Topic: Is mobile gaming the new standards for handheld gaming now?

Significant portions of the gaming industry have adopted mobile gaming tendencies. Live services that lean towards recurring revenue, player engagement, and loot boxes. A healthy chunk of annual revenue for EA, Activision, Take Two, and Ubisoft are from those mobile gaming tropes. All you have to do is look at the overall revenue of the mobile section of gaming versus the dedicated console/handheld gaming section.

As the hobby edges towards an all-digital future, console gaming will invariably edge closer to resemble mobile gaming.

It seems unfortunately true that this is the case. It's easier for the average person to get a game on their phone or tablet. Easier and cheaper.

But mobile games are inferior products. That's just a fact. They make up for their lower quality with quantity. There are far more smartphones in the wild than gaming devices and PCs.

Not disputing that, per se, but I'd argue that mobile games are not intrinsically inferior. The race to the bottom in the mobile market means it is unfeasible for studios/developers to sink AAA budgets into a mobile title, because - no matter how large the potential market - they are unlikely to ever get their money back, let alone make a profit.

The handful of (in their day) AAA games that have made a successful port to mobile, such as The World Ends with You, Dragon Quest VIII or Ghost Trick, show that neither the hardware nor even the interface is the limiting factor. Trouble is, I could look at Game Centre (back when it was still accessible in Apple's OS) and see that I was one of fewer than 1,000 people to buy TWEWY on iOS. I'm guessing others bought it without ever signing into Game Centre, but it doesn't suggest the mobile audience is willing to support top-tier software for a respectable price.

Apple's curated service is probably the only way to rescue the mobile gaming market, by targeting an audience that actually wants, appreciates and - above all - is willing to pay for higher quality experiences. It might actually work. But even if it doesn't, it is at least a concerted effort to find what market exists for better-quality gaming on your phone or tablet.

Although I won't be signing up, partly as I hate the idea of subscription-based gaming, I kind of hope Apple succeeds. Because mobile, for all its gatcha and F2P nonsense, has been a springboard for innovative and immersive experiences, eg The Room, Threes, Steven Universe: Attack the Light, Device6, Year Walk, Card Thief, Reigns and anything and everything by Inkle or Michael Brough (868-HACK is a rogue-like of utter genius).

I fully agree with the 2 points raised on this post: (1) it's easier for the average person to game on a mobile phone which is a device owned by almost everybody, and (2) while I don't agree that mobile games are inferior products per se, they do indeed make up for quality via quantity - not just in the number of titles available, but via gameplay as well, it's always involved with numbers.

I also hated the gacha mechanic wherein your best experience of the game is dependent on random factors. I want to share an article written by a friend (I'm very sorry if this is not allowed, please take it down if it is - but please check it first, I enjoyed reading because the points raised are very good)

https://blog.playerauctions.com/others/the-psychology-of-gach...

It perfectly captures why I dislike the whole gacha thing T_T

If you grew up with game boy, good chance you’re into handheld gaming. If you grew up with a DS, you’re probably playing mobile games now

It's really not fun playing on mobile.
The 3DS was perfect

I think it has indeed. I have no problem with it though aside from being very picky about the kind of mobile gaming that’s going on. I have a set of standards like “it has to be three dimensional” or “it can’t just be point-and-click like a phone game”. It annoys me when I go on the online game stores and see that most of the fare appear to be what I consider to be simple iPhone games… I prefer things like “Harvest Moon”, “Pokémon” or even “Kingdom Hearts”, the way those are on their main consoles. Not simple scrolling or touching with my fingertips. I guess you could say, I prefer D-Pad/Joystick games or even sometimes a game you can play on PC with a mouse and keyboard.

well, mobile games aren't inferior.

It's just the behavior of the companies that make these games turn into cash grabs, because the casual phone gamer might have a higher chance of biting the microtransaction carrot dangled in front of their face, rather than people who own a console. 🤨

I can't really remember a single quality mobile game though that's better than any existing games on other platforms at the time of the mobile game's release. Even today, when technology is getting better, mobile games are still far behind in terms of innovation. Whenever someone announces the sequel to an existing non-mobile IP as a mobile game... say Diablo Immortal... it's a red flag.

"Don't you guys have phones?"
Yes, we do, but most of us have more fun playing on PC/PS5/Switch/XBox for some strange reason... as if mobile games are inherently inferior...

I'd much rather play a Gameboy Pocket game than a modern mobile game. That's how far behind mobile games are, not even better than Pokémon Red - in black and white! lmao

I mean, I get what you're saying though, that mobile games might be more fun and even have room to grow if not for the microtransactions. But the reality is... that's just not what mobile games are like nor how they're designed. The inferior part also includes the design decisions made by the publishers, including the microtransactions.

eh, not really. I think I'm pretty typical of my generation and of kids in general in terms of when they got exposed to gaming. I got a Gameboy for Christmas when I was around 8 and I'm now in my mid-30s. Lets say the DS equivalent would have been getting a DS when you were 8 around the mid-to-late 2000s. That person is in their early to mid 20s now. Basically some of my junior work colleagues. I think I can say with some confidence that demographic is into Switch, like CORE Switch demographic. If anything I'm the one sitting on the slightly older side of the Switch userbase

On the other side of it I think about what devices kids of people I know are getting. Like when colleagues around my age and slightly older complain about their kids as they inevitably do. And I think it's more that younger demographic that is slightly more fluid in terms of what gaming devices they end up getting. I hear a lot of work colleague kids, friend kids & nieces/nephews being into tablet games & VR headsets more than I hear about Switch or Playstation

I think if Nintendo has a "problem" here it's going to be with that 8-12 demographic more than the 20 somethings

@Maxenmus
The reason mobile games are cheap imitations of "proper portable" games has more to do with the mindset of people buying games on mobile. People don't spend money on mobile, at least not upfront. People want something that is "free" to play and even paid content there's a super low price people are willing to pay. That's just how that market works. So people developing games for that platform have to make games they can either give away, milk money from by aggressive micro-transactions or sell for well under $10

Of course the touch screen itself is pretty limiting in terms of control schemes. But the DS, 3DS and Wii U managed to put out some pretty compelling games with far less in terms of input (and power). The difference is something like Zelda: Phantom Hourglass sold for 10x more than what you'd call a relatively "expensive" game for mobile

I feel like the older generations might be more into mobile gaming too. I could just imagine a 50 or 60 year old playing a simpler mobile game because it's less complicated to learn than say, a Switch. You literally just press a single button for many mobile games.

Yes it's A (not the) new standard. But the target audience is different and the gaming experience as well. Mobile games mostly cost nothing or 5 bucks and then have to monetize them with ads or ingame purchases. Console / handheld games cost more but offer more immersive experiences.

Apple Arcade has some cool stuff, but I can’t bring myself to play it….even tho the Switch is a hybrid, with the power difference between it and even last Gen systems, I pretty much consider the Switch a de facto handheld system. I never dock mine and play more demanding games on other systems if possible.

I've always found it difficult to label mobile games as 'handheld gaming', even if that's literally what it is. There's just so many differences between handheld games on console versus on phones that I feel like it's it's own genre of gaming, you know?

As for the question at hand, there have been a lot of mobile games I've loved (Jetpack Joyride, Temple Run, Fruit Ninja, etc.) but I also can't really ignore the more heinous side of it either (just recently we had the gigantic mess that was Diablo Immortal for crying out loud). I'd describe it like a coin: half of it is really good and the other half is where morals go to die.

I'd think I have to agree with most of what you said. 😀
in it's current state it's really a hit or miss with mobile phone games, and mostly the games that I think are succesful are the ones that were built for PC and then turned into multiplatform ones, like stardew valley, terraria, dead cells. etc.

Oh, and PAID games are mostly better (in gameplay terms) than FreeMium models.
But there are good free games that have little to no ads. 😁

I would say no but I only ever play my switch when I’m either eating at a restaurant or when my phone is almost dead. (Although I do still play my 3DS and PSP and I do watch YouTube videos most of the time)