There’s an entire ecosystem of Facebook-tier repetitive browser games that are designed to keep you tapping for hours as you chase tokens you can exchange for AE coins or coupons. Actually, the main point is to get you to make impulse buys from within the games themselves
The games all use different tokens and naturally run on slowly regenerating energy. If you run out energy, you can get more by exchanging some of your coins or tokens, browsing products on AE, opening another game, or by ordering something for a large energy boost
Simply buying stuff normally on AliExpress doesn’t give you game tokens or energy, you need to directly buy an item from a listing the game shows you for it to count
Every single game also has a battlepass type deal with dailies and weeklies to complete for even more tokens
All of this started when Halo 2 introduced XP into online shooters
Me: this AliExpress game has gambling mechanics that are inherently flawed from a player agency perspective and unfair systems. Also the graphics are bad.
Boomer: oooooh, a little game while I shop, how fun this is.