I got Apple Arcade and it’s been great for my kids. I can limit what games get installed and they are free of this obnoxious crap.

Kindle FreeTime doesn't really offer much for limits except intended age but is similarly non-obnoxious.

I got Apple Arcade subscription for myself for the same reason. No ads, no pay to win mechanics, and some great games, too.

There are virtually no good games on Apple Arcade. Had it for a year, nothing but goofy cell-shaded 6 year old child's games with maybe three or four titles like Jetpack Joyride or Crossy Road to piggy back off. I can't imagine how an adult can enjoy what's in the Apple Arcade and I really gave it the benefit of the doubt.

Lego Builder’s Journey is an excellent game that can be enjoyed by adults.

https://apps.apple.com/ie/app/lego-builders-journey/id144163...

What the Golf is great fun for all ages.

https://apps.apple.com/ie/app/what-the-golf/id1415190483

Simon’s Cat is a fun puzzle game. Kids love the story and the puzzles are challenging enough to be enjoyed by adults.

https://apps.apple.com/ie/app/simons-cat-story-time/id153501...

Mini Motorways is sublime

https://apps.apple.com/ie/app/mini-motorways/id1453901000

Sneaky Sasquatch and Alba are fun RPG lite adventures that you can play with younger kids to help them navigate more complex game experiences.

https://apps.apple.com/ie/app/sneaky-sasquatch/id1098342019

https://apps.apple.com/ie/app/alba-a-wildlife-adventure/id15...

Assemble with Care is a lovely puzzle game about repairing with a nice narrative.

https://apps.apple.com/ie/app/assemble-with-care/id145049869...

There are more but most of these keep my kids coming back and it’s a way to engage with them that you don’t often get in other games.

Alto’s Adventure and Alto’s Odyssey are a nice duo for 5 minute breaks. Samorost series are old, but nice adventure games.

Mini Motorways and Mini Metro are nice tactical games to exercise the brain.

Fantasian is a fantastic game and has a great story.

Yes! I love Apple Arcade for this reason, too.

Especially because I only typically let them use it on the Apple TV and not a phone or iPad. They get to use a physical controller (DS4) and we can talk about their game as they play. So it’s less mindless and we can keep an eye on what they’re exposed to in game.

I would imagine that if something is deemed fraud, it's the ad-space buyer that is deemed the victim, as they're paying for clicks that aren't genuine interest, and not the user/viewer.

IANAL etc, but I thought it would be good to add the distinction.

It's not a dark pattern, because it doesn't really benefit anyone. Just destroys the signal by drowning it in noise so advertising becomes just a little bit dumber.

It benefits the app creator, and whoever is behind the ad serving to the detriment of the person doing the advertising. They get charged each time someone clicks that add.

> They get charged each time someone clicks that add.

Well, no. Not really. The client wants to buy an actionable contact with a real person at the end of the deal. The app creator can try selling counterfeit goods, but this trick only works once and the next time the client will demand payment on the basis of something other than clicks. (And this process has already happened many years ago; nobody charges per click in 2022.)

The person advertising has all the data they need to determine performance, just add statistics know-how.

OP didn't directly say such dark patterns are fraudulent. They said AppLovin was committing fraudulent activity and then that Unity uses dark patterns.

I installed pi-hole in my house just for this.

I configured my kid's tablet to use AdGuard's public DNS https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html

No more in-app ads.

Strange thing, I tried it on my FireTV to block youtube ads, but it didn't work. I wouldn't be surprised if the FireTV monkies around with user settings. The other explanation could be that youtube uses the same hostname for videos and ads, so the DNS blocking can't distinguish.

I ended up side-loading a 3rd party YT client that doesn't play ads. https://smartyoutubetv.github.io/

How much time did it take to research + install a Pi-hole?

I used a pi-hole, but wanted it to work outside my home as well. NextDNS uses many of the same blocklists, and I happily pay $20/year for it. Also has apps for devices that roam from the house.

https://nextdns.io/pricing

They try to make it super easy: https://pi-hole.net/ and I have no recollection of encountering any issues.

OTOH I am a software engineer working with Linux and network related stuff.

The issues comes later when some pages may break. When that happens you need to stop bashing your computer and add some URLs to the Pi-hole whitelist (or skip those parts of the web...). In my experience there has been few issues. Some enterprisey stuff my wife needed for work depended on some oracle tracking URLs that were blocked if I remember correctly.

Can you write exceptions for IPs within your network? I’d like to exclude our work laptops from filtering. Both laptops have static IPs on my network.

Reading more I could just change my devices dns settings to use what I want. A little more cumbersome and requires local admin on windows.

You can create IP based exceptions, or you can point those machines at another dns resolver. Either works.

In every comparable instance the company will provide a “make good” where they don’t bill you for that same amount on the next billing cycle.

My company didn’t because the US is a small fraction of the company and they aren’t too invested in spending time/resources here.

You have to report it and get the regulator involved to find out

If you just dismiss this as “kids games on an ipad” then everyone gets away with it

the reality is that the entire adspend industry is fraudulent or has a large component of fraud