The good ones are mostly pc ports (dead cells, stardew vally)
this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
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Have they ever been good? The sad thing I can tell you as a mobile dev(not game though) is that people on Android don’t want to pay for apps or games, on iOS it’s a bit better but still way worse than PC or PlayStation. There’s also rampant piracy on Android, both from users but even more so from shady app clones Google ignores. As a result free to play, always online with microtransactions is basically the only way to make money
Super Auto Pets
99% of people think all mobile games should be free to use. So they go for P2W to make money.
They wouldnt make anywhere close to the amount they do via P2W if they did an upfront cost.
Nowadays? I've never enjoyed mobile gaming. Every time I try, there's been an absurd paywall or monetization. Once that strikes, I'm out.
Because everything sucks now.
I think it's because most people play mobile games as a way to pass time, rather than to do something actually engaging. So, people don't typically want to buy mobile games upfront, meaning devs gotta monetize in some other way, like p2w microtransactions.
For me they have always sucked. The only one I liked a bit was "1112" (also known as Fade), BUT the developer actually cancelled the last episode because they didn't feel like making it anymore 🤬 So yeah it also sucked big time.
More details: https://www.reddit.com/r/adventuregames/comments/k3wc7b/the_history_of_1112_an_ambitious_adventure_game/
Adventure games don't sell too much, and four episodes are a lot if you make them separate purchases. Episode 2 would be purchased only by a fraction of episode 1 users, then episode 3 from a fraction of episode 2 and so on. And the longer the time between episodes, the smaller the chance it would generate new sales because existing users lost interest.
It's instead much more remunerative to think a fun gameplay mechanic, then create a fake ad around it, buy some assets and create an idle game that plays by itself with the possibility to pay to get it faster. Use the fake ad with the fun gameplay to promote the completely different game and users are dumb won't complain. Don't worry if the assets you purchased for your asset flip are unrelated, it's also allowed to be a completely different genre, for example evony (medieval and swords theme) is using zombies, tanks and machineguns in ads
And the longer the time between episodes, the smaller the chance it would generate new sales because existing users lost interest.
True, but with that particular game what didn't help either was that there were many years between episodes, it was pretty awful. It's one thing I really hate about episodic gaming. But Valve already proved it to be a failure, only Telltale And Dontnod still do it (and they do it consistently right, to be fair).
The rest of the gaming industry has gone on to "Early access" which is even more awful. Rather than buying the first part of the story for a lower fee, you now pay top dollar for a game which isn't even finished and never might be because once you pay them there is no real incentive to actually finish it :)
But really, most categories of mobile games don't interest me. Arcade and other simple crap like angry birds never interested me even in the 80s. Adventures yes but they're few and far between on mobile and if they are they're almost always desktop ports anyway. FPS really really sucks on mobile for me, the input is just too crappy and the screens too small.
The Pathless is pretty awesome
Sky: Children of the Light is splendid
Horn is pretty neat but I guess its 12 years old now
Baba is You isn't originally a mobile game but it has a native version which is pretty excellent
To answer your question, its as others have mentioned: catching a whale is more lucrative than appealing to the average consumer. The entire micro transactions industry (which mobile gaming is built upon and makes it the most profitable portion of the gaming industry by a mile) is all about milking your customers for everything they have without them realising it. Why did we reach this point? Unregulated capitalism, probably.
Touch screens don't lend themselves to Snake the way buttons did, so the only good mobile game is now functionally unplayable.
They always sucked
I was wondering this recently, too. The two mobile games I miss most are tiny wings and the original fruit Ninja. But I remember playing Infinity Blade and other random games on my iPad touch that were really good back in 2010
I came across buried bornes 2, and it's been ok so far. I have no idea if it has microtransactions or ads yet. It claims it does, but I've yet to see them. It's not the best game I've played, but the concept is kinda interesting if you use your imagination a bit.
I just installed Tiny Wings this week. It's available on iOS. On Android there's a clone named Dragon, fly!
Yeahhh that's the main issue for me. I've stuck with android for the past decade. I didn't know about dragon fly! It's not as cute but it's going to do the trick. Thank you!
Whales spend tens of thousands of dollars on p2w bullshit. It's all unregulated gambling.
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