6 ms·

I don't think mobile games have anything to do with it. It would be more accurate to say mobile applications.

by pictur 3y ago

johnnyanmac 3y ago
Epic vs. Apple reported that 70% of Apple's revenue on the App store came from mobile games: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/10/apple-vs-epic-70percent-of-app-store-revenue-from-customers-playing-games.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/10/apple-vs-epic-70percent-of-a... It really is that big a market.
- goda90 3y ago
  It's a big market, but is it really competing with other forms of gaming? As an analogy, if someone were buying up all the oven manufacturers, would it matter that microwaves were more widely used?
  - hombre_fatal 3y ago
    I don't see why it wouldn't. You're probably thinking of just Candy Crush and company but I have games like Final Fantasy 7 and Baldur's Gate on the iPhone. Though more interesting from a money standpoint would be major online games like Fortnite and League of Legends on the iPhone. Every time I want to play a game I have to consider if I want to bust out my laptop, turn on my TV system, or just swipe over to a game on the phone I'm already holding.
    - goda90 3y ago
      Sure, but the experience is different. You can cook a piece of meat in the microwave but it won't be the same as one cooked in an oven or on a stove. I can forsee a future of convergence where a phone is powerful enough to play any games and can just be docked to get the console or PC experience but we're not there yet.
      - goosedragons 3y ago
        We are already there. Pretty much every iPhone sold for the past 5 years is more powerful than the Nintendo Switch, could be used with controllers and connected to a TV. But they don't seem to bother.
        Dah00n 3y ago
        Cinema / 65' TV versus iPhone. It is definitely not the same experience. I own many consoles and more than one gaming PC and I'd never play a game on a phone.
      - DougEiffel 3y ago
        I don't find myself doing that very much. I obviously prefer to play my PC or PlayStation, but will play my Switch if I am in the bathroom, riding shotgun on a long car ride, etc. Mobile games, for me, are essentially waiting room games or something I will whip out if I have exactly 7 minutes to kill. I don't generally think, "I want to game" and then decide which one is worth the effort in the moment.
  - oblio 3y ago
    Entertainment is entertainment and attention is the currency.
    - goda90 3y ago
      With that point of view, would it be acceptable for Disney to buy up all movie studios since there are other forms of entertainment?
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    We could certainly debate that all day. I simply replied because the parent comment made it sound like games were this niche corner of the mobile market. I wanted to assert otherwise. But to properly reply to your comment: indirectly, yes. I'd go so far to argue that the rise of mobile gaming yet another reason why the Vita couldn't gain traction (releasing in 2013, around the time mobile games started to really show they can do more than arcade-y style minigames), and why Nintendo decided to pivot to a hybrid model. the 3DS's middling sales (for a nintendo console) definitely put some pressure on even the uncontested king of handhelds, so what chance would any other platform have? Meanwhile Microsoft in this era would flounder with Windows Mobile and fail to gain traction with Windows 8S or whatever they were trying to do with tablets in this time, so I guess their enthusiasm to try that in their gaming division was negative. I'm honestly still baffled Valve beat MS to making the most obvious Xbox handheld, that we now know as the Steam Deck. So I'd say it was competing the same way handhelds competed with consoles. There would never be apples to apples comparison, but the markets definitely tug on one another, the markets keep eyes on one another, and the audience have some significant overlap, enough to be kept in mind with marketing. Sony and Microsoft wouldn't be marketing cloud gaming on mobile if they thought none of their audience were interested in playing games on their phone.
    - Dah00n 3y ago
      I'm a bit confused. Are you saying the Vita competes with Consoles and PCs? Surely it competes with phones?
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        The Vita/3DS had very similar audiences to their console counterparts, despite not necessarily being direct competitors. But you can't think in just games for this to make sense. Remember that the PSP was also a pretty good multimedia device pre-smartphone. So it lost that userbase as it became the Vita. But of course it's primary purpose was games and the Vita focused on that in its western marketing: "console gaming on the go". It couldn't sell itself on mobile style games if it ever expected to succeed, so while it may have overlap I can't say it was a direct smartphone competitor either. And it took similar resources within Sony to develop and market it. Another of a dozen reasons why it failed: Sony decided very early on to put all its chips into the PS4, and ditched first party Vita support after the first year. This woildnt make sense for a phone competitor.
- PurpleRamen 3y ago
  To be fair, apps are a limited market. Games are fun for some time, and then you move on to the next game. Or you are addicted, and waste a steady amount every month to get the ever same experience. Apps are different. After you found your necessary set of functionality, you stay with them for years and years, you barely add any new app, or change to another one. And often there are even enough free or builtin apps around to cover your demand. So revenue is naturally smaller.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    I do agree the monetization ceiling of games is much higher. There's not much to infinitely spend on in a productivity app but you hear stories of whales spending thousands a month on a single mobile game. And that does line up with the above link: most of that revenue os generated by a snall minority of gamers. Most games are indeed played for free for a few hours/days with no money obtained outside of Ads. But that whale market is small but insanely lucrative.

I don't think mobile games have anything to do with it. It would be more accurate to say mobile applications.

by pictur 3y ago

I don't think mobile games have anything to do with it. It would be more accurate to say mobile applications.

Epic vs. Apple reported that 70% of Apple's revenue on the App store came from mobile games: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/10/apple-vs-epic-70percent-of-app-store-revenue-from-customers-playing-games.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/10/apple-vs-epic-70percent-of-a... It really is that big a market.

goda90 3y ago
It's a big market, but is it really competing with other forms of gaming? As an analogy, if someone were buying up all the oven manufacturers, would it matter that microwaves were more widely used?
- hombre_fatal 3y ago
  I don't see why it wouldn't. You're probably thinking of just Candy Crush and company but I have games like Final Fantasy 7 and Baldur's Gate on the iPhone. Though more interesting from a money standpoint would be major online games like Fortnite and League of Legends on the iPhone. Every time I want to play a game I have to consider if I want to bust out my laptop, turn on my TV system, or just swipe over to a game on the phone I'm already holding.
  - goda90 3y ago
    Sure, but the experience is different. You can cook a piece of meat in the microwave but it won't be the same as one cooked in an oven or on a stove. I can forsee a future of convergence where a phone is powerful enough to play any games and can just be docked to get the console or PC experience but we're not there yet.
    - goosedragons 3y ago
      We are already there. Pretty much every iPhone sold for the past 5 years is more powerful than the Nintendo Switch, could be used with controllers and connected to a TV. But they don't seem to bother.
      - Dah00n 3y ago
        Cinema / 65' TV versus iPhone. It is definitely not the same experience. I own many consoles and more than one gaming PC and I'd never play a game on a phone.
    - DougEiffel 3y ago
      I don't find myself doing that very much. I obviously prefer to play my PC or PlayStation, but will play my Switch if I am in the bathroom, riding shotgun on a long car ride, etc. Mobile games, for me, are essentially waiting room games or something I will whip out if I have exactly 7 minutes to kill. I don't generally think, "I want to game" and then decide which one is worth the effort in the moment.
- oblio 3y ago
  Entertainment is entertainment and attention is the currency.
  - goda90 3y ago
    With that point of view, would it be acceptable for Disney to buy up all movie studios since there are other forms of entertainment?
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  We could certainly debate that all day. I simply replied because the parent comment made it sound like games were this niche corner of the mobile market. I wanted to assert otherwise. But to properly reply to your comment: indirectly, yes. I'd go so far to argue that the rise of mobile gaming yet another reason why the Vita couldn't gain traction (releasing in 2013, around the time mobile games started to really show they can do more than arcade-y style minigames), and why Nintendo decided to pivot to a hybrid model. the 3DS's middling sales (for a nintendo console) definitely put some pressure on even the uncontested king of handhelds, so what chance would any other platform have? Meanwhile Microsoft in this era would flounder with Windows Mobile and fail to gain traction with Windows 8S or whatever they were trying to do with tablets in this time, so I guess their enthusiasm to try that in their gaming division was negative. I'm honestly still baffled Valve beat MS to making the most obvious Xbox handheld, that we now know as the Steam Deck. So I'd say it was competing the same way handhelds competed with consoles. There would never be apples to apples comparison, but the markets definitely tug on one another, the markets keep eyes on one another, and the audience have some significant overlap, enough to be kept in mind with marketing. Sony and Microsoft wouldn't be marketing cloud gaming on mobile if they thought none of their audience were interested in playing games on their phone.
  - Dah00n 3y ago
    I'm a bit confused. Are you saying the Vita competes with Consoles and PCs? Surely it competes with phones?
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      The Vita/3DS had very similar audiences to their console counterparts, despite not necessarily being direct competitors. But you can't think in just games for this to make sense. Remember that the PSP was also a pretty good multimedia device pre-smartphone. So it lost that userbase as it became the Vita. But of course it's primary purpose was games and the Vita focused on that in its western marketing: "console gaming on the go". It couldn't sell itself on mobile style games if it ever expected to succeed, so while it may have overlap I can't say it was a direct smartphone competitor either. And it took similar resources within Sony to develop and market it. Another of a dozen reasons why it failed: Sony decided very early on to put all its chips into the PS4, and ditched first party Vita support after the first year. This woildnt make sense for a phone competitor.
PurpleRamen 3y ago
To be fair, apps are a limited market. Games are fun for some time, and then you move on to the next game. Or you are addicted, and waste a steady amount every month to get the ever same experience. Apps are different. After you found your necessary set of functionality, you stay with them for years and years, you barely add any new app, or change to another one. And often there are even enough free or builtin apps around to cover your demand. So revenue is naturally smaller.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  I do agree the monetization ceiling of games is much higher. There's not much to infinitely spend on in a productivity app but you hear stories of whales spending thousands a month on a single mobile game. And that does line up with the above link: most of that revenue os generated by a snall minority of gamers. Most games are indeed played for free for a few hours/days with no money obtained outside of Ads. But that whale market is small but insanely lucrative.