Revenues set to hit $100B this year as locked-down masses flock to casual gaming.
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How mobile games crushed consoles
- Thread starter JournalBot
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Sure thing grandpa, don't forget to buy the microtransactions so you can actually play as the characters you want!
The cancers of mobile gaming have already bled into consoles and PCs. So unless you're sticking with pure retro, there's no escape.
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Chemical Tribe
Ars Legatus Legionis
I'm still not sure why Ars thinks it's good practice to have stupid articles from Financial Times be reposted here.
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macosandlinux
Ars Praefectus
Slay the Spire on iOS might be even a better experience than on PC/console thanks to the touch screen. The user input choices/UI can go both way IMO. Plus it's cheaper on iOS than on GOG.
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Lol, they are nowhere near as bad as mobile yet, and I don't play the types of games where they reign, but I'll bet once they come in earnest I will be raging at them to get off my lawn too.
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macosandlinux
Ars Praefectus
Gaping the weekend with content from Wired/FT for a long time now. You don't have to read these non OG articles.
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Reminds me of how some games suffer in useability from the dumbed-down UI of consoles when playing on PC.
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They got it for free, and it'll get some views. Despite the quality being far, far below what Ars would've done with the same subject. Clickbait misleading headline, extremely shallow analysis, and essentially nothing of interest in the article.
Like, my big takeaway from the article is the headline picture from Fortnite. Never played it, didn't really know what it looked like. But, damn, that is some ridicolously obvious rip-offs of a bunch of Marvel and DC characters. How cheap can you be?
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Chemical Tribe
Ars Legatus Legionis
Um, I've only seen FT articles here in the past few months. Even then, it's a step below wired.
But I guess a poster who just registered at the beginning of this year vs me who's been here for nearly 15, wouldn't know that.
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So not really any different than licensed console games? (In that they mostly aren't good games.)
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You registered fifteen minutes ago? I guess that explains why you wouldn’t have seen the Wired article posted just last Sunday.
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Heh, I didn't read the article, just went straight for the comments, which I figured was more interesting.
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Chemical Tribe
Ars Legatus Legionis
Are you incapable of understanding "beginning of this year vs me who's been here for nearly 15"?
Oh, wait, I get it now, you (Honeybog) and "macosandlinux" both conveniently registered on the same day.
Seems like you have a problem managing your sock puppet accounts. I guess I'll just ignore both.
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Yup, I’m the one with difficulty understanding the content of a message. You got me, I yield.
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There's plenty of escape if you don't play multiplayer games.. that community is toxic anyway so all the more reason to avoid those types of games.
I mentioned Horizon Zero Dawn earlier. Not only does it not have microtransactions, but the DLC is free and is of the old-school expansion pack variety.
I've been playing RPGs like the Divinity series and the Pillars of Eternity series which also don't have mobile bullshit.
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I haven't seen many people play them on trains either. I have however both seen and heard multiple co-workers both play and talk about their mobile games.
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Classic blockbuster vs arthouse story here. Mobile can have its money and numbers and excessive advertising.
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Mobile and console/PC gaming do have some overlap. But much like heavy launch and small launch rockets, comparing the two directly is an ignorant and misleading idea.
Mobile games are played for almost completely different experiences than "big screen" games. There's several factors in that, but that doesn't change that the very significant market differences exist.
There's a whole other ecosystem to putting a game on a 40", 50" or larger screen in 1080, or in 4K, than there is in putting a similar game on a 6", 8", or even a 12" phone or tablet screen. Different interactions between players and games, different levels of immersion, and different modes of involvement (i.e., as mentioned in the article, longer periods of time playing versus more casual, and occasional, interaction). And how quickly a mobile game can be developed as compared to console/PC games.
Then again, making virtually no mention of just how dominant TenCent and other Chinese firms are in the mobile market, and in how rapidly they try to take advantage of content trends in console games, that's a whole other layer of coverage. Have you seen the way TenCent is trying to apply their mobile gaming development to copying Cyberpunk 2077, a game that hasn't even been released? Boilerplate development may work in mobile games. We're about to find out if it applies to consoles and PC's. Early indicators are looking quite negative.
Mobile games are played for almost completely different experiences than "big screen" games. There's several factors in that, but that doesn't change that the very significant market differences exist.
There's a whole other ecosystem to putting a game on a 40", 50" or larger screen in 1080, or in 4K, than there is in putting a similar game on a 6", 8", or even a 12" phone or tablet screen. Different interactions between players and games, different levels of immersion, and different modes of involvement (i.e., as mentioned in the article, longer periods of time playing versus more casual, and occasional, interaction). And how quickly a mobile game can be developed as compared to console/PC games.
Then again, making virtually no mention of just how dominant TenCent and other Chinese firms are in the mobile market, and in how rapidly they try to take advantage of content trends in console games, that's a whole other layer of coverage. Have you seen the way TenCent is trying to apply their mobile gaming development to copying Cyberpunk 2077, a game that hasn't even been released? Boilerplate development may work in mobile games. We're about to find out if it applies to consoles and PC's. Early indicators are looking quite negative.
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I don't understand why people are very hostile to this article.
From where I live (SE Asia), mobile games is a big thing. People here everywhere are playing it and it forms a kind of social bonding during the lockdown, extending to all of my relatives. We have an office mate Discord channel just so we can enjoy playing PUBG and in another side, games such as Fate Grand Order that's being mentioned here is a big hit. Not including another major developer like Mihoyo that is very aggresive in promoting their Honkai (they did some bus advertising here). Some big companies started incorporating mobile games e-sport competition as a part of their offline event. One of my friends spends more for in-game jewel and outfit than purchasing game in Steam, normal way. Almost everyone have a middle-tier smartphone but not personal computer at all.
But I think this maybe doesn't happened yet in the West.
From where I live (SE Asia), mobile games is a big thing. People here everywhere are playing it and it forms a kind of social bonding during the lockdown, extending to all of my relatives. We have an office mate Discord channel just so we can enjoy playing PUBG and in another side, games such as Fate Grand Order that's being mentioned here is a big hit. Not including another major developer like Mihoyo that is very aggresive in promoting their Honkai (they did some bus advertising here). Some big companies started incorporating mobile games e-sport competition as a part of their offline event. One of my friends spends more for in-game jewel and outfit than purchasing game in Steam, normal way. Almost everyone have a middle-tier smartphone but not personal computer at all.
But I think this maybe doesn't happened yet in the West.
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I have never played a mobile game in which it did not feel like I was fighting with the interface rather than playing a game.
Consequently I have never played a mobile game that felt fun rather than a frustrating chore.
Consequently I have never played a mobile game that felt fun rather than a frustrating chore.
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Bioware and others have been doing is since Dragon Age. ME2 and 3 both had extra characters as DLC
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LOL. I remember the good old days when arcade gamers felt superior to home gamers. And then home gamers looked down upon console gamers. I'm glad mobile gaming came along so console gamers have something to condescend to.
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I remember a time mobile games didn't suck. I still use my Nokia N8 to play those gems once in a while.
Heck the newest mobile game I like is from six years ago.
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It's the lack of depth, and the fact it presents nothing that can be called "new" or "interesting".
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LOL. I remember the good old days when arcade gamers felt superior to home gamers. And then home gamers looked down upon console gamers. I'm glad mobile gaming came along so console gamers have something to condescend to.
Oh i was being self-depricating not condescending. I meant to get across that I feel like im aging out of gaming since im not into the new shiny of mobile gaming. But i must have goofed up the message. Or this mobile vs console gaming thing is a lot more sensitive topic than i realized. Either way, its time for a nap and some saltines, followed up with some History Channel and another nap.
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Chemical Tribe
Ars Legatus Legionis
Sounds like a typical appleinsider cheerleader article.
No, I'm not against mobile gaming per se. And I'm not really crazy about new consoles or other stuff either.
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There is no technical reason why good games can't be made for mobile. But, one, mobile "gamers" refuse to pay for anything, so your game has to be "free" to even have a shot and two, it is easier to just fill out a template and release some new pile of crap that will generate money selling gemstones or whatever.
I mean, smartphones are plenty powerful, a company could easily port games to the platform, but the number of developers that choose to do so are few and far between.
But it could be done... The mobile port of Stardew Valley is pretty good, of course it costs $8 and mobile "gamers" have been conditioned to expect everything to be "free" on the smartphone.
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Pay 2 Win garbage 
I don't mind mobile gaming when it is a quality title, port or original that is an upfront cost (or say part of Apple Arcade) where the game design isn't on incentivising purchases, but reading how crap from King and Tencent is doing just makes me sad for gaming.
I don't mind mobile gaming when it is a quality title, port or original that is an upfront cost (or say part of Apple Arcade) where the game design isn't on incentivising purchases, but reading how crap from King and Tencent is doing just makes me sad for gaming.
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I like how you entirely avoided the issue of touchscreen controls generally sucking for anything faster than turn-based gameplay. That alone prevents mobile from being a platform for better games. And before you argue about spending money on mobile games, I've bought plenty of mobile games over the last decade, including some that crested $10, but most of them I ended up stopping playing after a few hours because touchscreen controls are trash for real time gaming.
And unlike PC gaming, where you can explicitly say "for optimal play please use a gamepad" or "requires a gamepad, no KB+M bindings", mobile can't play the same card. So what you're left with is a platform that cannot evolve its control schemes beyond a flat slab even if the graphical processing capability increases.
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The entire premise of this article is silly, because the word "gaming" doesn't really mean anything nowadays.
My parents, who never held a gamepad in their lives, are technically (according to the way these analyses are made) much bigger gamers than me, because they spend more hours playing online checkers than I spend playing core games.
Is Konami switching to Pachinko still a gaming company? Is Pachinko crushing consoles? Is Pachinko the future of gaming? What if Unreal Engines starts making more money on automotive and architectural visualizations than games? Is Hollywood movie made in Unreal the future of gaming?
I don't know anymore. Silly semantics, nothing more.
My parents, who never held a gamepad in their lives, are technically (according to the way these analyses are made) much bigger gamers than me, because they spend more hours playing online checkers than I spend playing core games.
Is Konami switching to Pachinko still a gaming company? Is Pachinko crushing consoles? Is Pachinko the future of gaming? What if Unreal Engines starts making more money on automotive and architectural visualizations than games? Is Hollywood movie made in Unreal the future of gaming?
I don't know anymore. Silly semantics, nothing more.
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I understand the sentiment of most posters here, but this is FT article, so it is about where the money is. I am fine with that, but ...
... the way the article is written does not inspire confidence in me. It seems to me that the author has only very very limited data, but at the same time it's written with kind of "tone of authority". But that stands on shaky ground, so it's not believable. Maybe it would have been better to leave out comparison between mobile and consoles altogether.
Main examples:
- There are almost no sales numbers in the article. In the beginning, there is a statement that mobile sales dwarf console sales. OK, by how much? Frankly, if I am supposed to know it already, then this article does not tell me anything new.
- The only sales numbers there are comparison of figures (i) between different regions, (ii) in different periods, and (iii) from different sources (=methodology). Useless, like if I compared potato sales in Europe vs. rice in Asia.
- Fortnite, PUBG, etc. - was there made distinction between PC/console/mobile sales or is it all clumped together and considered mobile?
- Most AAA releases are consoles+PC, why is that not taken into account?
- I would love to see how are F2P/premium games split.
- Covid-19 is clearly a positive anomaly for gaming. I do not see much elaboration on long-term impact and how such sudden increase is sustainable.
I absolutely do not doubt that mobile gaming is a big thing, but I would expect more from premium publication like FT.
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Wait...so you are saying that many years from now nobody will even know many of these games existed?
Sounds fine by me
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Is this actually eating traditional gaming's lunch, or is it just drawing in people who'd never do console/PC gaming in the first place? Unless I majorly missed something, the headline seems designed to prime you to expect the former, while the actual article only seems to discuss the latter.
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IMO, mobile games are usually microtransaction-infested piles of crap with poor controls, pay-to-win style.
However, if the numbers are to be believed, one has to conclude that it doesn't matter in the end.
Dollars in, dopamine shots out.
People give lots of money to these companies and they, in turn have all incentive they need to continue exactly on the same path, endlessly spewing more of this crap.
Until consumers do not give them support with their wallets, nothing will change.
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I've found myself spending more on mobile games as console/pc games are starting to port over. I just double dipped on Civ 6 for my own iPhone (had it on my wife's iPad), got KOTOR, Chrono Trigger, and Company of Heroes. I also got started on Gwent; pretty fun for a free-to-play game.
Though, this is all on trend with an overall increase in gaming in my household due to COVID, including on Switch, and also picked up a Quest.
Though, this is all on trend with an overall increase in gaming in my household due to COVID, including on Switch, and also picked up a Quest.
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mobile games seem to be my constant, i dip into PC and console games here and there.
for mobile there is the low bar to entry, longer play style, and more often better way to play with friends (have phone on you when meeting in real life, game play set. up to rely on that.)
console games are my single player, no need of a friend network, in and out as the story ends.
for mobile there is the low bar to entry, longer play style, and more often better way to play with friends (have phone on you when meeting in real life, game play set. up to rely on that.)
console games are my single player, no need of a friend network, in and out as the story ends.
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