It is your money but it is their game. Why would you invest so much cash in to it knowing full well that your food would eventually run out? These types of games are meant to be played for a little while every day similar to Epic Pet Wars and the other Epic * Wars games. Of course there's going to be nothing left to do if you dump all your money on them and power through them. I hope ngmoco continues with these kind of games, they've been amazing so far. I've clocked hours in Eliminate with my friends and I haven't had to pay a cent. My girlfriend plays TouchPets every day, also hasn't had to buy anything. Both games are also easy to get people to play with because they're completely free unless you feel compelled to optionally spend money. Just because you're compelled to power-game something doesn't mean it's a flop.
I just want to beable to have more than 5 dogs and buy the other stuff. I love Touch Pets my favorite game
I am level 50 in eliminate and have not dropped a cent. If ngmoco wants to keep giving me hours of spread apart gameplay (excellent gameplay at that) I have 0 problems with that.