They were actually a type of online game that way pretty easy to make they involved lots of players all competing in a ranked challenge. The biggest problem of course for winning these games was to either gang up in large groups to trounce your enemies or pay a little or a lot to win. These style of games have transitioned into the mobile space for a long time now.
I'm talking about games like <insert-game-here>. Not only these games but also games like idle apocalypse, marvel snap, and others. It could be described as soulless. Because the big problem is that when you take an action in the game you don't have any consequences. It's impossible to take a bad action almost. Since the design is to keep you playing every day. And when you do loose something I'm these games it usually comes as a waste of money if you've sunken anything into them.
They are being very aptly compared to gambling games. Or casino games where by your only actual action is pressing a button. And any kind of 'fun' is simply watching an animation. And your only goal is to find all the animations in the game. They are very devoid of meaning. And a huge part of this is driven by the similarity of mechanics that all these types of mobile games or Farmville style games have.
They are devoid of consequences which removes all meaning. For sure these games are ones without a loose condition making them as safe for players as possible. However this is just lazy designing, it's safe for the designer. if you actually put in consequences for the player and give them one chance with new game or start over then how can there be any meaning.
By the way I am fine with games that do not have a loose condition so it's
