Games

I think it's cultural differences. In the west, we abhor pay to win and predatory aspects. But in Korea, China and other countries in that region, players demand it.

So then it comes down to which market region you're targeting. If you're not a NA/EU mobile developer, how do you choose? 🤷‍♂️ Can't keep everyone happy.

Yep, getting people to pay $40-60 bucks for a mobile game is basically impossible, and as a result the business model is either F2P or $3-5 bucks with egregious monetization to earn back the costs.

Not that it succeeded long term, but I salute Apple Arcade’s venture on this. It’s a subscription service that aimed to highlight iPhone games that had no monetization, and were usually small indie games with a fun idea.

Because people seem to lap that garbage up enough for it to be profitable to make barely functionable shit, as cheaply as possible.

Making a good game is hard. Making brainrot garbarge is easy, and people play it just as much. So what is the point? I knew a guy who was cheap as fuck. I didn't know his girlfriend as well, but people said she was pretty much the same. Once i remember he made fun off someone spending like 60 dollars on a video game and he said he's not a "gamer". A few month later we talked about some video games that we liked and i didn't really include him in that conversation because of what he said before.

He chimed in and said that he's been playing clash of clans since release. Now i hardly even know what coc is, except mobile pay to win garbage (imo) so without even thinking, i asked if that game is even playable without spending money. He said oh no, he spends around 500 buchs a month. We were all shocked a bit, and he realised how ridiculous that is and immediately threw his girlfriend under the bus saying that she spends at least 1k a month for candy crush.

There are plenty of good mobile games, the problem is none of em get promoted on Google Play, finding em is like a fucking treasure hunt.

CoD mobile is good... when played in an Android emulator on PC. It's basically CoD: Greatest Hits, and it's way better than Black Ops 6 (or any console/PC CoD, for that matter). All the best maps from the old games are there. Takes me back to the days of MW1 & 2 on the XBOX 360.

The only issues is that it takes some tweaking and the right emulator (Gameloop) to get a steady 120+ FPS, and it can take dozens of matches before game starts pairing you with other mouse and keyboard players (instead of just bots or controller/touchscreen users), but once you've established your rank, it becomes ton of fun cause you're not just destroying everyone you match against. It becomes a legit challenge.

Because dweebs like you keep throwing money at garbage.

There are good mobile games, but you typically have to pay for them.

Mobile games are the equivalent of those "100 great games pack"-type CDROMS you'd find in the electronics section of stores in the late 90s/early 2000s. Not many invest serious money and time into gaming on a tablet or phone like they do on a console or PC, because games on phones and tablets are more like an afterthought. Something to do in between group chats and work emails.

Shoutout to Slay the Spire, Balatro, and Slice & Dice. They all cost a bit (around 10€) but are excellent ports of the originals and among the best mobile games. Slice & Dice even started out as a mobile game and was ported to PC later.

A couple of major factors:

Users who expect low prices - This partly because of the history of mobile games being smaller and/or ad-funded but also because the vast majority of people playing games on their phone are looking for a low barrier to entry, time waster, not specifically a game.

Lack of regulation or enforcement - other gambling heavy fields tend to be at least somewhat regulated, but mobile games are very light on regulation, and even lighter on enforcement. This allows them to falsely advertise their games and how they function (both in terms of misleading ads, and lying about chance based events and purchases in-game).

Monopolistic middlemen - On other platforms, theres more direct competition (IE, Sony and Microsoft's generally more direct competition) or companies that prioritize long-term growth and stability (IE Steam or Itch.io). Apple and Google, on the other hand, largely compete on brand perception and hardware specs. These means that their app stores, where they make most of their money, have zero competitors. Seeing as they have no reason to make the stores better, they can instead promote whatever makes them the most money; that being exactly these manipulate, sketchy, virtual slot machines.

I use MiniReview (https://minireview.io/) to have better sorting options for games on Google's Play Store, you can specifically sort for screen orientation, monetisation (or lack of), genre, ads or not, etc

Most mobile game developers just want to attract whales. People who spend thousands of dollars in their app. They don't care about everyone else because they don't make any money off anyone else.

For some games, 20% of players spend $1800 or more a year. One of those people spent $90k.

So if your game sucks for everyone else, it's not a big loss.

They're trash because they're free.
Traditional games need to be good, so people buy them.
You don't need to buy mobile games. But developers need to eat. So the money needs to be extracted from the people while they play.
So you need to implement microtransactions and design the entire game around making them necessary for success.
But most people stop playing a game at some point when they've beaten it, or are getting bored ot it.
So you need to make your game addictive instead.

The same principle applies to so many things (for example news).
If you don't pay for it up front, the entire thing will be designed around extracting money from you during use.
Which means it needs to be designed to draw you in and keep you addicted. Delivering quality content is literally worthless.

If you own an iPhone just get Apple Arcade through Apple One, it’s really worth it if you game on your phone. No predatory monetisation, regular self-contained games, plenty of high quality titles.

Mobile games are designed like junk-food: take it out, eat some junk, then put it away to go do something else, throw away the bag or seal it for a quick snack later. Normal games are designed like a full meal: sit down somewhere with good atmosphere, nutritious, good conversation, get full and go home with plenty of leftovers and good memories

There used to be thousands of good developers making respectable games. Most of them failed financially, and many of the survivors sold out later anyway.

what shocks me is that nintendo never made some new pokemon games in their old GBA or DS style. it would be perfectly suited to phone limitations and expectations and there is a huge potential market for that style of game.

If I remember right, mobile games did tried to somewhat tried make console experience work on mobile phone but of course phones was way underpowered and not to mention that majority of mobile games have touch controls which compare to controller are just really naff. Only few people would maybe get an Bluetooth controller. That's why more simplex game just works better on mobile and then it just riddle with clones and shovelware