8 years old... and even back then it looked old and busted compared to contemporary, professionally made 3D games of the same period. It looked bad then, it looks worse now. This is the part of the review where we need to ask gamers to keep a straight face. This garbage was made with Adobe AIR/Flash, it's basically a 1990's browser/Flash game that's been dumped here on Steam Direct, it's polluting the place with Flash garbage, and that's a real problem. Don't laugh, they seriously published a Flash game on Steam! That's right, this developer was trying to profit from this, they wanted your money for a glorified Flash game. It's appalling, isn't it? Now on to pricing and value for gamers. This game is infested with mobile app store like microtransactions. This is a consumer hostile model that we don't need to see on PC. It's deceptively priced to gouge gamers, and that's a reason in itself to avoid this. This "free" game won't count toward your game collection count on your profile. With that in mind, is it something you should still download? Definitely not. This is impossible to recommend. To quote another Steam reviewer, this should be a paid product... they should be paying people to download it.