I'd always had a feeling Clicker Games work as a satire of the worst side of video games, the one that prays on your dopamine system without offering anything artistically, intellectually, creatively or mechanically interesting, like a generic MMO stripped of its fancy clothing, or a stupid mobile game taken to its extreme.

And then comes Universal Paperclips, whose whole appeal is that it subverts this by doing something really cool and interesting with the formula.