Not even trying

I have been playing Candy Crush Soda for awhile now, usually just to pass time on subways or when I am otherwise unable to do other fun things.  I like it a lot and it is a fine and worthy sequel to Candy Crush Saga.  They have, however, really found a way to ratchet up the evil total to new and absurd levels.

The trick is that you start with 50 Gold Bars.  You can spend Gold to gain extra turns on a level you have just failed and sometimes gain additional bonuses to help you complete the level.  Doing so costs 9 Gold.  After 5 times where I got stuck on a mission for more than a week and used Gold to get past it I am now sitting at 5 Gold remaining.  As soon as that happened Candy Crush gave me a notice that there is a special deal going on where I can extend a failed level for a mere 6 Gold.

Isn't is just so sad that I only need 1 more measly Gold to continue?  Wouldn't it be wonderful and fun to go to the store and buy more Gold so that I don't have 5 Gold just sitting there, useless?

Useless but oh so close to being useful!

At first I wondered if that special deal was actually something that just came up randomly, but now it has been sitting there for 2 months and has never gone away.  So what they are really saying is that they will deliberately offer you a deal to get things cheaply, but that deal will always cost 1 more than the total amount you have.

Special deal, hardly any strings attached!

That right there is evil.  I am never going to pay for this game and that is in no small part thanks to this utterly ridiculous and awful policy they have in place.  The fact that they so casually try to trick me into buying stuff only strengthens my resolve to never ever buy anything.  I don't have a problem with sales and sales tactics in most cases but this is a level of assholery that I just can't tolerate.  They aren't even trying to pretend that this is just a regular sale when they leave it sitting there permanently taunting me.

I like Candy Crush Soda a lot as a game, but the monetization portion of it is just disgusting.  For me that means I will continue to play here and there but will decline to ever buy in.