The mobile gaming market is overwhelmed with cheap trash. It's what you see when you open a mobile game store. (I just opened the iOS App Store games section and, apart from Minecraft and Roblox -- which I'm not interested in -- everything on the main screen pretty much looks terrible.)
It's a marked contrast to the major consoles and other game store platforms which, for whatever reason, do a much better job of not just promoting stuff that will be profitable -- but of promoting stuff that's not trash so when you think of a Nintendo Switch you think of amazing Mario games; when you think of a Playstation you think of The Last of Us or Elden Ring or whatever. You know if you crack open Steam that you'll see interesting stuff.
The difference may be the norms set on pricing. Console games are still $30-$70. People complained about the horrible race-to-the-bottom on mobile game pricing in the early days. And they complained about the total switch over to micro-transactions. Those complaints were ignored. So the marketplace was overwhelmed by companies who could execute cheap, micro-transaction-addictive games the best. And so I think the market generally treats mobile games like garbage. Which they by-and-large seem to be. (With notable exceptions!)
> And they complained about the total switch over to micro-transactions. Those complaints were ignored.
There is a good reason for this. “Premium” mobile games never reliably made that much money, even during the early iOS boom. If you were a publisher it took having quite a few hits to compensate, and Android was more trouble than it was worth for a long time.
A successful MTX game made several orders of magnitude more. (Instead of getting low millions you would be getting hundreds of millions). The process was perfectly satirized in South Park by the “Canadian Department of Mobile Gaming” which like all the best South Park jokes wasn’t nearly as fictional as might be assumed.
Such games are “cheap trash” in the same sense as a vegas casino. Similarly the actual operating of them at scale becomes very sophisticated. Team Fortress 2 is an example of Valve indulging in exactly this on Steam, so it is far from isolated to mobile.
funnily enough, these factors affects mobile games the least:
- Gamers cannot see the real cost of digital items, leading to overspending.
mobile games do have some confusing tactics like using odd currency amounts (say, 180 in game currency instead of 200 to pull a character), but changing that won't really kill any game.
- Companies’ claims that gamers prefer in-game premium currencies are wrong.
for premium games with MTX this makes sense. For a f2p mobile game there is no preference.
- Consumers are often denied their rights when using premium in-game currencies.
mobile games tends to be pretty good at dealing with this. Mobile had huge charge-back rates, be it through Google/Apple or CC companies (and probably still do), so it's financially wiser to just help out complaining customers who aren't objectively in the wrong. the digital currency is basically worthless anyway.
- Children are vulnerable to these manipulative tactics.
A classic argument. I don't know how this one will result, but I have seen more and more games launch as 16/17+ rather than 12+ (I dont know if these stores even allow 18+. But I'm sure they would if it means they keep their lootboxes). A few even retroactively increase their age rating. But those are for reasons beyond the scope of children fears.
It's a good step to make console games choose between f2p or premium, but I don't think this (in its current iteration) will clamp down much on the mobile market.
> It's a good step to make console games choose between f2p or premium, but I don't think this (in its current iteration) will clamp down much on the mobile market.
The fact that Roblox and Clash of Clans are cited as examples suggests this will absolutely impact Apple, if there is validity to the claims, because they are and have been the biggest beneficiary of such tactics for more than a decade.
A decade ago they were forced to create parental controls after it was found kids were spending money like crazy in games designed to let kids spend unlimited amounts of money, and today 10x more is spent in those kids games...
Roblox is definitely a unique case due to its marketing, yes. And it's been under fire for a while now. I do wonder how much impact that could have if it was forced to lose much of the audience assossiated with it.
For stuff like Clash of Clans, I'm less sure. The impact wouldn't be zero, but I'm expecting it more on the scale of making 100m a month to 90m a month. You'll feel it but it won't really make devs change course.
> which, for whatever reason, do a much better job of not just promoting stuff that will be profitable
it's simply the law of large numbers. The early Switch was a goldmine for indies. If you could get a game on in the first 12-18 months, you were nearly guaranteed decent sales. That mine ended about 2 years in, though. Still a big market, but you will probably be buried more often.
Now Go to Steam. Decent storefront based on recommendations, but due to user tagging and the sheer volume of releases you're bound to get some random $2 hentai game everynow and then, no matter how fine tuned your filters on. This is partially because again, steam leaves it to the community to tag, but those weid recommendations are a peek into the surface of how much slop there truly is on Steam. And we don't even talk about how 99% of indies fare on Steam.
Google/Apple's stores are just Steam x 1000. There's millions of apps released per year, nearly impossible to curate manually. And due to the f2p nature, it'd take a lot longer to build a proper recommendation engine. because games optimized towards playtime, not getting $5 out of you ASAP.
But on top of all that: mobile games aren't on that power curve where they peak sales for the firs month then trickle along. Roblox was a highest earner for years and probably makes more revenue over time, not less. So the top selling board doesn't change. And google/apple have negative incentive to change that, because they will keep selling and they will get their cut. Who cares about new titles when the old ones are making hundreds of millions years later?
>And so I think the market generally treats mobile games like garbage. Which they by-and-large seem to be.
well, money talks, and Whales can disproportionately talk louder than some complaints online about mobile games. That's all that matters to the company. The best compromise would seem to be to support those games offering console experiences (more and more these days also on console/PC as well) but using a f2p monetization system if that's desirable. it won't change the candy crushes and robloxes, but it does show you can still grab console-oriented players on mobile.
It's a marked contrast to the major consoles and other game store platforms which, for whatever reason, do a much better job of not just promoting stuff that will be profitable -- but of promoting stuff that's not trash so when you think of a Nintendo Switch you think of amazing Mario games; when you think of a Playstation you think of The Last of Us or Elden Ring or whatever. You know if you crack open Steam that you'll see interesting stuff.
The difference may be the norms set on pricing. Console games are still $30-$70. People complained about the horrible race-to-the-bottom on mobile game pricing in the early days. And they complained about the total switch over to micro-transactions. Those complaints were ignored. So the marketplace was overwhelmed by companies who could execute cheap, micro-transaction-addictive games the best. And so I think the market generally treats mobile games like garbage. Which they by-and-large seem to be. (With notable exceptions!)