Many of you will remember the "kinder, gentler" days of airline travel. I used to walk onto a plane (Boston to NY Eastern Airline shuttle) with
1) No luggage scanning or stripping off belts and shoes at the gate,
2) no airline ticket or boarding pass,
3) no personal id needed or verified,
4) no X-rays scan of my body,
5) not having NOT paid anything (yet) -
and I simply....
took a seat on the plane. That's all you had to do.
The plane closed it's doors, and took off.
In mid air, a flight attendant would come to my seat and request payment. I would hand her just my credit card, and pay for my flight.
That was then. And you know what's going on now.
FoE will never be the same again, either. This ad "experiment/beta testing" now has already changed how people on mobile play and it's momentum isn't going to stop. Eventually, the game will be crowded out by ads everywhere they can fit (and in places you think they shouldn't fit.. but do...) , just like weeds in your garden crowd out your flowers, if not pulled.
Pretty soon, to level your GB, you'll have to watch an ad. Imagine how much revenue that will make (UGH).
Their placement (size, priority screening, etc...) is game-disruptive, on purpose. It's analogous to what embassies do to protect entry points from direct penetration by car bombs and vehicles. They put up barriers and make people drive in circuitously to get in for business.
Count on it continuing. As
@RazorbackPirate has adeptly concluded (and
Bill Paxton improvised in his most famous line in 1986's Alien sequel Aliens, despite the actor not liking ad-libbing in general)..
Game over, Man.