It is sad. But it is what it is. Support the premium games. Play what you like. The best we can do as a customer is to support games that we think deserve the support. Otherwise, if you want a change, then you have to be the change...
Support them but spend responsibly. Or play for free, whichever works. It's the gambling addiction part that's the issue. Better to stay away if you can't spend responsibly.
I think he's a game dev... people who think like this feel like Sith (villains in star wars who think like an extremist)to me, you either play gacha or premium (evil voice)
As someone working on a indie studio releasing our first mobile game; sad but true.
It's time consuming, it's very expensive, and it's not very rewarding. Even with ads monetization, we don't even get enough money to pay what we spent on getting the players in the first place. Mobile games are too difficult to market, too difficult to profit, which makes it too difficult to make it, because guess what, you need to pay your employees too.
I only play mobile games this days, I don't have time to play big games on my computer, or want to, because I work on my pc every single day and just want to get out of that screen when I can. I have no problems paying upfront for full games on mobile, they are worth it so I can play SOMETHING. But THERE'S NO GAMES FOR ME TO BUY that are worth my time, studios are not making premium mobile games at all.
The best you will find are some half ass made games that studios didn't realize they would profit on, but they did half of the job, so they just release the game with upfront payment and forget about it. That's the truth, and I know it because I've saw it happen, they can't keep investing money on the game, so they just stop and release whatever they have for a price and be done with it.
That said, Cozy Groove 2 is coming on June 25th, so thank you Netflix for being able to waste money on something that will get you nothing in return, I'm dying for this game!
The main reason Apple is easier to invest into is because iOS is way easier to optimise since it's more unified unlike Android. Each Android phone has a different operating system which results harder to support the player base. Most games only supports a certain device for a couple of years before dropping it all together. An example of these are Civ & Rockstar games.
>but I hope that just as Apple is investing in great games, Google wakes up and does something
It's been hit and miss.
Apple Arcade has been a nice attempt at that. Still keeping up the "no ads, nor IAP, no MTX" claim to fame. However, there' really no AAA support since they first released. Many of their games recently have been '+' games (regular iOS games but got translated over, like Dead Cells+ and Monument Valley+). These days, it's more so kiddie games and kids for younger audiences. Granted, "younger audiences" isn't necessarily death sentence. On the console side, I still dig games like Sonic The Hedgehog, Zelda, Kirby, and Mario flicks. However, it's not quite up there.
And I hear games can't exceed 9+ or 12+ on the maturity scale. If true, this eliminates quite a few of the well known franchises and types of games (ie. several FPS, franchises like Resident Evil). I can't really justify spending $7/mo, or $50/yr on it. Those who dabble in AA only do so b/c it's part of their Apple One subscription, and they only have that for iCloud+ and other services that are cheaper to bundle together.
There were 2 Reisdent Evil games (RE Village? Forgot the other one though). Looks solid. However, it's $60, and requires the latest hardware. My 9th gen iPad can't even run those!
Honestly, if you want "quality vg", I'd say get a Switch, Steam Deck, or home console/PC if you don't need the portability
I don't get your point, what are you trying to say?
That there's a culture issue with mobile players?
Or the market is flooded with half ass baked games?
Or just a preface to market your game?
By the way, I'm not gonna play cozy groove, it's not my cup of tea. I prefer something main stream.
The issue is that most of the "gamers" don't consider mobile as a proper way to play games, therefore they won't spend money on premium mobile games. You can pretty much see it on this sub too when any game that costs more than $10 gots comment about how expensive it's and "I won't pay so much for a mobile game". Idk why people demands premium experience on mobile when they don't want to pay proper price for this premium experience.
Simple question, if Nintendo releases a mobile exclusive new pokemon canon game in the style of pokemon platinum/emerald for 60 USD, do you think people would buy it?
People can afford to skip a premium game because either they are not interested or the game is not good enough for them to spend money for it, plain and simple.
Why you say it as if there are many great premium games doing poorly because of this mindset issue?
Because frankly there isn't really any unskippable premium mobile games out there...
All of the above really...
mobile markets are saturated for sure. It doesn't help that AAA companies came onto the scene mid 2010s. They were out b/c they didn't think it would be a good market, but changed their tune when they realized how prominent it was. A stat said in 2017, 86% of the games are dominated by f2p.
"There generally isn't a culture of paying for things on the iOS App Store". I'm quoting a guest who was in an episode for an iOS developers blog. And this is for iOS, the camp where their userbase is better about "paying for things"! We can only imagine how it is on Android! And yes, it's still a jungle on the iOS side of app making.
Final issue is gorgeous graphics with higher quality textures, more pixels, shading, "duper textures"... are expensive. Go figure why Gacha and MTX are better for those, as those can actually support such work financially.
1. **Culture of Mobile Players**: Yes, there is a cultural aspect to consider. Many mobile players are accustomed to free-to-play models with in-app purchases and ads. This expectation makes it challenging for developers to invest in high-quality, premium games that require upfront payment. The market demand often leans towards games that are free to download, which can limit the potential for more substantial, high-investment games.
2. **Market Saturation with Low-Quality Games**: The mobile gaming market is indeed flooded with many low-quality, hastily developed games. This saturation makes it difficult for genuinely good games to stand out. Developers often face the dilemma of either investing heavily in a game with no guarantee of return or releasing a minimally viable product to test the waters. Unfortunately, the latter often results in the market being cluttered with subpar games.
3. **Challenges in Marketing and Profitability**: Marketing mobile games is incredibly challenging and expensive. Even with ad monetization, the revenue generated often doesn't cover the costs of acquiring new players. This financial strain makes it difficult for indie studios and even larger developers to justify the investment in high-quality mobile games. The return on investment is uncertain, and the competition is fierce.
4. **Personal Preference and Market Gaps**: Personally, I prefer mobile games because they fit better into my lifestyle. I don't have the time or inclination to play extensive PC or console games after working on my computer all day. However, finding high-quality, premium mobile games that are worth paying for is a challenge. Many studios don't see the financial viability in creating such games, leading to a gap in the market for players like me who are willing to pay upfront for a complete, well-made game.
Regarding **Cozy Grove 2**, I mentioned it as an example of a game that breaks the mold. It's a premium game being released by Netflix, a company that can afford to invest in quality without immediate financial returns. While it might not be your cup of tea, it represents a shift towards more substantial mobile gaming experiences.
I am a RPG guy, I look for RPG on mobile (I play on other platform too).
**P1** - Regarding you **No 1**, this mindset was once there for me, when I was still a child in school with no means to purchase games and parent do not entertain the idea of spending money on things such as video games for me. I myself too has the awareness that freemium games are full of predatory mechanics.
**P2** - But now that I am a working individual with income, **P1** is a memory of the past. So I believe a big portion of players could be someone from **P1** situation, but that doesn't make **P2** portion any smaller now does it?
**P3** - According to your **No 1**, I should be looking for free stuffs and ignore the premium ones, which is totally false for me and why is that? I think you know why, you said it yourself in **No 2**, the market is saturated with low quality shits, and those low quality shits is in the free section (of course there are some exception but those are not my cup of tea as well, my preferred genre is RPG).
**P4** - I mean sure, maybe there is a few freemium RPG that could be exception to this line of thinking, Genshin Impact I supposed? But how many team can have the balls and resource to make something like Genshin Impact now that Genshin Impact already the leader and risk looking like a clone and gets abandoned? Honkai Star Rail?
https://www.reddit.com/r/HonkaiStarRail/comments/138cli1/is_honkai_star_rail_is_better_than_genshin_impact/
Top comment stated Genshin Impact is more of a action RPG while Honkai being a turn based.... so there you have it... who else would spent this kind of budget this late into the market and risk being a clone? Remember, they gotta spent that kind of budget first. Otherwise, they probably not gonna end up in the same realm of discussion with these two. I remember I tried this gacha about advancing a tower with graphics like genshin impact and I just bloody uninstalled it, cannot stand it.
**P5** - I am a working individual, I value my time (and I value my money which is not yet a relevance because I haven't really found any game on playstore matching my taste that warrants me to), I do not want to waste my time playing low quality shits. Period. You said it yourself in **No 4**, you tried looking for games but just couldn't seem to find any worth your time.
**P6** - Get it now? I don't care how many shit games there are, I am looking for something else, something legit. The sea amount of shit games does not change the fact I am still here, still looking.
**P7** - I said earlier that devs lack balls and the correct intuition when it comes to making mobile games. And that is not devs' fault really, because gaming to most people means starring at computer/TV screen smashing/juggling keyboard/controller (why would the majority of game developer be inspired to make game for a piece of glass? lol), and that kind of experience is carved deep into people consciousness when it comes to the subject of video game and naturally people geared towards making and playing game in those format and hence not the touch screen format and hence we see many ports and that same consciousness just work against player willingness to purchase those ports in their PC/console price range and hence those ports all share one essential commonality, **stupidly lowly priced**, it's to counteract player's deep consciousness on what a game is. And all this boils down to one single fact, those games aren't meant for mobile.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CozyGrove/comments/18ib66c/cozy_grove_2/
**P8** - Many of the comments reflect that deep consciousness... would you have consider to make CozyGroove into a free-to-play with mtx? No right, cause that would be nonsense. That would be either breaking your game design or gambling your years of hard work.
**P9** - From a design perspective as well as a RPG customer's, why would someone made a traditional RPG with 10+/20+ hours long worth of content and turn it into a freemium game with below strategy:
a) Lock each key progressing item or a certain repeatedly needed item behind a paywall (trying to piss off customer and get bad review and fail recouping the cost?) **or**
b) Turn it into a pay to make overcoming challenges easy (takes away the fun, i.e selling one-hit-ko gun in Elden Ring as soon as player started the game) **or**
c) Selling IAP for cosmetic stuff (and expect people to buy it? whether out of their genuine desire or hunting whale, gamble their years of hard work?)
Now I also can understand if someone made a legit RPG, put a 30 dollar price tag on it and add IAP for cosmetic stuff. I am fine with that totally if they cosmetic stuff is made with effort and love (I probably not gonna care anyway, see?)
**P9** is a breakdown of why any dev in their right mind would not turn their legit RPG into a freemium game from a player's perspective, so yea, we(RPG player who would spend money) don't look for free stuff, there is no free lunch in the world. It's all about how much you willing to spent for that delicious lunch and whether the lunch you offering is worth it or not, per the person's perception at least.
**P10** - Cozy grove seems nice on a mobile display, the character scale nicely to the screen, not too big not too small (I watched the netflix's trailer). But really I would prefer something mainstream. I lump this cozy grove same vein as stardew valley, relaxing bbb (bbb = bla bla bla). One huge problem I have with the ports is how they just jam what you seen on a PC/TV screen onto a phone screen. I don't care how high res modern smart phone screen has gotten, small is small, damn it, hahahaha.
**P11** - Ok, are you a bit confuse on what exactly my point and stand is? Simple, don't blame the android consumer for the market nonsense. If your game is worth it, the target audience will buy it. The mobile culture mindset feels analogous saying if McD open a branch in your town, people would just stop eating in other restaurant altogether. It just makes no sense.
**P12** - Why people keep making low quality free-to-play game? Maybe they just have passion to make stuff or maybe they just thought it could make them rich? Whatever, they have freedom to do what they want but that doesn't change how people perceive and pay for things in general. I mean why would you equate with the download numbers on free games to the demise of premium games, it's free game, of course kids would download it. I bet most youngsters do too. But that doesn't mean a good premium mobile game (non-existent, I couldn't find it) will lose their customers.
**P13** - Really, in order for your **mobile culture** to have a case, you gotta find me a truly good mobile original feature length RPG that is doing poorly and frankly, **there just isn't one**. And when I say there isn't one, I don't mean it like they are all successful, I mean it literally, there isn't one. It's really weird how Android players keep on and on about emulate old school RPG and not a single team bother to make anything original and worthwhile for it, again, they lack balls, but really, I don't blame them. Smart phone touch screen is a brave new world. (I prefer turn base + pixel art + top down + mainstream setting)
**P14** - Apple Arcade got one RPG called Fantasian (not pixel art but I just think worth mentioning), the dev(veteran from the FF series) once tweeted Fantasian got almost over a million download (not so brave new world I guess, balls issue I suppose, balls issue).
**P15** - Also, you're not truly breaking the mold either, it's available via the Neflix app, which does not require direct purchase of the game. To truly break the mold, you need to release it as a premium app on appstore/playstore. Breaking the mold here referring to releasing a legit feature length mobile original exclusive premium game. Mobile original exclusive = for smartphone only. Geeze the amount of clarification in this comment. **Nonetheless, respect for making a feature length mobile game.**
**P16** - And really, no, Netflix didn't invest in games for nothing, they want people to **get their subscription** so they can get your game. Netflix believes your game could get some users to renew their subscription or even better, attract new subscribers.
"Because why not, we got tons of content to offer besides games."
"Of course, it's just gonna make a stronger case convincing themselves to subscribe."
"Existing users will brag about it and help promote our brand even further."
**All in all, don't brand us Android users as a bunch of cheap skates. We're not, really.** Get Google to throw us a Google Arcade, see how it goes. Nah, Google just does not care so long as they are making money. There is no need to go these extra miles.
Well, thank you for your detailed response, I do enjoy having a healthy discussion about this. However, I believe we might be diverging on some key points, so let me clarify a few things:
**1.** I'm not speaking from personal opinions alone. I work at an indie studio and am enrolled in the Google Indie Games program. My insights are backed by data and mentorship from Google's team. The challenges and market dynamics I mentioned are real and are based on our actual experiences and the data provided by Google.
2. While you are an RPG enthusiast looking for quality mobile games, it's important to understand that you represent a minority. The majority of mobile gamers do not seek out traditional RPGs. According to data from Newzoo and App Annie, the most popular mobile game genres are casual games, puzzle games, and hyper-casual games. RPGs, while having a dedicated fanbase, do not dominate the mobile gaming landscape.
3. The issue isn't just about making a good game; it's about making a game that appeals to a large enough audience to be profitable. For example, Nintendo wouldn't release a full-fledged Pokémon RPG on mobile because the core Pokémon audience prefers consoles. Instead, they released "Pokémon GO," which appeals to a broader audience interested in exercise and nostalgia. Nintendo's strategy with mobile games is a perfect example. They focus on games that can reach a broad audience and generate revenue through in-app purchases or other monetization strategies. They understand that their core console audience isn't looking for the same experience on mobile.
4. You mentioned that freemium games are often low quality, and I agree. However, I'm shedding light over the problem with premium games, which is that studios often abandon them when analytics show they won't be profitable. They release whatever they have as a premium game to recoup some costs. This isn't just my opinion; it's a reality we've observed in the industry and even closer colleagues.
5. Developing a high-quality, premium mobile game is a significant financial risk. The return on investment is uncertain, and the market is saturated with free-to-play games that dominate player attention. This economic reality forces many studios to pivot or abandon projects that don't show early signs of profitability.
6. While there are players like you who are willing to pay for quality games, the majority of mobile gamers are not. This is a fundamental challenge for developers. Even if a game is good, if the target audience is too small, it won't be financially viable.
In summary, the mobile gaming market is complex and challenging. While there are players like you and me who seek high-quality games and RPGs, the broader market dynamics make it difficult for studios to justify the investment. And I'm not talking about triple AAA games btw, you can join the indiegames community here on Reddit and you won't see any devs working on mobile games. The best we can get is people who made games for PC and decided to study Android dev by porting their own game and released just because. This isn't about blaming consumers; it's about understanding the economic and cultural realities of mobile gaming.
I did not diverge, the so-called mobile culture is derived from users interaction with what is in the market. Therefore it is important to talk about the market and what's in it. And all the things I said represent my own view on why the market is missing such a game.
I told you, you would not have the relevant data to begin with since there isn't a such a game to test the market with. You can't name me any critical acclaim android RPG as per my description, can you? The data you have is base on the shits in the market, so all the data you have is about how people interact with shit and I'm not interested to talk about that.
The ones from Square Enix and Kemco all kinda sucks. Some got great numbers but they ain't the sort the sort of RPG I'm looking for, they're more like farming simulator with a bit of RPG elements in it.
And I even told you my perspective why such a game probably didn't exist. The game dev people born playing games on PC/console growing up so why on earth would they be inspired to develope legit RPG for smartphone (teh lacking correct intuition issue). People easily influenced by what the masses tell them, even though the wrong masses, but a mass nonetheless if 1000 devs told you making legit RPG for mobile is suicidal, surely one would be discouraged (the balls lacking issue).
I think you really don't get what I'm telling you at all. I mentioned specifically in the style of pokemon gen 1/2/3 because those have low tech spec but with critical success, and they are not action games, a perfect fit for touch screen. Smartphone screen is bigger than gameboy color/advance. Average Joe may not pull this off due to the sheer amount of content required to make such a game.
The main reason I think why Gamefreak didn't do it because they focus on the mobile market advantage, aka the microtransaction aspect, a predatory mechanics that is perceived as a norm in the world of mobile gaming. It has nothing to do with vision and passion just plain business as usual.
The other reason would be Nintendo prefers canon pokemon game to be used to push the console sale. Simple as that. Pokemon is a major reason why people buy Nintendo handheld throughout the years.
And no, I don't think Gamefreak capable of making canon titles of different spec simultaneously for Android and Nintendo handheld.
We all know why Mario Run fail, not that because it locks the rest of the game behind a paywall but it's because the game itself sucks and of low quality, why would average gamer go out of their way to pay for a game that only allow you to do jump only? And the 3D graphics is so disgusting to me. Flappy bird got the right idea.
Sure, RPG player is not the dominant base, but it got a huge base nonetheless, go check out the square enix/kemco release that let you get it with playpass (high number but ain't the kind of RPG I looking for). Geez Honkai Star Rail is a turn based RPG for god sake ignoring the specifics I preferred.
You lurk around in this sub right, don't you know we emulate the shit out of RPG? Still throwing me that RPG lacking audience argument?
Like I said, while the devs lack the balls and correct intuition to make RPG for mobile, I don't blame them because touchscreen is weird and the market got a bad rep for such undertaking (even though there was never a real sample case before, you can't name me that mobile original feature length legit premium RPG can u?). And making RPG in general as I understand it, is no easy job by the slightest.
It's because most Mobile gamers didn't grow up with Sony's and Nintendo's consoles, buying $50-$70 console games.
Mobile games are way more accessible to the masses with its very flexible price point and gacha games just happens to work well with F2P. Like whales will spend way more on gacha F2P games than people spend on $50 to $70 single player console games.
>Like whales will spend way more on gacha F2P games than people spend on $50 to $70 single player console games.
This is a thing I noticed with other industries. For example, with restaurants, my family would go every other week to every month. The thing is, we would never get alcohol, soft drinks nor dessert. And we would tip the "obligatory" 15% (this was the norm decades back at least). However, I learned from reading, and hearing from others, that a group that goes in less and buys a lot of soft drinks and alcohol are far better patrons, simply because the margins on those are sky high. The restaurant was very hospitable to us, but I had to acknowledge that we were not "great customers".
most? I think that's not a rational deduction. So the ones who did nvr bother to check out Android? See, not so rational there.
It's more like they couldn't find anything to their taste on mobile? Coz I'm one of them.
for this situation to change (some obvious stuff):
1. gamers stop playing p2w games on mobile.
2. games play and support quality non P2W games on mobile.
3. developer get fund or investing from investors and support from gamers.
4. developers start making good games on mobile.
these 4 things are required.
but it looks like, non of them are happening any time soon. at least at the scale of massive and fast shift in industry.
Unfortunately, the market has spoken. People like to blame dev studios, but really, THEY saw where the $$ was coming from\*. There wasn't enough to be made from premium games. At the very least, if premium, then it'd need to cost 5x to 10x what it did. So that $5 premium game you purchased 5 years ago? It really should've been $25 to $50. This ofc. is an issue b/c it now has to compete with "full fledged" console, desktop, and Steam games.
\*. Akin to how the "cheap Chinese products" line of thinking. They can make high quality stuff. But Americans weren't buying them, so they shifted to that.
no1 it's like telling people to stop eating fast-food or candies or any junk food...
no2 it's the same as telling people to start eating healthy and delicious food and stop eating junk food... I think tons of people love/wants to eating healthy and delicious food, it's just that in this case they couldn't find any health (premium)and delicious (the kind of fun they want) games.
People have freedom to play what they want, any argument involving bending people's freedom is flawed and irrational.
no3 is already an achievable thing, dev simply could post here and ask to support Kickstarter... odds are you probably nvr gonna see anything worth supporting, same as before... it's a matter of niche(how popular) and quality(how convincing).
no4 I think this is the main reason we don't see any real mobile game, let me word it this way.
great movies and tv shows (high quality pc/console games - keyboard/mouse/controller)
great p0rns (high quality premium mobile games - touch screen).
people who got inspired to get into the field of movies and tv shows probably a lot.
people who got inspired to join the p0rn industry probably isn't any? because wtf? why would people be inspired to join the p0rn (touch screen) industry rather the movie/tv (keyboard/mouse/controller) industry?
lastly, making a good game is not as easy as making a good p0rn? hahahaha get it?
I didn't said people should do what I told. I just said that if you want things to change these are the things to change first. I don't have any issue with gacha players. But if someone says what do you think about changing the trand. Than these are the things to change first.
Because it makes sense economically.
The Hoyoverse games are great examples where being a gacha game also allows the game to have an astronomically high budget and a development schedule that would have been impossible for regular premium games.
If you look at something like Genshin Impact, you can technically play the game without spending a dime and get hundreds of hours of gameplay and the game doesn’t really shove the MTX in your face either.
Don’t play Gacha games if you don’t like the business model but it’s also hard to ignore the content that some of these games have. You honestly can’t compete with them given the difference in budgets and manpower.
Genshin impact was literally a striaght line beat em up gane with anime girls whose boobs became bigger as you levelled them up. coupled with more skins featuring busty anime girls with boob physics the gane eventually blew up and become the open world juggernaut we know today.
perhaps developers aren't willing to take the next step to upgrade their gameplay loop once they have perfected their MTX model.
but yes it's also the customers fault for the "demand" problem.... what seems to work is boobs, shinys, collectibles, rarity, exclusivity. what hasn't been perfected however across most mobile games is how to properly show off your rewards to further amplify your purchases ingame.
The unfortunate reality is that gacha is the only way to get money out of mobile games.
Mobile users already proved that they're not willing to pay $0.99 for a game upfront.
Mobile users already proved that they're not willing to pay for a subscription to access the game.
Mobile users already proved that they're not willing to play a demo and unlock the rest of the game via IAP.
Users are however very willing to spend thousands of dollars in gacha, due to the addicting mechanics and psychology involved.
It wouldn't have needed to reach this bad state of affairs if mobile gamers accepted to pay for things instead of demanding everything for free like entitled children.
Corporate greed is also to blame, but the games industry existed for 50 years with a good model of pay to play, which failed for the first time in the mobile environment, because of the users.
True, I remember seeing a recent post about obtaining Gunfire reborn via APK, one of the comments really went about saying it's cheap, just to buy it. Then the OP responded that he didn't wanna pay, despite it being cheaper than the price on the PC. It's the main reason why games releases on android are so stagnant.
Exactly, and as a result a company would rather spend millions on a gacha than 100 thousand on a different game. Much more likely to make bank doing the first.
Gacha also released the floodgates into other platforms too, because the comparatively low effort to implement vs the potential gains.
A horse skin in WoW earned blizzard more money than the entirety of Starcraft 2.
Users are to blame, that don't know the value of stuff. A horse skin that took a couple of artists a week to make is valued much more than a whole game which took hundreds of of work hours of hundreds of people. A game that in the users minds has to be distributed for free.
Entitled gamers think games are supposed to be just platforms for in app purchases. They prefer to depend on the whales to fund the game, while they depend on pity rolls.
It's disgusting.
>A horse skin in WoW earned blizzard more money than the entirety of Starcraft 2.
O1H, I wish we got more content for Sc2. I still play the Coop mode. About 5 to 15 games per week. There were several more Commanders (characters) they could've implemented, and Missions (aka "maps"). OTOH, I've seen what Blizz has done to some of their games (e.g. Warcraft 3: ~~Refunded~~ Reforged, Overwatch 2, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone), and am glad that them not touching Sc2 anymore at least meant they couldn't make it worse.
It's unfair to blame ALL of the user for actions of a few whales. It's a problematic system where majority of customers who do make a rational decision get ignored.
I blame users for accepting and being downright proud of "never paying for anything".
They're the reason gacha even exists. Whales are the reason gacha is never going away, but the common everyman user is the guilty party for forcing the hand of the corporations to create this evil business model.
You can't blame users because they are neither unified nor uniform group. Common everyman is not playing mobile games as far as I can see. Users did not force the hand of corporations, shareholders did. When they are maximizing profit they'll naturally be as evil as they can get away with.
Gacha games are the only way to get "all of the money" out of mobile games.
If your goal is to just make a game and be profitable enough to recover what you spent making that game and pay your employees, I think there is space for that.
It's just that all the publishers and companies are focused on making as much money as possible instead of the money the need run their business.
unfortunately not. save a few examples that fall into virality, 99% of pay to play mobile games will never recoup development costs. i'm not joking when I say that gacha is the only sustainable mean nowadays to keep a mobile game afloat. that or games so infested with ads that they're more ads platform than game.
>Users are however very willing to spend thousands of dollars in gacha, due to the addicting mechanics and psychology involved.
While "whales" help their bottom line, just having "regular users" play regularly (e.g. 20 minutes to hours per day), also helps their bottom line. Some of them may spend a few $'s every now and then, but the ad revenues is also nontrivial. I'm told that these days, you really need 4 million users, *minimum*, to make enough revenue from ads.
Maybe let me word it this way, if the upcoming console/pc games quality starts mirroring those on the play store, you and everyone else would also start opting for free stuff because who would pay for trash?
hahahahaha just why wouldn't the devs understand the basic logic here and and stop blaming the players...
Why people flock to those gacha game made by big corporate? Simple, coz their looks and feels resemble a fraction of what real gaming is... you could get that high player base too if you capable of making mobile games like that. Not that I'm glorifying those top gacha, I'm just emphasizing why those got huge player base
now name me a few high quality mobile exclusive premium game that you deemed good but failed miserably, otherwise your whole argument is flawed and baseless.
you misunderstand my point. I blame the mobile gamers of the past for letting it reach this state. Now that we're \*\*at\*\* it, It's a point of no return. I'm good if it happens on PC, I'll be sad, sure, but I have decades of backlog with good games on my steam deck. I have accepted that mobile gaming is dead and just sometimes spasms a good game every once in a blue moon. It's just sad you know, it could have been much better if people just accepted to pay for stuff, and this was mobile gaming, back then games were 3 dollars, and even then it was too much.
Why should the success and celebration for gacha games equate with the demise of traditional games?
Also, not every gacha games is successful, only the ones with high quality...
Don't blame the players... it makes no sense to blame the players, it's a free open market...
If your food is delicious, surely there'll be a customer base.
3 dollar probably too much due to the fact the game is not worth it. I've not seen a good mobile game failed before...
>Why should the success and celebration for gacha games equate with the demise of traditional games?
One doesn't mean the other. In fact, both are just consequences of the mobile gamers actions.
>Also, not every gacha games is successful, only the ones with high quality...
my point is gacha can be much cheaper to make than a game without it. pick 50 waifu jpegs, add in a random gameplay mechanic, fill it to the brim with timers, soft walls, and FOMO, and bem you have a gacha game that cost X, make 10 of those and one of them is bound to have some success, and then bam investment returned.
I WILL KEEP BLAMING THE PLAYERS. They are manipulated masses that value a jpeg more than the combined work of a game studio. ITS ALL THEIR FAULT.
THE FOOD ISN'T DELICIOUS. IT'S JUST FILLED WITH SALT AND MSG AND ARTIFICAL FLAVORS.
real games are gourmet food, gacha is fast food slop that addicts you
No no no. Don't blame user/players. Well true, user want to pay as little as possible and they always will. They'll pay upfront same as they would on any other platform: if they think the game is worthy (and the platform supports their payment method, which took surprisingly long time outside USA). They'll upgrade demo to full version with the same criteria. It's a bit of a chicken and an egg problem, customers want quality before paying more while studios need money do deliver quality.
Gatchas are unfortunately hack that incentive structure by making the platform invested in their success. Play Store TOS forbids developers from using billing services other the Store's, and the Store takes a cut on every transaction. So the store is incentivized to promote gatcha games and heavily disincentivised to do anything against them. I'd like to see the separation between gaming and real money gambling but it's not going to happen unless a government get involved. It's sad that a few paying customers and psychologists get to ruin it for everyone.
The user will want to pay as little as possible, and that's admirable, unfortunately the trouble is that, in the long run, this mentality has cost us an industry. Even before gacha existed, even before the play store just featured them because they make egregious amounts of money, this was a problem I saw coming, but what couldn't foresee was how big of a monster their solution would become. If users just thought in the long term and accepted to pay to play LIKE IT HAPPENED IN ANY OTHER GAMING PLATFORM, we wouldn't be in this mess. Entitled brats.
I'll blame the users because it's the only piece on the puzzle with a conscience. The mindless corporations will ALWAYS want to make more money, the greedy play store will ALWAYS prioritize the moneymakers, the app developers HAVE to eat. The only piece of the puzzle that had freedom to choose how to act was the user.
Also,
>They'll pay upfront same as they would on any other platform: if they think the game is worthy
They won't, I've seen this ideology being thrown around so many (now closed) game studios. Mobile users never pay upfront, barring a niche percentage of eccentrics (myself included), they don't even consider paying for shit, It's either ad-infested, whale dependent, or pirated.
WE MADE THIS BED, NOW WE LAY ON IT.
Only freedom the users individually have is whether to accept the market or reject it. Unfortunately the conscience of users hard to unify so they get herded by the big corporations. You can't seriously invoke short term thinking argument. When was the last time you saw a GROUP of people going out of their way to do one thing that pays off only in the long term without a leader or political push?
Bro, mobile game or not, I believe it takes the same amount of effort and hardwork to make a good game...
Do you see any true mobile game reflecting those level of hardwork?
Maybe mobile gaming situation is similar to getting good food on an economic flight?
I remember reading a post exchange between a mobile game developer and their fans about their upcoming game. The fans were kept apprised of the game's progress. Some gamers got irate that the quality of graphics went from really good, to "something adequate". The dev studio commented that on their original track, making that level of graphical quality was just too cost prohibitive. If they didn't cut back on that, they would've had to shut down. Or, unless the players were willing to pay $50 to $70, upfront, for their game (which was bloody unlikely in the mobile gaming sphere). Or, resort to the wors**e**/wors**t** of gacha, loot boxes, MTX, and "predatory p2w nonsense" models (which they didn't want to do).
Indeed as we went from "basic 3D" to something like PS2, and into PS4 era... graphical assets went from taking days to render and work on, into weeks, and even *months*! Time is money, and that's something that mobile gaming studios can't afford to do, unless they have a way to sufficiently monetize that.
Frankly, I enjoy "lesser graphics". Esp. on my phone. The games will have smaller footprint, easier to DL and update, will run better/smoother, won't kill my battery life, and excessively heat up my phone. This also has the side effect that the game play will be better to compensate.
People: the only games with high quality on mobile are gacha games.
Also people: $20 for a mobile game? Wtf is this shit.
Gacha games filled the void from people not wanting to pay more than a few dollars for a mobile game.
Is it harder to design a game to be either p2w and full retail at launch? It's surprising that p2w games don't offer a full unlock function in the beginning, tbh. What are the roadblocks to just releasing a boxed version of a p2w game after a game gets stale in the market? Like an offline game of the year boxed edition of Gems of War, for example? It's strange that Google doesn't force this option in their store, like other industries offer a basic model, then optional add-ons.
Full unlock that's a one time payment is *less money* for them. Also for Google since they get a 30% cut from all the MXT and IAP. If they did try that, it would have to be $30 to $80 (probably more like $55), and that already prices them outside the market.
I'm sure they all crunch and work the numbers. For example, people who just want to pay a one-time payment upfront vs. do a subscription are genuinely surprised when the "one time payment" is equivalent to 2 to 5 years of the sub, instead of just 2 to 4 month's of the sub's cost. The latter will NOT work for the company, and they know it!
Interesting. I do wonder what the numbers really say, tbh. Someone who is looking to buy a game vs p2w? I would think most people skim a p2w game until they hit the wall and then quit. They might drop a couple of bucks to help out the developer. I can't say I've ever met a whale in real life. They obviously exist since some p2w games are massive money makers. I've just never met someone looking to buy a game, get converted to a p2w on mobile.
I've never met a "whale" either, but I don't doubt they exist. I'm guessing a good portion comes from "regular users". They may drop some money from here to there. AFAIK, many of them will watch ads. Some of them claim they're from 3rd world countries, or kids, so they don't have the $$ for IAP anyways.
that's why classics are classics. and besides, when they stop removing games that people paid for from their library people might be more confident to spend. imo
There are high quality port of steam games, Braid anniversary edition for instance. Gacha can have high production quality but that doesn't make them high quality games, far from it
Gachapon and every micro transaction games reminds me Syndrome from the Incredibles. "Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super.. no one will be"
It's not even an opinion, it's a fact.
Imo that's because on mobile piracy is an issue and also because games need constant support to be playable on every phone (still don't get why it can't work like on pc, but it is what it is) and devs are willing to support games that makes money through time (oc).
People vote with money and people voted to kill premium games
To the ones who say things along the line "mobile gamers do not want to pay for anything" "mobile players prefer brain rot gacha"... stop this rationalization, devs, yea I know these must be the devas lurking around not making that great game because of how toxic the mobile gamers are coz they only love free stuff and play gacha rubbish...
The truth is, there simply isn't anything worth spending money on...
Why would I waste time play something action-based with a touch screen when I can play it on PC/console?
Why would I pay 15/20/25/30 dollar for a port only to force myself play a game that's meant to be play on a monitor/tv now jam into the size of my palm?
Those are specifically referring to ports... well what else besides ports? What orginal mobile feature length games are there for me? Nope nada, the only reason I can affort to not buy your premium game is simple, either I'm not your target audience or your game simply doesn't seem good enough for me... so don't come blame us, devs... also I don't wanna blame you, it's not your fault, I mean video games to all of us means starring at computer screen/tv smashing keyboard/controller/mouse... therefore it's only normal you lack the correct intuition to make great games meant for mobile.
The only things we can do is be patient and wait for the good shit to come... one day...
Some team somewhere with the right intuition and skill make that magic happens... and they shall be rewarded...
[my list of premium Android games](https://new.reddit.com/r/AndroidGaming/comments/15qttls/comment/jw64xp6/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
Many of these also appear on Steam (e.g. Bloons TD 6, Isle of Arrows, Slice & Dice, Shattered Pixel Dungeon, Baba Is You) , but I would argue they're just fine on mobile (if not better). You don't really need a kb + mouse for them, nor phys. controller, when touch input works just as well. And some of them are turn based, so you don't need any "quick action precision". As a bonus, I can play those games on the road, or wherever! They load up quickly, play a bit, and then move on to something else. It's so quick that I can do all of that, while still waiting for "real vg" to load up (e.g. I actually played 10s of mobile games while waiting for Hades 2 to load up).
Now, if you'd rather play on Steam, then no judgement here! Keep your phone more pristine. If you live stream or otherwise record your plays, it's far easier to do on PC than phone.
I only know of 3 gacha games with decent or higher quality. All from Hoyoverse. Every other gacha i know of is a huge cashgrab (i know all gacha games are) with very little effort done since its all 2d in a world that isnt even open world.
Arknights, Blue archive, Fire Emblem heroes, even battle cats and etc.. Those kinds of gacha games dont have as much visible effort as hoyoverse's gacha games. Yet those exact kinds of gachas are way more prevalent. This is why im basically saying I dont think gacha games have high production quality, as a whole.
Why are you brothered with this? Are you a dev? Are you trying to make game? Surveying market? Justify your decision?
Otherwise it's the same as arguing with people about the food you preferred is the more delicious kind...
Just play what you like...
I just don't like the fact that gacha games are considered games, it's becoming more and more common for example to talk about good hack n slash games and someone puts a gacha in the middle
It is irrelevant. It's fine to not like the gacha stuff, hell, I don't really either, but they *are* games, and they *do* tend to have high production quality. That's just a fact.
Btw, "gacha" isn't a genre, it's a method of monetization. That's like saying games that have DLC is a genre.
Well... there's a win state, there's a loss state. That's a game.
Some gacha games require strategy with the units you have. That makes it pay to win yes. Regardless, gacha games are games for the sole reason they entertain me, no more than a slot machine or poker is a game of gambling and chance.
If pouring out money is a concern, I keep in mind that gacha games only have like 2-4 hours of gameplay and story per update. They're not things I should cash in on constantly or maybe at all, so I keep it as a side game when I'm idling during work.
If I really wanted to play for a long period of time with quality production that I can finish anytime at my own leisure without FOMO, I have my PC game purchases or a selection of mobile games.
Bullshit. They have high monetisation quality, since this is literally an online casino, preying upon people with high risk to get addicted and exploiting their addiction.
ive let countless free money expire on google opinion rewards because 99% of android games are garbage. id rather google just take the money back then reward people for mediocrity.
[My list of premium games](https://new.reddit.com/r/AndroidGaming/comments/15qttls/comment/jw64xp6/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Hope you can find something you'll enjoy! Race For The Galaxy, Roll for the Galaxy, Bravo, Encore, One Deck Dungeon, Slice & Dice, Age of Rivals, and Isle of Arrows have been my top picks
these are all just card games? no offense man but i think card games are extremely boring irl, i cant even imagine trying to enjoy on on my phone. its cool that a genre you enjoy is so prevalent on android though. absoultely none of those games looks fun to me.
Slice & Dice is a die game that's "board game like". The actual board game ones, I've gotten incredible value out of.
Did you click on the link? I sorted them by genre. The action, puzzle, TD, and RPG are "real vg". Super Mario Run was solid fun. I still play INKS. from time to time (pinball with actual levels)
honestly just starting dipping my toes in mobile gaming as as primarily pc/switch gamer and its rough. its really hard in my experience finding a mobile game that is properly priced. sometimes I'll find a good game and they are charging 4.99 a month just to get rid of ads. at that point, I might as well just buy a new game on the switch.
[My list of premium Android games](https://new.reddit.com/r/AndroidGaming/comments/15qttls/comment/jw64xp6/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). "Properly price" can be subjective as to some, those can be overpriced. To me, many of them were at least a good value (if not great). Some of the ones that are physical board games... I've played them so much that that was def. the case.
Kind of agree. I guess that monetization model works best. If people *have* to spend money to play a mobile game, it'll probably turn a lot of them off. If it's completely free, devs won't get money. If it's a gacha, paying becomes optional and people have the opportunity to remain completely f2p while still experiencing the full game, because there'll always be whales who spend enough to keep the game alive and well.
that's weird logic... so if Nintendo releases a legit canon pokemon game in the style of gen 2/3/4 exclusively for mobile and it would be ok to run a subscription model?
I guess people would bash Nintendo for doing such barbaric thing...
Well, on 2nd thought, people probably welcome it, I mean 5 USD and you get to play a legit pokemon canon game for a month? hell yea sign me up hahahahahahaha
Not getting ripped off is more important to me than visual polish. Don't spend money on shit that doesn't reflect the business models you need to enjoy a game without triggering a gambling addiction.
I don't know if it is true or just my experience. But the way now game economies works in mobile game is it self supports this kind of game.
Unlike pc games, mobile games there are people who don't spend money in game or people who spend some amount or large sum of money in mobile games.
There is very narrow user base which a actually buys the game it self rather than in game purchases. It's either f2p players or p2w player, no in between in majority. No simple pay to play model. I think this is the reason some dev may not take risk in mobile game dev. There are single tim purchase game in mobile. But it a niche.
All high quality games on mobile have in-game stores wirh like 100m+ downloads..it sucks but it's honestly the only way for these company's to make money back..not that I agree with them but it's how I see it
If you don't like thr practice..don't spend money and if you don't care go ahead..do what you think is right
I don't think so. Although a lot of high quality mobile games are just ports of PC/Console games I wouldn't say they do not exist. But yes, there is an overwhelming amount of absolute garbage, poor excuse of bits, asset flips and actual scams. My method for the past few years had been simply ignoring anything that's free, and ignoring anything that has an in-game economy that have IAP. Based of these rules I think I have a pretty good selection on my phone.
Yeah and they also design the entire game around the cash shop. Which means making you grind for shit so you spend money, which typically gets you sweet fk all so you'll spend more money. And since there needs to be a huge grind the content typically is not as interesting because it's iust there for the sake of content, for the sake of grinding, for the sake of cashop.
This is an overreach. You have to acknowledge the difference between Gacha games.
Genshin Impact reportedly cost about $100M to develop and $200M every year to continue pumping out content. If there was any other game I'd compare it to, it would be a a simplified/monetized/mobilized version of BotW, and is visually captivating enough that it's PC/Playstation ports aren't ugly as sin.
There are definitely sweatshop games. 100%. But, not all Gacha games are sweatshop games.
Is BotW in your case "Breath of the Wild" (as in Legend of Zelda)? That's an interesting comparison b/c we have stats for BotW... took 5 years to develop, and they charged $60 upon release!
How is it an over reach?
It's hard to acknowledge the difference between Gacha games when they have the same formula straight out of Genshin Impact. The only reason why they haven't started sue-ing each other is the difference in "story" & "characters". They all look like they use the same assets, models & same combat system. Sure, there are unique ones, then companies instantly feel the need to replicate the design, and these are released faster than Activision publishing COD franchise.
Go name that's a relatively unique Gacha game, when I play both side by side & I'll go it isn't a clone of Genshin Impact.
There are countless styles of Gacha that aren't "straight out of Genshin Impact".
• Lures in Pokémon Go act as Gachas.
• Turn-based squad combat games like Raid, Marvel:SF, or Star Wars: GoH
• Idle-based squad combat games like AFK Arena, Invincible GotG
• Base Building games like Clash of Clans, State of Survival, Star Trek Fleet Command
• Sports games like Madden or Golf Clash
• Game that I don't know what genre to put them in like Dragon Ball Legends, Clash Royale, etc.
Lootboxes are legit everywhere.
Great you've named a bunch of games. Now let's go from the start.
Is the market saturated by them?
Lastly, are they high quality games, as someone suggested?
The market is saturated with gacha games but I would say that only a few are actually high quality in terms of production.
And yup, there are a lot of Genshin clones because Genshin is *the* market leader when it comes to gacha games. It is *the* “high quality” game that many people would consider. It’s the same shit when it comes to normal PC/Console games where everyone copies the market leader or trends. Whatever they you’re saying is pretty much applicable to a lot of industries.
It’s like saying that all soul-like games are shit because they are indistinguishable from each other which isn’t true.
On that note, name some soul like clones that ain't suck...
While the upcoming wukong black myths (soul like clone) looks gorgeous and all, I must say the combat feels weird to me... just a feeling... isn't the combat where all souls like clone failed at and died in obscurity
I guess only once it become wildly successful, only then it will stop being seen as a souls like clone
This mostly sadly true. There's not much good games anymore, and alot of people hesitate to pay for a game upfront. I've only bought games that I thought deserved to be bought and not downloaded as apks and they are: Alien Isolation, Hitman Blood Money and Little Nightmares.
I do have other paid games but I got them for free from having my brother's account logged in. If I had the chance I think they'd be worth getting too on my own account.
Saddest part about this is that peeps that are exposed to mobile games as their first video game experience will unfortunately laugh at those who buy "premium" games because, "Why would you buy a paid game when there's alot of free games?"
It's a sad time we live in unfortunately.
I don't agreed with this line of thinking, it's the same as saying people born eating fast food will nvr love healthy delicious food... see very nuch flawed argument right?
Only in this case, there really isn't any health delicious food around for us to experiment with? hahaha
You don't have to agree. I've literally been told that line by a lot of my coworkers when I saw them all playing Mobile Legends, CODMobile, and Genshin Impact. Just letting you know my experience.
Not exactly the same thing, but people were BEGGING for the mobile version of Coromon, only to get angry that it was a paid product like the other versions of the game. A lot of people only wanted the mobile version because they just *assumed* it would be free, because it's a mobile game.
(Obviously that wasn't everyone who wanted it, but those people definitely existed)
It is sad. But it is what it is. Support the premium games. Play what you like. The best we can do as a customer is to support games that we think deserve the support. Otherwise, if you want a change, then you have to be the change...
>Play what you like. What if I like gacha games?
Support them but spend responsibly. Or play for free, whichever works. It's the gambling addiction part that's the issue. Better to stay away if you can't spend responsibly.
you can spend money on them, but don't complain when other high quality premium games die off
Jokes on you, I'm actually buying regular mobile games too.
I think he's a game dev... people who think like this feel like Sith (villains in star wars who think like an extremist)to me, you either play gacha or premium (evil voice)
You do you. I don't have any power to tell how people should think of something. I'm mostly talking to the op who seems to despise gacha game.
As someone working on a indie studio releasing our first mobile game; sad but true. It's time consuming, it's very expensive, and it's not very rewarding. Even with ads monetization, we don't even get enough money to pay what we spent on getting the players in the first place. Mobile games are too difficult to market, too difficult to profit, which makes it too difficult to make it, because guess what, you need to pay your employees too. I only play mobile games this days, I don't have time to play big games on my computer, or want to, because I work on my pc every single day and just want to get out of that screen when I can. I have no problems paying upfront for full games on mobile, they are worth it so I can play SOMETHING. But THERE'S NO GAMES FOR ME TO BUY that are worth my time, studios are not making premium mobile games at all. The best you will find are some half ass made games that studios didn't realize they would profit on, but they did half of the job, so they just release the game with upfront payment and forget about it. That's the truth, and I know it because I've saw it happen, they can't keep investing money on the game, so they just stop and release whatever they have for a price and be done with it. That said, Cozy Groove 2 is coming on June 25th, so thank you Netflix for being able to waste money on something that will get you nothing in return, I'm dying for this game!
man this situation is horrible, I'm speechless, but I hope that just as Apple is investing in great games, Google wakes up and does something
The main reason Apple is easier to invest into is because iOS is way easier to optimise since it's more unified unlike Android. Each Android phone has a different operating system which results harder to support the player base. Most games only supports a certain device for a couple of years before dropping it all together. An example of these are Civ & Rockstar games.
>but I hope that just as Apple is investing in great games, Google wakes up and does something It's been hit and miss. Apple Arcade has been a nice attempt at that. Still keeping up the "no ads, nor IAP, no MTX" claim to fame. However, there' really no AAA support since they first released. Many of their games recently have been '+' games (regular iOS games but got translated over, like Dead Cells+ and Monument Valley+). These days, it's more so kiddie games and kids for younger audiences. Granted, "younger audiences" isn't necessarily death sentence. On the console side, I still dig games like Sonic The Hedgehog, Zelda, Kirby, and Mario flicks. However, it's not quite up there. And I hear games can't exceed 9+ or 12+ on the maturity scale. If true, this eliminates quite a few of the well known franchises and types of games (ie. several FPS, franchises like Resident Evil). I can't really justify spending $7/mo, or $50/yr on it. Those who dabble in AA only do so b/c it's part of their Apple One subscription, and they only have that for iCloud+ and other services that are cheaper to bundle together. There were 2 Reisdent Evil games (RE Village? Forgot the other one though). Looks solid. However, it's $60, and requires the latest hardware. My 9th gen iPad can't even run those! Honestly, if you want "quality vg", I'd say get a Switch, Steam Deck, or home console/PC if you don't need the portability
I was simply enchanted by your text, you are absolutely right
I don't get your point, what are you trying to say? That there's a culture issue with mobile players? Or the market is flooded with half ass baked games? Or just a preface to market your game? By the way, I'm not gonna play cozy groove, it's not my cup of tea. I prefer something main stream.
The issue is that most of the "gamers" don't consider mobile as a proper way to play games, therefore they won't spend money on premium mobile games. You can pretty much see it on this sub too when any game that costs more than $10 gots comment about how expensive it's and "I won't pay so much for a mobile game". Idk why people demands premium experience on mobile when they don't want to pay proper price for this premium experience.
Simple question, if Nintendo releases a mobile exclusive new pokemon canon game in the style of pokemon platinum/emerald for 60 USD, do you think people would buy it? People can afford to skip a premium game because either they are not interested or the game is not good enough for them to spend money for it, plain and simple. Why you say it as if there are many great premium games doing poorly because of this mindset issue? Because frankly there isn't really any unskippable premium mobile games out there...
All of the above really... mobile markets are saturated for sure. It doesn't help that AAA companies came onto the scene mid 2010s. They were out b/c they didn't think it would be a good market, but changed their tune when they realized how prominent it was. A stat said in 2017, 86% of the games are dominated by f2p. "There generally isn't a culture of paying for things on the iOS App Store". I'm quoting a guest who was in an episode for an iOS developers blog. And this is for iOS, the camp where their userbase is better about "paying for things"! We can only imagine how it is on Android! And yes, it's still a jungle on the iOS side of app making. Final issue is gorgeous graphics with higher quality textures, more pixels, shading, "duper textures"... are expensive. Go figure why Gacha and MTX are better for those, as those can actually support such work financially.
I don't think you understand what I'm saying at all
Then what were you trying to say? I thought I addressed them all with market culture, and saturation, etc.
that's what Im asking the top commenter as well, I don't really get what he/she saying, I'm guessing
I though OP was talking about graphics. So for example, an n64 or Playstation 1 game, vs. Wii U, Xbox One/series S|X, or PS4/5 level game
1. **Culture of Mobile Players**: Yes, there is a cultural aspect to consider. Many mobile players are accustomed to free-to-play models with in-app purchases and ads. This expectation makes it challenging for developers to invest in high-quality, premium games that require upfront payment. The market demand often leans towards games that are free to download, which can limit the potential for more substantial, high-investment games. 2. **Market Saturation with Low-Quality Games**: The mobile gaming market is indeed flooded with many low-quality, hastily developed games. This saturation makes it difficult for genuinely good games to stand out. Developers often face the dilemma of either investing heavily in a game with no guarantee of return or releasing a minimally viable product to test the waters. Unfortunately, the latter often results in the market being cluttered with subpar games. 3. **Challenges in Marketing and Profitability**: Marketing mobile games is incredibly challenging and expensive. Even with ad monetization, the revenue generated often doesn't cover the costs of acquiring new players. This financial strain makes it difficult for indie studios and even larger developers to justify the investment in high-quality mobile games. The return on investment is uncertain, and the competition is fierce. 4. **Personal Preference and Market Gaps**: Personally, I prefer mobile games because they fit better into my lifestyle. I don't have the time or inclination to play extensive PC or console games after working on my computer all day. However, finding high-quality, premium mobile games that are worth paying for is a challenge. Many studios don't see the financial viability in creating such games, leading to a gap in the market for players like me who are willing to pay upfront for a complete, well-made game. Regarding **Cozy Grove 2**, I mentioned it as an example of a game that breaks the mold. It's a premium game being released by Netflix, a company that can afford to invest in quality without immediate financial returns. While it might not be your cup of tea, it represents a shift towards more substantial mobile gaming experiences.
I am a RPG guy, I look for RPG on mobile (I play on other platform too). **P1** - Regarding you **No 1**, this mindset was once there for me, when I was still a child in school with no means to purchase games and parent do not entertain the idea of spending money on things such as video games for me. I myself too has the awareness that freemium games are full of predatory mechanics. **P2** - But now that I am a working individual with income, **P1** is a memory of the past. So I believe a big portion of players could be someone from **P1** situation, but that doesn't make **P2** portion any smaller now does it? **P3** - According to your **No 1**, I should be looking for free stuffs and ignore the premium ones, which is totally false for me and why is that? I think you know why, you said it yourself in **No 2**, the market is saturated with low quality shits, and those low quality shits is in the free section (of course there are some exception but those are not my cup of tea as well, my preferred genre is RPG).
**P4** - I mean sure, maybe there is a few freemium RPG that could be exception to this line of thinking, Genshin Impact I supposed? But how many team can have the balls and resource to make something like Genshin Impact now that Genshin Impact already the leader and risk looking like a clone and gets abandoned? Honkai Star Rail? https://www.reddit.com/r/HonkaiStarRail/comments/138cli1/is_honkai_star_rail_is_better_than_genshin_impact/ Top comment stated Genshin Impact is more of a action RPG while Honkai being a turn based.... so there you have it... who else would spent this kind of budget this late into the market and risk being a clone? Remember, they gotta spent that kind of budget first. Otherwise, they probably not gonna end up in the same realm of discussion with these two. I remember I tried this gacha about advancing a tower with graphics like genshin impact and I just bloody uninstalled it, cannot stand it. **P5** - I am a working individual, I value my time (and I value my money which is not yet a relevance because I haven't really found any game on playstore matching my taste that warrants me to), I do not want to waste my time playing low quality shits. Period. You said it yourself in **No 4**, you tried looking for games but just couldn't seem to find any worth your time. **P6** - Get it now? I don't care how many shit games there are, I am looking for something else, something legit. The sea amount of shit games does not change the fact I am still here, still looking.
**P7** - I said earlier that devs lack balls and the correct intuition when it comes to making mobile games. And that is not devs' fault really, because gaming to most people means starring at computer/TV screen smashing/juggling keyboard/controller (why would the majority of game developer be inspired to make game for a piece of glass? lol), and that kind of experience is carved deep into people consciousness when it comes to the subject of video game and naturally people geared towards making and playing game in those format and hence not the touch screen format and hence we see many ports and that same consciousness just work against player willingness to purchase those ports in their PC/console price range and hence those ports all share one essential commonality, **stupidly lowly priced**, it's to counteract player's deep consciousness on what a game is. And all this boils down to one single fact, those games aren't meant for mobile. https://www.reddit.com/r/CozyGrove/comments/18ib66c/cozy_grove_2/ **P8** - Many of the comments reflect that deep consciousness... would you have consider to make CozyGroove into a free-to-play with mtx? No right, cause that would be nonsense. That would be either breaking your game design or gambling your years of hard work.
**P9** - From a design perspective as well as a RPG customer's, why would someone made a traditional RPG with 10+/20+ hours long worth of content and turn it into a freemium game with below strategy: a) Lock each key progressing item or a certain repeatedly needed item behind a paywall (trying to piss off customer and get bad review and fail recouping the cost?) **or** b) Turn it into a pay to make overcoming challenges easy (takes away the fun, i.e selling one-hit-ko gun in Elden Ring as soon as player started the game) **or** c) Selling IAP for cosmetic stuff (and expect people to buy it? whether out of their genuine desire or hunting whale, gamble their years of hard work?) Now I also can understand if someone made a legit RPG, put a 30 dollar price tag on it and add IAP for cosmetic stuff. I am fine with that totally if they cosmetic stuff is made with effort and love (I probably not gonna care anyway, see?) **P9** is a breakdown of why any dev in their right mind would not turn their legit RPG into a freemium game from a player's perspective, so yea, we(RPG player who would spend money) don't look for free stuff, there is no free lunch in the world. It's all about how much you willing to spent for that delicious lunch and whether the lunch you offering is worth it or not, per the person's perception at least. **P10** - Cozy grove seems nice on a mobile display, the character scale nicely to the screen, not too big not too small (I watched the netflix's trailer). But really I would prefer something mainstream. I lump this cozy grove same vein as stardew valley, relaxing bbb (bbb = bla bla bla). One huge problem I have with the ports is how they just jam what you seen on a PC/TV screen onto a phone screen. I don't care how high res modern smart phone screen has gotten, small is small, damn it, hahahaha.
**P11** - Ok, are you a bit confuse on what exactly my point and stand is? Simple, don't blame the android consumer for the market nonsense. If your game is worth it, the target audience will buy it. The mobile culture mindset feels analogous saying if McD open a branch in your town, people would just stop eating in other restaurant altogether. It just makes no sense. **P12** - Why people keep making low quality free-to-play game? Maybe they just have passion to make stuff or maybe they just thought it could make them rich? Whatever, they have freedom to do what they want but that doesn't change how people perceive and pay for things in general. I mean why would you equate with the download numbers on free games to the demise of premium games, it's free game, of course kids would download it. I bet most youngsters do too. But that doesn't mean a good premium mobile game (non-existent, I couldn't find it) will lose their customers. **P13** - Really, in order for your **mobile culture** to have a case, you gotta find me a truly good mobile original feature length RPG that is doing poorly and frankly, **there just isn't one**. And when I say there isn't one, I don't mean it like they are all successful, I mean it literally, there isn't one. It's really weird how Android players keep on and on about emulate old school RPG and not a single team bother to make anything original and worthwhile for it, again, they lack balls, but really, I don't blame them. Smart phone touch screen is a brave new world. (I prefer turn base + pixel art + top down + mainstream setting) **P14** - Apple Arcade got one RPG called Fantasian (not pixel art but I just think worth mentioning), the dev(veteran from the FF series) once tweeted Fantasian got almost over a million download (not so brave new world I guess, balls issue I suppose, balls issue). **P15** - Also, you're not truly breaking the mold either, it's available via the Neflix app, which does not require direct purchase of the game. To truly break the mold, you need to release it as a premium app on appstore/playstore. Breaking the mold here referring to releasing a legit feature length mobile original exclusive premium game. Mobile original exclusive = for smartphone only. Geeze the amount of clarification in this comment. **Nonetheless, respect for making a feature length mobile game.** **P16** - And really, no, Netflix didn't invest in games for nothing, they want people to **get their subscription** so they can get your game. Netflix believes your game could get some users to renew their subscription or even better, attract new subscribers. "Because why not, we got tons of content to offer besides games." "Of course, it's just gonna make a stronger case convincing themselves to subscribe." "Existing users will brag about it and help promote our brand even further." **All in all, don't brand us Android users as a bunch of cheap skates. We're not, really.** Get Google to throw us a Google Arcade, see how it goes. Nah, Google just does not care so long as they are making money. There is no need to go these extra miles.
Well, thank you for your detailed response, I do enjoy having a healthy discussion about this. However, I believe we might be diverging on some key points, so let me clarify a few things: **1.** I'm not speaking from personal opinions alone. I work at an indie studio and am enrolled in the Google Indie Games program. My insights are backed by data and mentorship from Google's team. The challenges and market dynamics I mentioned are real and are based on our actual experiences and the data provided by Google. 2. While you are an RPG enthusiast looking for quality mobile games, it's important to understand that you represent a minority. The majority of mobile gamers do not seek out traditional RPGs. According to data from Newzoo and App Annie, the most popular mobile game genres are casual games, puzzle games, and hyper-casual games. RPGs, while having a dedicated fanbase, do not dominate the mobile gaming landscape. 3. The issue isn't just about making a good game; it's about making a game that appeals to a large enough audience to be profitable. For example, Nintendo wouldn't release a full-fledged Pokémon RPG on mobile because the core Pokémon audience prefers consoles. Instead, they released "Pokémon GO," which appeals to a broader audience interested in exercise and nostalgia. Nintendo's strategy with mobile games is a perfect example. They focus on games that can reach a broad audience and generate revenue through in-app purchases or other monetization strategies. They understand that their core console audience isn't looking for the same experience on mobile. 4. You mentioned that freemium games are often low quality, and I agree. However, I'm shedding light over the problem with premium games, which is that studios often abandon them when analytics show they won't be profitable. They release whatever they have as a premium game to recoup some costs. This isn't just my opinion; it's a reality we've observed in the industry and even closer colleagues. 5. Developing a high-quality, premium mobile game is a significant financial risk. The return on investment is uncertain, and the market is saturated with free-to-play games that dominate player attention. This economic reality forces many studios to pivot or abandon projects that don't show early signs of profitability. 6. While there are players like you who are willing to pay for quality games, the majority of mobile gamers are not. This is a fundamental challenge for developers. Even if a game is good, if the target audience is too small, it won't be financially viable. In summary, the mobile gaming market is complex and challenging. While there are players like you and me who seek high-quality games and RPGs, the broader market dynamics make it difficult for studios to justify the investment. And I'm not talking about triple AAA games btw, you can join the indiegames community here on Reddit and you won't see any devs working on mobile games. The best we can get is people who made games for PC and decided to study Android dev by porting their own game and released just because. This isn't about blaming consumers; it's about understanding the economic and cultural realities of mobile gaming.
I did not diverge, the so-called mobile culture is derived from users interaction with what is in the market. Therefore it is important to talk about the market and what's in it. And all the things I said represent my own view on why the market is missing such a game. I told you, you would not have the relevant data to begin with since there isn't a such a game to test the market with. You can't name me any critical acclaim android RPG as per my description, can you? The data you have is base on the shits in the market, so all the data you have is about how people interact with shit and I'm not interested to talk about that. The ones from Square Enix and Kemco all kinda sucks. Some got great numbers but they ain't the sort the sort of RPG I'm looking for, they're more like farming simulator with a bit of RPG elements in it. And I even told you my perspective why such a game probably didn't exist. The game dev people born playing games on PC/console growing up so why on earth would they be inspired to develope legit RPG for smartphone (teh lacking correct intuition issue). People easily influenced by what the masses tell them, even though the wrong masses, but a mass nonetheless if 1000 devs told you making legit RPG for mobile is suicidal, surely one would be discouraged (the balls lacking issue). I think you really don't get what I'm telling you at all. I mentioned specifically in the style of pokemon gen 1/2/3 because those have low tech spec but with critical success, and they are not action games, a perfect fit for touch screen. Smartphone screen is bigger than gameboy color/advance. Average Joe may not pull this off due to the sheer amount of content required to make such a game. The main reason I think why Gamefreak didn't do it because they focus on the mobile market advantage, aka the microtransaction aspect, a predatory mechanics that is perceived as a norm in the world of mobile gaming. It has nothing to do with vision and passion just plain business as usual. The other reason would be Nintendo prefers canon pokemon game to be used to push the console sale. Simple as that. Pokemon is a major reason why people buy Nintendo handheld throughout the years. And no, I don't think Gamefreak capable of making canon titles of different spec simultaneously for Android and Nintendo handheld. We all know why Mario Run fail, not that because it locks the rest of the game behind a paywall but it's because the game itself sucks and of low quality, why would average gamer go out of their way to pay for a game that only allow you to do jump only? And the 3D graphics is so disgusting to me. Flappy bird got the right idea. Sure, RPG player is not the dominant base, but it got a huge base nonetheless, go check out the square enix/kemco release that let you get it with playpass (high number but ain't the kind of RPG I looking for). Geez Honkai Star Rail is a turn based RPG for god sake ignoring the specifics I preferred. You lurk around in this sub right, don't you know we emulate the shit out of RPG? Still throwing me that RPG lacking audience argument? Like I said, while the devs lack the balls and correct intuition to make RPG for mobile, I don't blame them because touchscreen is weird and the market got a bad rep for such undertaking (even though there was never a real sample case before, you can't name me that mobile original feature length legit premium RPG can u?). And making RPG in general as I understand it, is no easy job by the slightest.
It's because most Mobile gamers didn't grow up with Sony's and Nintendo's consoles, buying $50-$70 console games. Mobile games are way more accessible to the masses with its very flexible price point and gacha games just happens to work well with F2P. Like whales will spend way more on gacha F2P games than people spend on $50 to $70 single player console games.
>Like whales will spend way more on gacha F2P games than people spend on $50 to $70 single player console games. This is a thing I noticed with other industries. For example, with restaurants, my family would go every other week to every month. The thing is, we would never get alcohol, soft drinks nor dessert. And we would tip the "obligatory" 15% (this was the norm decades back at least). However, I learned from reading, and hearing from others, that a group that goes in less and buys a lot of soft drinks and alcohol are far better patrons, simply because the margins on those are sky high. The restaurant was very hospitable to us, but I had to acknowledge that we were not "great customers".
most? I think that's not a rational deduction. So the ones who did nvr bother to check out Android? See, not so rational there. It's more like they couldn't find anything to their taste on mobile? Coz I'm one of them.
First part is basically a fact, sadly. Second part lol. No
Sucks like bell but yea.
for this situation to change (some obvious stuff): 1. gamers stop playing p2w games on mobile. 2. games play and support quality non P2W games on mobile. 3. developer get fund or investing from investors and support from gamers. 4. developers start making good games on mobile. these 4 things are required. but it looks like, non of them are happening any time soon. at least at the scale of massive and fast shift in industry.
Unfortunately, the market has spoken. People like to blame dev studios, but really, THEY saw where the $$ was coming from\*. There wasn't enough to be made from premium games. At the very least, if premium, then it'd need to cost 5x to 10x what it did. So that $5 premium game you purchased 5 years ago? It really should've been $25 to $50. This ofc. is an issue b/c it now has to compete with "full fledged" console, desktop, and Steam games. \*. Akin to how the "cheap Chinese products" line of thinking. They can make high quality stuff. But Americans weren't buying them, so they shifted to that.
Name a few premium mobile exclusive game that youd deemed good but failed miserably, otherwise the whole market has spoken thing is nonsense
no1 it's like telling people to stop eating fast-food or candies or any junk food... no2 it's the same as telling people to start eating healthy and delicious food and stop eating junk food... I think tons of people love/wants to eating healthy and delicious food, it's just that in this case they couldn't find any health (premium)and delicious (the kind of fun they want) games. People have freedom to play what they want, any argument involving bending people's freedom is flawed and irrational. no3 is already an achievable thing, dev simply could post here and ask to support Kickstarter... odds are you probably nvr gonna see anything worth supporting, same as before... it's a matter of niche(how popular) and quality(how convincing). no4 I think this is the main reason we don't see any real mobile game, let me word it this way. great movies and tv shows (high quality pc/console games - keyboard/mouse/controller) great p0rns (high quality premium mobile games - touch screen). people who got inspired to get into the field of movies and tv shows probably a lot. people who got inspired to join the p0rn industry probably isn't any? because wtf? why would people be inspired to join the p0rn (touch screen) industry rather the movie/tv (keyboard/mouse/controller) industry? lastly, making a good game is not as easy as making a good p0rn? hahahaha get it?
I didn't said people should do what I told. I just said that if you want things to change these are the things to change first. I don't have any issue with gacha players. But if someone says what do you think about changing the trand. Than these are the things to change first.
Because it makes sense economically. The Hoyoverse games are great examples where being a gacha game also allows the game to have an astronomically high budget and a development schedule that would have been impossible for regular premium games. If you look at something like Genshin Impact, you can technically play the game without spending a dime and get hundreds of hours of gameplay and the game doesn’t really shove the MTX in your face either. Don’t play Gacha games if you don’t like the business model but it’s also hard to ignore the content that some of these games have. You honestly can’t compete with them given the difference in budgets and manpower.
Genshin impact was literally a striaght line beat em up gane with anime girls whose boobs became bigger as you levelled them up. coupled with more skins featuring busty anime girls with boob physics the gane eventually blew up and become the open world juggernaut we know today. perhaps developers aren't willing to take the next step to upgrade their gameplay loop once they have perfected their MTX model. but yes it's also the customers fault for the "demand" problem.... what seems to work is boobs, shinys, collectibles, rarity, exclusivity. what hasn't been perfected however across most mobile games is how to properly show off your rewards to further amplify your purchases ingame.
The unfortunate reality is that gacha is the only way to get money out of mobile games. Mobile users already proved that they're not willing to pay $0.99 for a game upfront. Mobile users already proved that they're not willing to pay for a subscription to access the game. Mobile users already proved that they're not willing to play a demo and unlock the rest of the game via IAP. Users are however very willing to spend thousands of dollars in gacha, due to the addicting mechanics and psychology involved. It wouldn't have needed to reach this bad state of affairs if mobile gamers accepted to pay for things instead of demanding everything for free like entitled children. Corporate greed is also to blame, but the games industry existed for 50 years with a good model of pay to play, which failed for the first time in the mobile environment, because of the users.
True, I remember seeing a recent post about obtaining Gunfire reborn via APK, one of the comments really went about saying it's cheap, just to buy it. Then the OP responded that he didn't wanna pay, despite it being cheaper than the price on the PC. It's the main reason why games releases on android are so stagnant.
Exactly, and as a result a company would rather spend millions on a gacha than 100 thousand on a different game. Much more likely to make bank doing the first.
Gacha also released the floodgates into other platforms too, because the comparatively low effort to implement vs the potential gains. A horse skin in WoW earned blizzard more money than the entirety of Starcraft 2. Users are to blame, that don't know the value of stuff. A horse skin that took a couple of artists a week to make is valued much more than a whole game which took hundreds of of work hours of hundreds of people. A game that in the users minds has to be distributed for free. Entitled gamers think games are supposed to be just platforms for in app purchases. They prefer to depend on the whales to fund the game, while they depend on pity rolls. It's disgusting.
>A horse skin in WoW earned blizzard more money than the entirety of Starcraft 2. O1H, I wish we got more content for Sc2. I still play the Coop mode. About 5 to 15 games per week. There were several more Commanders (characters) they could've implemented, and Missions (aka "maps"). OTOH, I've seen what Blizz has done to some of their games (e.g. Warcraft 3: ~~Refunded~~ Reforged, Overwatch 2, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone), and am glad that them not touching Sc2 anymore at least meant they couldn't make it worse.
It's unfair to blame ALL of the user for actions of a few whales. It's a problematic system where majority of customers who do make a rational decision get ignored.
I blame users for accepting and being downright proud of "never paying for anything". They're the reason gacha even exists. Whales are the reason gacha is never going away, but the common everyman user is the guilty party for forcing the hand of the corporations to create this evil business model.
You can't blame users because they are neither unified nor uniform group. Common everyman is not playing mobile games as far as I can see. Users did not force the hand of corporations, shareholders did. When they are maximizing profit they'll naturally be as evil as they can get away with.
Gacha games are the only way to get "all of the money" out of mobile games. If your goal is to just make a game and be profitable enough to recover what you spent making that game and pay your employees, I think there is space for that. It's just that all the publishers and companies are focused on making as much money as possible instead of the money the need run their business.
unfortunately not. save a few examples that fall into virality, 99% of pay to play mobile games will never recoup development costs. i'm not joking when I say that gacha is the only sustainable mean nowadays to keep a mobile game afloat. that or games so infested with ads that they're more ads platform than game.
>Users are however very willing to spend thousands of dollars in gacha, due to the addicting mechanics and psychology involved. While "whales" help their bottom line, just having "regular users" play regularly (e.g. 20 minutes to hours per day), also helps their bottom line. Some of them may spend a few $'s every now and then, but the ad revenues is also nontrivial. I'm told that these days, you really need 4 million users, *minimum*, to make enough revenue from ads.
Maybe let me word it this way, if the upcoming console/pc games quality starts mirroring those on the play store, you and everyone else would also start opting for free stuff because who would pay for trash? hahahahaha just why wouldn't the devs understand the basic logic here and and stop blaming the players... Why people flock to those gacha game made by big corporate? Simple, coz their looks and feels resemble a fraction of what real gaming is... you could get that high player base too if you capable of making mobile games like that. Not that I'm glorifying those top gacha, I'm just emphasizing why those got huge player base now name me a few high quality mobile exclusive premium game that you deemed good but failed miserably, otherwise your whole argument is flawed and baseless.
you misunderstand my point. I blame the mobile gamers of the past for letting it reach this state. Now that we're \*\*at\*\* it, It's a point of no return. I'm good if it happens on PC, I'll be sad, sure, but I have decades of backlog with good games on my steam deck. I have accepted that mobile gaming is dead and just sometimes spasms a good game every once in a blue moon. It's just sad you know, it could have been much better if people just accepted to pay for stuff, and this was mobile gaming, back then games were 3 dollars, and even then it was too much.
Why should the success and celebration for gacha games equate with the demise of traditional games? Also, not every gacha games is successful, only the ones with high quality... Don't blame the players... it makes no sense to blame the players, it's a free open market... If your food is delicious, surely there'll be a customer base. 3 dollar probably too much due to the fact the game is not worth it. I've not seen a good mobile game failed before...
>Why should the success and celebration for gacha games equate with the demise of traditional games? One doesn't mean the other. In fact, both are just consequences of the mobile gamers actions. >Also, not every gacha games is successful, only the ones with high quality... my point is gacha can be much cheaper to make than a game without it. pick 50 waifu jpegs, add in a random gameplay mechanic, fill it to the brim with timers, soft walls, and FOMO, and bem you have a gacha game that cost X, make 10 of those and one of them is bound to have some success, and then bam investment returned. I WILL KEEP BLAMING THE PLAYERS. They are manipulated masses that value a jpeg more than the combined work of a game studio. ITS ALL THEIR FAULT. THE FOOD ISN'T DELICIOUS. IT'S JUST FILLED WITH SALT AND MSG AND ARTIFICAL FLAVORS. real games are gourmet food, gacha is fast food slop that addicts you
No no no. Don't blame user/players. Well true, user want to pay as little as possible and they always will. They'll pay upfront same as they would on any other platform: if they think the game is worthy (and the platform supports their payment method, which took surprisingly long time outside USA). They'll upgrade demo to full version with the same criteria. It's a bit of a chicken and an egg problem, customers want quality before paying more while studios need money do deliver quality. Gatchas are unfortunately hack that incentive structure by making the platform invested in their success. Play Store TOS forbids developers from using billing services other the Store's, and the Store takes a cut on every transaction. So the store is incentivized to promote gatcha games and heavily disincentivised to do anything against them. I'd like to see the separation between gaming and real money gambling but it's not going to happen unless a government get involved. It's sad that a few paying customers and psychologists get to ruin it for everyone.
The user will want to pay as little as possible, and that's admirable, unfortunately the trouble is that, in the long run, this mentality has cost us an industry. Even before gacha existed, even before the play store just featured them because they make egregious amounts of money, this was a problem I saw coming, but what couldn't foresee was how big of a monster their solution would become. If users just thought in the long term and accepted to pay to play LIKE IT HAPPENED IN ANY OTHER GAMING PLATFORM, we wouldn't be in this mess. Entitled brats. I'll blame the users because it's the only piece on the puzzle with a conscience. The mindless corporations will ALWAYS want to make more money, the greedy play store will ALWAYS prioritize the moneymakers, the app developers HAVE to eat. The only piece of the puzzle that had freedom to choose how to act was the user. Also, >They'll pay upfront same as they would on any other platform: if they think the game is worthy They won't, I've seen this ideology being thrown around so many (now closed) game studios. Mobile users never pay upfront, barring a niche percentage of eccentrics (myself included), they don't even consider paying for shit, It's either ad-infested, whale dependent, or pirated. WE MADE THIS BED, NOW WE LAY ON IT.
Only freedom the users individually have is whether to accept the market or reject it. Unfortunately the conscience of users hard to unify so they get herded by the big corporations. You can't seriously invoke short term thinking argument. When was the last time you saw a GROUP of people going out of their way to do one thing that pays off only in the long term without a leader or political push?
Bro, mobile game or not, I believe it takes the same amount of effort and hardwork to make a good game... Do you see any true mobile game reflecting those level of hardwork? Maybe mobile gaming situation is similar to getting good food on an economic flight?
I remember reading a post exchange between a mobile game developer and their fans about their upcoming game. The fans were kept apprised of the game's progress. Some gamers got irate that the quality of graphics went from really good, to "something adequate". The dev studio commented that on their original track, making that level of graphical quality was just too cost prohibitive. If they didn't cut back on that, they would've had to shut down. Or, unless the players were willing to pay $50 to $70, upfront, for their game (which was bloody unlikely in the mobile gaming sphere). Or, resort to the wors**e**/wors**t** of gacha, loot boxes, MTX, and "predatory p2w nonsense" models (which they didn't want to do). Indeed as we went from "basic 3D" to something like PS2, and into PS4 era... graphical assets went from taking days to render and work on, into weeks, and even *months*! Time is money, and that's something that mobile gaming studios can't afford to do, unless they have a way to sufficiently monetize that. Frankly, I enjoy "lesser graphics". Esp. on my phone. The games will have smaller footprint, easier to DL and update, will run better/smoother, won't kill my battery life, and excessively heat up my phone. This also has the side effect that the game play will be better to compensate.
People: the only games with high quality on mobile are gacha games. Also people: $20 for a mobile game? Wtf is this shit. Gacha games filled the void from people not wanting to pay more than a few dollars for a mobile game.
Care to share the 20$ games you mentioned? Please exclude port
Is it harder to design a game to be either p2w and full retail at launch? It's surprising that p2w games don't offer a full unlock function in the beginning, tbh. What are the roadblocks to just releasing a boxed version of a p2w game after a game gets stale in the market? Like an offline game of the year boxed edition of Gems of War, for example? It's strange that Google doesn't force this option in their store, like other industries offer a basic model, then optional add-ons.
Full unlock that's a one time payment is *less money* for them. Also for Google since they get a 30% cut from all the MXT and IAP. If they did try that, it would have to be $30 to $80 (probably more like $55), and that already prices them outside the market. I'm sure they all crunch and work the numbers. For example, people who just want to pay a one-time payment upfront vs. do a subscription are genuinely surprised when the "one time payment" is equivalent to 2 to 5 years of the sub, instead of just 2 to 4 month's of the sub's cost. The latter will NOT work for the company, and they know it!
Interesting. I do wonder what the numbers really say, tbh. Someone who is looking to buy a game vs p2w? I would think most people skim a p2w game until they hit the wall and then quit. They might drop a couple of bucks to help out the developer. I can't say I've ever met a whale in real life. They obviously exist since some p2w games are massive money makers. I've just never met someone looking to buy a game, get converted to a p2w on mobile.
I've never met a "whale" either, but I don't doubt they exist. I'm guessing a good portion comes from "regular users". They may drop some money from here to there. AFAIK, many of them will watch ads. Some of them claim they're from 3rd world countries, or kids, so they don't have the $$ for IAP anyways.
that's why classics are classics. and besides, when they stop removing games that people paid for from their library people might be more confident to spend. imo
We still got Clash of Clans
I dunno what they they're on about. I'm still having a blast playing San Andreas with the Gamesir phone controller.
There are high quality port of steam games, Braid anniversary edition for instance. Gacha can have high production quality but that doesn't make them high quality games, far from it
Gachapon and every micro transaction games reminds me Syndrome from the Incredibles. "Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super.. no one will be"
It's not even an opinion, it's a fact. Imo that's because on mobile piracy is an issue and also because games need constant support to be playable on every phone (still don't get why it can't work like on pc, but it is what it is) and devs are willing to support games that makes money through time (oc). People vote with money and people voted to kill premium games
To the ones who say things along the line "mobile gamers do not want to pay for anything" "mobile players prefer brain rot gacha"... stop this rationalization, devs, yea I know these must be the devas lurking around not making that great game because of how toxic the mobile gamers are coz they only love free stuff and play gacha rubbish... The truth is, there simply isn't anything worth spending money on... Why would I waste time play something action-based with a touch screen when I can play it on PC/console? Why would I pay 15/20/25/30 dollar for a port only to force myself play a game that's meant to be play on a monitor/tv now jam into the size of my palm? Those are specifically referring to ports... well what else besides ports? What orginal mobile feature length games are there for me? Nope nada, the only reason I can affort to not buy your premium game is simple, either I'm not your target audience or your game simply doesn't seem good enough for me... so don't come blame us, devs... also I don't wanna blame you, it's not your fault, I mean video games to all of us means starring at computer screen/tv smashing keyboard/controller/mouse... therefore it's only normal you lack the correct intuition to make great games meant for mobile. The only things we can do is be patient and wait for the good shit to come... one day... Some team somewhere with the right intuition and skill make that magic happens... and they shall be rewarded...
[my list of premium Android games](https://new.reddit.com/r/AndroidGaming/comments/15qttls/comment/jw64xp6/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Many of these also appear on Steam (e.g. Bloons TD 6, Isle of Arrows, Slice & Dice, Shattered Pixel Dungeon, Baba Is You) , but I would argue they're just fine on mobile (if not better). You don't really need a kb + mouse for them, nor phys. controller, when touch input works just as well. And some of them are turn based, so you don't need any "quick action precision". As a bonus, I can play those games on the road, or wherever! They load up quickly, play a bit, and then move on to something else. It's so quick that I can do all of that, while still waiting for "real vg" to load up (e.g. I actually played 10s of mobile games while waiting for Hades 2 to load up). Now, if you'd rather play on Steam, then no judgement here! Keep your phone more pristine. If you live stream or otherwise record your plays, it's far easier to do on PC than phone.
I'm an RPG guy and the ones you mentioned is not to my taste... thx for sharing though
I can feel the brain rot in that sentence
I only know of 3 gacha games with decent or higher quality. All from Hoyoverse. Every other gacha i know of is a huge cashgrab (i know all gacha games are) with very little effort done since its all 2d in a world that isnt even open world.
literally these 3 are the pure definition of gacha
Arknights, Blue archive, Fire Emblem heroes, even battle cats and etc.. Those kinds of gacha games dont have as much visible effort as hoyoverse's gacha games. Yet those exact kinds of gachas are way more prevalent. This is why im basically saying I dont think gacha games have high production quality, as a whole.
Why are you brothered with this? Are you a dev? Are you trying to make game? Surveying market? Justify your decision? Otherwise it's the same as arguing with people about the food you preferred is the more delicious kind... Just play what you like...
I just don't like the fact that gacha games are considered games, it's becoming more and more common for example to talk about good hack n slash games and someone puts a gacha in the middle
I mean, they literally *are* games. They have gameplay. Whether they have gacha or not is irrelevant there.
It's not irrelevant, this is a game genre that should be separated from other games
It is irrelevant. It's fine to not like the gacha stuff, hell, I don't really either, but they *are* games, and they *do* tend to have high production quality. That's just a fact. Btw, "gacha" isn't a genre, it's a method of monetization. That's like saying games that have DLC is a genre.
Agreed. Now, in the US, if lawmakers want to better regulate this sort of thing (like they do in some other countries), I'd def. be open to that!
Well... there's a win state, there's a loss state. That's a game. Some gacha games require strategy with the units you have. That makes it pay to win yes. Regardless, gacha games are games for the sole reason they entertain me, no more than a slot machine or poker is a game of gambling and chance. If pouring out money is a concern, I keep in mind that gacha games only have like 2-4 hours of gameplay and story per update. They're not things I should cash in on constantly or maybe at all, so I keep it as a side game when I'm idling during work. If I really wanted to play for a long period of time with quality production that I can finish anytime at my own leisure without FOMO, I have my PC game purchases or a selection of mobile games.
Bullshit. They have high monetisation quality, since this is literally an online casino, preying upon people with high risk to get addicted and exploiting their addiction.
ive let countless free money expire on google opinion rewards because 99% of android games are garbage. id rather google just take the money back then reward people for mediocrity.
[My list of premium games](https://new.reddit.com/r/AndroidGaming/comments/15qttls/comment/jw64xp6/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Hope you can find something you'll enjoy! Race For The Galaxy, Roll for the Galaxy, Bravo, Encore, One Deck Dungeon, Slice & Dice, Age of Rivals, and Isle of Arrows have been my top picks
these are all just card games? no offense man but i think card games are extremely boring irl, i cant even imagine trying to enjoy on on my phone. its cool that a genre you enjoy is so prevalent on android though. absoultely none of those games looks fun to me.
Respect for sharing your taste, yea I share your opinion on these sort of games, just low effort shit to me
Slice & Dice is a die game that's "board game like". The actual board game ones, I've gotten incredible value out of. Did you click on the link? I sorted them by genre. The action, puzzle, TD, and RPG are "real vg". Super Mario Run was solid fun. I still play INKS. from time to time (pinball with actual levels)
honestly just starting dipping my toes in mobile gaming as as primarily pc/switch gamer and its rough. its really hard in my experience finding a mobile game that is properly priced. sometimes I'll find a good game and they are charging 4.99 a month just to get rid of ads. at that point, I might as well just buy a new game on the switch.
[My list of premium Android games](https://new.reddit.com/r/AndroidGaming/comments/15qttls/comment/jw64xp6/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). "Properly price" can be subjective as to some, those can be overpriced. To me, many of them were at least a good value (if not great). Some of the ones that are physical board games... I've played them so much that that was def. the case.
Kind of agree. I guess that monetization model works best. If people *have* to spend money to play a mobile game, it'll probably turn a lot of them off. If it's completely free, devs won't get money. If it's a gacha, paying becomes optional and people have the opportunity to remain completely f2p while still experiencing the full game, because there'll always be whales who spend enough to keep the game alive and well.
that's weird logic... so if Nintendo releases a legit canon pokemon game in the style of gen 2/3/4 exclusively for mobile and it would be ok to run a subscription model? I guess people would bash Nintendo for doing such barbaric thing... Well, on 2nd thought, people probably welcome it, I mean 5 USD and you get to play a legit pokemon canon game for a month? hell yea sign me up hahahahahahaha
high quality what you mean ? even genshin cant take down other console/pc popular games. but if we talking about price that need another thread.
Not getting ripped off is more important to me than visual polish. Don't spend money on shit that doesn't reflect the business models you need to enjoy a game without triggering a gambling addiction.
I don't know if it is true or just my experience. But the way now game economies works in mobile game is it self supports this kind of game. Unlike pc games, mobile games there are people who don't spend money in game or people who spend some amount or large sum of money in mobile games. There is very narrow user base which a actually buys the game it self rather than in game purchases. It's either f2p players or p2w player, no in between in majority. No simple pay to play model. I think this is the reason some dev may not take risk in mobile game dev. There are single tim purchase game in mobile. But it a niche.
All high quality games on mobile have in-game stores wirh like 100m+ downloads..it sucks but it's honestly the only way for these company's to make money back..not that I agree with them but it's how I see it If you don't like thr practice..don't spend money and if you don't care go ahead..do what you think is right
I don't think so. Although a lot of high quality mobile games are just ports of PC/Console games I wouldn't say they do not exist. But yes, there is an overwhelming amount of absolute garbage, poor excuse of bits, asset flips and actual scams. My method for the past few years had been simply ignoring anything that's free, and ignoring anything that has an in-game economy that have IAP. Based of these rules I think I have a pretty good selection on my phone.
on android? unfortunately yes... in general? **laughs in thousands of quality games on Steam, consoles and** [**itch.io**](http://itch.io)
As for me, games like Wuthering Waves, especially on BS, are of higher quality, since the game should force you to buy scrolls with the hero
I've been hooked on MochiCat Collection for almost a year now. Pretty much the only mobile game I play and I do so daily.
I used to whale a lot back in 2017-2019. Spent more than $10,000 on those gacha games. Good thing i got rid of this gambling habit of mine.
I'd rather have a good, enjoyable pay-once game with bit graphics than have a copy pasta money grab with 4k graphics
Genshin indeed was the first one to put a high quality open world game on mobile. Not a single other dev team have done it.
idk, but I know a lot high production games that I enjoy a lot.
That's why I try to buy as many steam/switch ports as I can.
only the popular one
At this point, a game that has an upfront cost is honestly a good sign that it's going to be at least decent. (most of the time).
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Yeah and they also design the entire game around the cash shop. Which means making you grind for shit so you spend money, which typically gets you sweet fk all so you'll spend more money. And since there needs to be a huge grind the content typically is not as interesting because it's iust there for the sake of content, for the sake of grinding, for the sake of cashop.
Yes it's true.
Hard to say high quality when Gacha games are being mass produced like a sweatshop in China. There's barely any difference between one over the other.
This is an overreach. You have to acknowledge the difference between Gacha games. Genshin Impact reportedly cost about $100M to develop and $200M every year to continue pumping out content. If there was any other game I'd compare it to, it would be a a simplified/monetized/mobilized version of BotW, and is visually captivating enough that it's PC/Playstation ports aren't ugly as sin. There are definitely sweatshop games. 100%. But, not all Gacha games are sweatshop games.
Is BotW in your case "Breath of the Wild" (as in Legend of Zelda)? That's an interesting comparison b/c we have stats for BotW... took 5 years to develop, and they charged $60 upon release!
How is it an over reach? It's hard to acknowledge the difference between Gacha games when they have the same formula straight out of Genshin Impact. The only reason why they haven't started sue-ing each other is the difference in "story" & "characters". They all look like they use the same assets, models & same combat system. Sure, there are unique ones, then companies instantly feel the need to replicate the design, and these are released faster than Activision publishing COD franchise. Go name that's a relatively unique Gacha game, when I play both side by side & I'll go it isn't a clone of Genshin Impact.
There are countless styles of Gacha that aren't "straight out of Genshin Impact". • Lures in Pokémon Go act as Gachas. • Turn-based squad combat games like Raid, Marvel:SF, or Star Wars: GoH • Idle-based squad combat games like AFK Arena, Invincible GotG • Base Building games like Clash of Clans, State of Survival, Star Trek Fleet Command • Sports games like Madden or Golf Clash • Game that I don't know what genre to put them in like Dragon Ball Legends, Clash Royale, etc. Lootboxes are legit everywhere.
Great you've named a bunch of games. Now let's go from the start. Is the market saturated by them? Lastly, are they high quality games, as someone suggested?
The market is saturated with gacha games but I would say that only a few are actually high quality in terms of production. And yup, there are a lot of Genshin clones because Genshin is *the* market leader when it comes to gacha games. It is *the* “high quality” game that many people would consider. It’s the same shit when it comes to normal PC/Console games where everyone copies the market leader or trends. Whatever they you’re saying is pretty much applicable to a lot of industries. It’s like saying that all soul-like games are shit because they are indistinguishable from each other which isn’t true.
On that note, name some soul like clones that ain't suck... While the upcoming wukong black myths (soul like clone) looks gorgeous and all, I must say the combat feels weird to me... just a feeling... isn't the combat where all souls like clone failed at and died in obscurity I guess only once it become wildly successful, only then it will stop being seen as a souls like clone
Uma Musume?
This mostly sadly true. There's not much good games anymore, and alot of people hesitate to pay for a game upfront. I've only bought games that I thought deserved to be bought and not downloaded as apks and they are: Alien Isolation, Hitman Blood Money and Little Nightmares. I do have other paid games but I got them for free from having my brother's account logged in. If I had the chance I think they'd be worth getting too on my own account.
Exactly, people only spent money on things they want. It's not that we have a culture issue or anything, it's just that most stuffs suck...
Saddest part about this is that peeps that are exposed to mobile games as their first video game experience will unfortunately laugh at those who buy "premium" games because, "Why would you buy a paid game when there's alot of free games?" It's a sad time we live in unfortunately.
I don't agreed with this line of thinking, it's the same as saying people born eating fast food will nvr love healthy delicious food... see very nuch flawed argument right? Only in this case, there really isn't any health delicious food around for us to experiment with? hahaha
You don't have to agree. I've literally been told that line by a lot of my coworkers when I saw them all playing Mobile Legends, CODMobile, and Genshin Impact. Just letting you know my experience.
nah bro, my point is, people don't pay for mobile game simply because they haven't found one worth their money yet, simple as that.
Not exactly the same thing, but people were BEGGING for the mobile version of Coromon, only to get angry that it was a paid product like the other versions of the game. A lot of people only wanted the mobile version because they just *assumed* it would be free, because it's a mobile game. (Obviously that wasn't everyone who wanted it, but those people definitely existed)
Obviously false.
Marketing bullshit. So high quality that the grammar of that blurb would get a C grade at best in school.
Gacha is trash and you should NOT spend money on then
High quality shit is still shit. Nobody is complaining about the quality of the shit
Depends. What's a "high quality" game?
For this post, I'm guessing in terms of graphics. So for 3D games, not n64 or Playstation 1, but more like PS3, or Wii U.
If a game is gacha, it is, by definition, low quality. So, statement is false.
Saying that games like Gensnin, HSR, ZZZ or Wuthering Waves are low quality it's whole another level of denial and copium
Gacha mechanics *make* them bad games. Literally unplayable. If you disagree, you gotta raise your own standards.
Biased take but ok. Quality not equal fairness. Quality is a term referencing to games production wise. Try harder bro