Mega Knight … huuu! Even to those who have never played Clash Royale, there’s a solid chance this sound rings familiar — a truly cringy, no-skill troop used to win games cheaply. Many people have heard of Clash Royale because of its sheer popularity, with tens of millions of players. A game of Clash includes a deck of eight units, each of which costs elixir to place, and placing those units down to try to do more damage to the opponent’s towers than they do to you. At any given moment, one mobile game tends to be the most popular; sometimes it’s Brawl Stars or Block Blast, but right now, that game is Clash Royale, which has held the top spot longer than most. That being said, Clash Royale’s shortcomings are plentiful.

Firstly, why is Clash one of the most popular mobile games? Why is it popular in the first place? The reasons are straightforward: it’s competitive, you can play it against your friends, you can play with your friends in a clan, but most importantly, the games are short enough to play on the toilet. I have accidentally stayed up until 1 a.m. playing Clash Royale not once, but three times in the past month — and I don’t even regret it, because it’s genuinely a fun game to play. Since every game only takes five minutes, it’s one of the highest win-per-hour games out there. Well-timed, strategic plays — like a value rocket destroying an opponent’s push or predicting goblins with a log — deliver instant dopamine. Yes, sometimes you misplace a unit by a single tile and lose the entire game due to a stupid muscle spasm in your thumb, but those wins make it all worth it. They make it fun to play. Because Clash is genuinely an enjoyable game to play. 

Except for when you’re not actually playing. When you’re in the app, spending time on it, but not actually playing matches. Except for when you’re doing the dirty work of leveling. 

The leveling system in Clash Royale is horrendous. It’s god-awful. Because you can spend hours and hours leveling up cards to the max level, but then Clash Royale releases evolutions, which means you have to spend more hours upgrading. Then they release level 16 and Heroes, and at this point, what’s next? Level 20 and Titans? And all the while, your opponents are blowing money on this stupid mobile game just to destroy you. Then they release a new update introducing Hero Knight, which just nullifies my XBow deck — which is a skill deck — and I can’t gain trophies because every game I get hard-countered, which makes the game unwinnable and —

But I digress.

Every game made by Clash Royale developer Supercell is a cash grab in some way, shape or form. That doesn’t make their games cheap money-makers; to Supercell’s credit, all of their games are well-made and carefully designed. However, they all have a massive amount of microtransactions, where you spend a small amount of money giving you an in-game advantage, creating a significant disadvantage for free-to-play players. 

It took me over a month to upgrade my full level 14 deck to level 15, while “whales” can do the same thing with a single credit card swipe. It’s not like we don’t expect this from Supercell. In June 2023, Supercell expanded its level cap to 15, promising they wouldn’t raise it further, yet here we are with level 16 units. This unfair leveling system demands ever-increasing time or money from the entire playerbase, but disproportionately punishes the free-to-play base. 

I want to boycott Supercell. I really do. But I can’t. Because what else would I do? What are my other options? Clash Royale is the only mobile game I play with my friends consistently. Or maybe Brawl Stars. Or even Clash of Clans, possibly Squad Busters, but every single one of these is owned by Supercell. Supercell dominates nearly all non-shooter competitive mobile games. Don’t argue to me that a game like Rocket League mobile is actually a relevant competitive mobile game. It’s not; The only relevant games are made by Supercell. 

Sorry, I got sidetracked. Supercell monopolized every competitive mobile game. And it’s bad. It’s fully cooked. I can’t give you a different descriptive word for this than cooked. We are cooked. 

Unless Supercell feels some change in their Grinch hearts and decides not to squeeze every cent out of their playerbase, we’re stuck with this. Have fun with level 17 when it comes out. We will remain at an unfair disadvantage as long as we don’t spend money on this game. Until then, all we can do is hang our heads low in defeat, and get three-crowned by a level 22 Mini-Pekka. Enjoy the moments while you can.

This is not why we Clash.