3 ms·

One of my beefs with mobile gaming in general is how difficult it is to find games that don't feel like gambling. A large portion of even the "non-gambling" gam

One of my beefs with mobile gaming in general is how difficult it is to find games that don't feel like gambling. A large portion of even the "non-gambling" games are still gambling under the hood. I worry that typical mobile games are going to serve a funnel towards gambling for the kids who are growing up playing them. Like flavored vapes function for the tobacco industry. Of course, that makes me wonder what the games I grew up on funneled me towards, but it seems like just maybe Mario games didn't have any ulterior motives beyond making you want to play more Mario.

xattt 4y ago
Even Nintendo isn’t immune to this with iOS Mario Kart being yet another loot box game.
- elliekelly 4y ago
  The iOS version of Animal Crossing is the same way.
- MrFoof 4y ago
  The real example for Nintendo going full lootbox was Fire Emblem Heroes. It’s a pure gacha game. Actually viable at the highest end of competition (top tier all modes) as free to play, but has earned more revenue than not only every other Nintendo mobile game combined, but also possibly the entire 30+ year old Fire Emblem franchise. To summon a hero at maximum competitive scoring capacity (11 copies) with cash on a focus banner was usually $650-750, bit more over $1000 for a Mythic or Legendary - but bad variance could easily double those numbers, if not triple them. But playing the game for free you earned about $175 of that currency per month. Moreover, the game now averages 11 new heroes a month. It launched with 90-something, but now has nearly 850 different heroes. So if you ignored paying, saved your currency, understood the numbers and sat on your hands… you could be right at the top, spending your currency on exactly what you needed for score (and nothing else), and making meta-viable, sufficient scoring units out of the piles of 3 and 4 stars you’d be buried in. After that, play well and you’d be ranked in the same tiers as the biggest whales. But the core monetization model (outside of newer reasonable cost subscription stuff) was basically evil.
TillE 4y ago
There are close to zero genuinely great mobile-exclusive games that aren't simple action or puzzle games. It makes me want to dig up some of the breathless hype about mobile/social gaming from 10-15 years ago, because basically none of the predictions have come true. It's pretty depressing how the F2P formula has taken over.

xattt 4y ago

Even Nintendo isn’t immune to this with iOS Mario Kart being yet another loot box game.

elliekelly 4y ago
The iOS version of Animal Crossing is the same way.
MrFoof 4y ago
The real example for Nintendo going full lootbox was Fire Emblem Heroes. It’s a pure gacha game. Actually viable at the highest end of competition (top tier all modes) as free to play, but has earned more revenue than not only every other Nintendo mobile game combined, but also possibly the entire 30+ year old Fire Emblem franchise. To summon a hero at maximum competitive scoring capacity (11 copies) with cash on a focus banner was usually $650-750, bit more over $1000 for a Mythic or Legendary - but bad variance could easily double those numbers, if not triple them. But playing the game for free you earned about $175 of that currency per month. Moreover, the game now averages 11 new heroes a month. It launched with 90-something, but now has nearly 850 different heroes. So if you ignored paying, saved your currency, understood the numbers and sat on your hands… you could be right at the top, spending your currency on exactly what you needed for score (and nothing else), and making meta-viable, sufficient scoring units out of the piles of 3 and 4 stars you’d be buried in. After that, play well and you’d be ranked in the same tiers as the biggest whales. But the core monetization model (outside of newer reasonable cost subscription stuff) was basically evil.

TillE 4y ago

There are close to zero genuinely great mobile-exclusive games that aren't simple action or puzzle games. It makes me want to dig up some of the breathless hype about mobile/social gaming from 10-15 years ago, because basically none of the predictions have come true. It's pretty depressing how the F2P formula has taken over.