I think idle games are a special case here, in that variable timesteps aren't necessarily a liability for them. In an ideal world, one would like all the systems in an idle game to be able to quickly simulate arbitrary amounts of time (for offline progression etc), and if the whole game is made that way then in principle one is immune to throttling. But I think games actually built that way are pretty few and far between.
Comments
Thanks for the extra details!
I think idle games are a special case here, in that variable timesteps aren't necessarily a liability for them. In an ideal world, one would like all the systems in an idle game to be able to quickly simulate arbitrary amounts of time (for offline progression etc), and if the whole game is made that way then in principle one is immune to throttling. But I think games actually built that way are pretty few and far between.