How it is calculated

Every mechanic designed to stop you from stopping is a seal. Seals are worth 15, 6 or 2 points depending on severity, and the score is their sum. No multipliers, no caps, no curves: you can check it by hand.

The score has no denominator. The theoretical maximum is unreachable because some seals exclude each other, so showing "X out of Y" would lie. The reference is the percentile within the catalogue, and going over 100 points is the named line: indefensible.

Severe · 15 points

Paid loot boxes 15

You pay without knowing what you get. The good stuff is rare, so you pay again and again.
Pay to win 15

Whoever pays wins more easily. If you do not pay, you lose to those who do.
Energy system 15

You run out of lives and must wait hours, or pay to keep playing now.
Premium currency 15

You do not pay in euros, you pay in gems, so you lose track of the real cost.
Whale pricing 15

Sells packs of €100 or more, aimed at people who cannot stop.
Build timers 15

Everything takes hours unless you pay. And it pings you to come back.
Aimed at children 15

Uses these techniques in a game made for kids.
Open chat with strangers 15

Any adult can message your child inside the game. It is where those looking for minors go looking.
Double charge 15

You already bought the game and it still sells to you inside.

Medium · 6 points

Expiring battle pass 6

You buy a pass and have weeks to use it. Play too little and you lose what you paid for.
In-game subscription 6

Charges you every month for advantages inside the game.
Pay to skip 6

The game is slow on purpose and sells you the shortcut.
Daily login rewards 6

Gives you something for showing up daily and takes it away if you miss a day.
Limited-time events 6

Things that last only a few days, so you jump in without thinking.
Season resets 6

What you earned is wiped and you have to climb again.
Rewarded ads 6

To get things you have to sit through ads.
Cross-app tracking 6

Collects data to chase you with ads outside the game.
15+ things for sale 6

The shop is so big that the game is, above all, a shop.
Guild pressure 6

If you do not show up, the group loses. The pressure comes from friends, not the game.

Minor · 2 points

Interstitial ads 2

Interrupts play with ads.
Pay to remove ads 2

Annoys you on purpose, then charges you to stop.
Push notifications 2

Sends notifications so you drop whatever you are doing.
Always online 2

No connection, no game, not even on your own.
Cross-promotion 2

Advertises the other games of the same company.
Sold in parts 2

The full game costs more than the price on the box: there is separate paid content. Not a dirty trick, but worth knowing before buying.
Rotating shop timer 2

The shop rotates on a clock so you buy in a hurry.

Colours

Very bad 70 70 points or more, or 3 severe seals

Bad 35 35 points or more, or 2 severe seals

So-so 12 12 points or more, or 1 severe seals

Clean 0 below all of the above

Each band is triggered by points or by number of severe seals, whichever is worse. The thresholds are not derived from the weights: they are set by hand to reproduce 27 verdicts written and validated one by one before the engine was written.

Where the data comes from

App Store: names and prices of what is sold inside, read with a browser.
Google Play: purchase price range, advertising and PEGI rating.
Steam: priced DLC, categories and PEGI/ESRB descriptors.
The publisher's own site, where the big currency packs the stores do not list live.
User reviews from App Store and Steam, the only thing that describes what no listing publishes.
Wikipedia, which describes monetisation in prose and rescues the games the store says nothing about.

What we do not know

Loot boxes are bought with in-game currency, not money, so they never show up as an item in any store. When a store declares purchases it does not publish, the verdict is marked partial and never shown as clean: it reads "not enough data". We would rather say we do not know than pass off as clean what has merely gone unexamined.