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How Pocket Gamer's free-to-play reviews work

What's with those strange subheadings?

How Pocket Gamer's free-to-play reviews work
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Hello. If you're reading this you must be interested in learning why Pocket Gamer does some of its reviews in a radical new seven-day format. We'll keep the explanation short so you can get back to whatever review it was you were reading.

Once upon a time, games were designed to be consumed in feast-like binges. We sat there, in the dark, with our controllers resting on our stupid bellies and just played until our eyes started twitching. And then, after a quick nap, we did it again.

But nowadays there are games designed to be consumed in a different way. The free-to-play genre, popularised by cash-gobbling mega-hits like Clash of Clans and Rage of Bahamut, has us nibbling at our interactive entertainment products in snack-sized bouts of screen-poking, before putting our phones down and letting the wait timers do the rest.

This new kind of gameplay requires a new kind of review. So whenever a free-to-play builder or CCG or RPG or whatever lands on the mat in Pocket Gamer towers we'll do our best to review it in the manner that we play it - in bits, over the course of a week.

First we'll give our first impressions. Then, after three days, we'll let you know how we're getting on. And finally, after seven days, we'll tell you whether or not we think you should bother playing the game in question yourself.

Now get back to the review.

Rob Hearn
Rob Hearn
Having obtained a distinguished education, Rob became Steel Media's managing editor, now he's no longer here though.