Mobile Games: Stop being such a bitch about them.

[Margalis]

What I don't agree with is the idea that the slate of what I'd consider schlock on mobile is any kind of new and unique occurence in gaming. I remember bitching to my buddies about how many crappy Atari 2600 games there were for chrissake. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if those guys who worked up Spacewar in the early 60s had 49 other attempts that sucked 

Different business models encourage different types of design. (And vice-versa)

Mobile / F2P models strongly encourage extremely shitty game design in a way that other models do not. (Not nearly to the same extent) The single biggest question for the vast majority of mobile game devs is how much worse are we willing to make the game to make it monetize better? The process of making a mobile game is basically making a game that is ok, then turning the dial towards "shitty" as far as it will go without the whole thing blowing up.

[Count Nerfedalot]

While there has always been a sea of crap available for every platform since the dawn of time, there used to be at least a few gems available at any given time, something for almost every preference. Now it seems all you can find are just lumps of shit floating in the sea of crap.  Are there ANY actually good complete games (ie not F2P/ad driven/game snippets etc) out there you can buy now for Android?  Deeper than Angry Birds?  Right now, honestly, the only game I play on my phone is Solitaire, which I did pay for thankyouverymuch so no ads. I WILL NOT allow a game to install on my device that accesses my address book, location, or whatnot. Period.  If that is the only way to get a game these days, game developers can all f**k themselves while they starve to death for all I care, I'm out. bye.

Maybe the platform is just too constrained. Not only does it pretty much only suit short play sessions, but it has so little real estate to show you what's going on/happened last session making it far harder to pick up and put down repeatedly.  Swiping is more annoying than useful in most cases and the lack of physical controls or the ability to precisely point further limit the amount of useful interaction space the game can present at a time. And it also needs to survive far more distractions than while seated at a desktop/couch, as you move in line, chat with someone, check if you are at your station, try not to fall down the manhole, recover from colliding with others, switch to another app when the boss walks in, answer the phone when it rings, etc.

It seems like it would be a great platform for turn based stuff that doesn't require reflexes or tight controls or large viewing space, stuff like 4X games or Adventure games or weird stuff like Sims Medieval or something.  But the few games of those types out there all seem to be crippled by poor controls, display constraints, f2p stupidity or are just plain incomplete and barely worth calling a sales prototype. But you can find thousands of pieces of crap like Flappy Bird and Cookie Clicker (or whatever the hell that incredibly thinly camouflaged Skinner box my grandson was playing is called).

[Margalis]

I've heard a lot of people recently say that they've stopped playing mobile games for similar reasons. Overall dissatisfaction with the games, the realization that time is as important as money and that playing a cheap bad game is worse than playing a more expensive good one, store so crowded that it's impossible to wade through.

Facebook went through the same thing. There was a period of time where a lot of people dabbled in FB games, now the people who play FB games seem to be mostly FB gamers - the dabblers have stopped dabbling. A few years ago "core gamers" might at least try something like Sims Social or Facebook Civ, but not any more.

[eldaec]

Personally, I'm still grumpy about consoles fucking with my Rainbow 6, or Thief, or Deus Ex. I don't have the energy left to be a bitch about mobile games.