They usually are free to play with predatory monetization mechanics. That was especially back in 2016 when thanks to these games, the mobile gaming revenue outpaced PC and console gaming revenue.
Have you ever sat in front of a casino’s slot machine. They are also trash, awful and disgusting. But they’re also engineered with the worst dark pattern psychology to manipulate any human being that sits on it to keep playing and be so addictive that people will burn their money just to keep playing. The qualities of fun, and additive are independent of each other. A game can be very addictive and really bad at the same time. Unlike slot machines, they have the advantage of constantly sitting in your pocket and going with you everywhere you go.
I played a new gacha game 2 nights ago that was so overloaded with crap to do I found myself not even playing the game but just clicking the stupid rewards buttons for everything i “accomplished” and I hated it. I continued to play for another 4 hours… thankfully, once I closed the game, I removed it. I also didn’t pay a dime outside my wasted time.
Idk. I got extraordinarily drunk in Vegas, put a twenty in a dollar slot machine, thought I would get 20 pulls, pulled once, lost all my money, them never touched a slot machine again.
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.
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.
Plus mini metro, terraria, don’t starve, wild rift, and TFT (last two are free to play, and only have cosmetic transactions)
I feel like the best time for mobile games was back around 2009/2010 when touchscreen just became good and most stuff was either free or paid and without intrusive ads and monetization or other predatory bullcrap.
I recently tried Angry Birds 2, and I was baffled it would only take a few levels before I had to buy my way to more “ammunition” to keep playing. The original used to be good, I even wouldn’t have minded if there was like an ad between games, or if it was just buy-to-play, but even that isn’t an alternative option anymore. And they also pulled the original from the stores, I thought they had re-released it before, but couldn’t find it either. And also when I first opened the game there was so much shit on screen that it was even difficult to navigate to just even find the actual game, it’s absolutely fucking ridiculous.
Agreed. There was a fantastic time for mobile games before things went downhill.
I have a strong memory of being in an apple store, finding a display iPad, and becoming enraptured by Plants vs Zombies. I would eventually get my own and put dozens and dozens of hours into the game.
Then EA took it over and turned it into trash.
