oh i actually did play it a few years back when I launched Terrastruct (company behind D2). It was just a solo-effort bare bones project at the time, but I reached out to a hunter and all that. Got 112 upvotes (https://www.producthunt.com/products/terrastruct), and got a few paid subscriptions from it.

It was a material morale boost at a time when I didn't know if anyone would find it worth paying for. We've since gotten VC funding, built a team, put out a successful/popular open-source project, etc etc. In total it was only like $20/mo, but felt like a big success to me at the time.

I guess I A/B tested playing the game vs not playing the game, as much as one can.

Yeah! would love to hear if there are any of these