It isn't a scam really. It is ridiculously expensive, and very pushy about how it tries to extract money from you.

But the game is what the devs want it to be, and it seems to be what players are willing to put up with (hence the feeling of distaste yet still tolerance).

I give credit to their in-game advertising though. The saying of x person got this of value is brilliant, making normally free things (like talking) cost a token item is brilliant. I do believe that the prices are over the top, I think it is intentional to inflate the perceived value of wheel spins. In my mind the only thing that was really intended on being sold was those prize wheel spins, and to do that other things needed to have absurd price tags that make the spin seem better, and any actual purchases of those items be windfalls.

Ultimately players can choose to buy or not, evony is free, in that they are not lying, but they are going to temp and push and goad you with their pay model. Ultimately the game was designed to make money, not to be a free offering into perpetuity because a business wanted to be nice and had too much money sitting around.