When EA announced last year that it was refreshing the beloved '90s semi-strategy series Dungeon Keeper, fans' excitement quickly paled once details came to light. The smartphone- and tablet-exclusive spin-off barely retained the series' original mechanics of actively managing a medieval dungeon, looking more like a Clash of Clans clone, and while the game launched as "free-to-play," many in-game actions were slowed down by incredibly long timers which—surprise—could be accelerated by spending real-world cash.

That wasn't just a complaint from annoyed Internet commenters (or series creator Peter Molyneux). Today, after analyzing the new Dungeon Keeper's gameplay at length, the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled against an e-mail campaign for the game in the UK, specifically disagreeing with its claims that the game was "free-to-play."

"Because the game had the potential to restrict gameplay beyond that which would be expected by consumers and the ad did not make this aspect of the role of in-app purchasing clear, we concluded that it was misleading," the ASA wrote in its decision. The original complaint claimed that ads for the game stated, "Get it for free!" with the only caveat being "Wireless fees may apply."

When shoppers complained that "gameplay was severely limited unless in-app purchases were made," EA responded by sending the ASA a mess of statistics comparing paying customers with non-paying customers, claiming that "non-spenders did not reach these points substantially slower than spenders." Additionally, EA claimed that "even if there was no monetization in the game, a timing mechanism would still be present" (which, based on our experience with the game, would make it doubly insufferable).

EA's arguments didn't sway the regulator; after ASA representatives played the game for themselves, they gave it their own scathing review: "We regarded it as extremely likely that players would reach a position where they would be unable to take any further meaningful or progressive action in the game until a timer had finished or been skipped, and that these periods would become longer and more significant, and the cost of skipping increasingly higher, as the player progressed."

Mostly, the ASA criticized the lack of warnings in the advertisement, and its judgment was a very slight tap on EA's wrist, asking the company to pull the current ad and add more IAP purchase warnings to any free-to-play game ads in the future. As this will only affect advertising posted in the UK, American shoppers shouldn't expect to see such warnings in the near future.