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.