4 ms·

Graphical fidelity isn't the reason I don't play mobile games. I don't play mobile games because touchscreens are terribly deficient compared to a controller, a

by kibwen 2y ago

Graphical fidelity isn't the reason I don't play mobile games. I don't play mobile games because touchscreens are terribly deficient compared to a controller, and because the monetization of mobile games is invariably psychotic.

jsheard 2y ago
There's no getting around the control issues without a clunky peripheral, but this site helps to find the rare examples which aren't designed to bleed you dry at least: https://nobsgames.stavros.io https://nobsgames.stavros.io Predictably many of the high quality games in that category are ones which started their life on PC or consoles and were ported to mobile later. Mobile-first game development is rotten to the core.
- Helmut10001 2y ago
  Too bad they don't have a kids category. Thanks for the tipp though!
  - evilduck 2y ago
    Apple Arcade, a modest subscription in itself, is filled with mostly kid friendly games and none of them are allowed to have iAPs (or the iAPs are made free and then bundled in order to be featured in the Arcade catalog).
  - recursivecaveat 2y ago
    I would suggest getting a last gen handheld, since they're pretty cheap now, have good libraries of actual proper games (especially with emulation), and physical controls just can't be beat. I got a near-perfect vita from Japan for $90 and I'm quite happy with it. Not as convenient as the phone in your pocket, but if you're carrying around a backpack anyways it's not bad, and for kids maybe encouraging them off smartphones ain't so bad (:
- asdff 2y ago
  The Nintendo DS light fits comfortably in a pocket on the other hand and had great games made for it that took advantage of that platform's featureset (I personally think the legend of zelda games for that platform have some of the best controls out of any handheld nintendo game with the stylus gestures). Clunky peripheral is from a lack of imagination not from a technological impossibility.
  - cubefox 2y ago
    The Nintendo DS didn't need any peripherals, in contrast to smartphones, so this comparison seems misplaced.
    - asdff 2y ago
      Not really. Apple could design a pretty clean peripheral if they wanted to and it probably would be about as thick as the nds was. The iPad keyboard is a good model of how that might look, secured on a magnetic attachment perhaps able to be folded into different orientations. Like I said, little imagination however has taken place in this sector. Apple is content to take their 30% cut off the whale gamblers. The iOS game market is certainly massive enough where that zero overhead rent seeking on the part of Apple is quite lucrative, apparently in 2022 almost $50 billion were spent on ios games alone. $15 billion to Apple thanks to their pizzo.
  - robotnikman 2y ago
    I remember when Sony released the Xperia Play phone a decade ago, with a built in slide out controller. Something like that would be great to have, but maybe instead as a peripheral that clips onto the back on your phone. Wouldn't be much thicker than the battery cases that are common now.
    - SSLy 2y ago
      like those? https://www.razer.com/mobile-controllers/xbox-cloud https://www.razer.com/mobile-controllers/xbox-cloud
    - 2y ago
overington 2y ago
That (mobile gaming) may be one use case, but I think you are misunderstanding what else this could be used for - for example including this as an upscaling block in an ML model gives the ability to run ML applications (or other) target hardware which would traditionally have been thought of as too compute- or memory restricted. Also this isn't limited to mobile devices - this could also include embedded hardware. The ability to run a smaller scale model, and scale up - while continuing to keep the accuracy high - enables features like increased privacy for developers to run their software on a wider range of devices.
andybak 2y ago
I'm more interested in this for other form factors that use ARM - headsets in particular.
- nozzlegear 2y ago
  Is there any reason this couldn't be applied to a Mac with an ARM chip as well? (Genuine question, I know next to nothing about anything in this space.)
  - enragedcacti 2y ago
    Apple using the ARM ISA isn't really relevant here because this up-scaling technique runs on the GPU which has a different API and architecture from ARM the Company's GPUs. Apple has done effectively the same thing as ARM ASR for their own GPUs with MetalFX, which is also based on FSR 2. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-s-Metal-FX-upscaling-is-powered-by-AMD-FidelityFX-Super-Resolution-technology.784429.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-s-Metal-FX-upscaling-is-...
    - nozzlegear 2y ago
      I see, thanks for explaining and for the link!
Workaccount2 2y ago
>monetization of mobile games is invariably psychotic How did this happen? I get that the average cell phone user is relatively easy to bilk, but it seems that the oasis's of honest fair games are incredibly sparse.
- jsheard 2y ago
  The Nintendo Switch is a glimpse into what iOS/Android gaming could have been if there weren't such an extreme race to the bottom in that market, modern phones run circles around the Switches decade-old processor but the Switch has real actual proper games and your far more powerful phone just has casinos pretending to be games.
  - rahkiin 2y ago
    Switch also has actual button input which is ergonomically much nicer than non-physical buttons that are in the way of your game content
    - jsheard 2y ago
      That's true, but the market is surprisingly willing to put up with bad touch controls. Genshin Impact has made billions of dollars by being the closest thing to Zelda BOTW on mobile, but of course BOTW is a game you buy once and Genshin is a "free" casino. Even mobile first person shooters are wildly popular despite being miserable to play if you're used to other platforms. There is a willingness to play these games on a phone, but seemingly only if the cost of entry is zero dollars, even though that means there will be much worse monetization woven into the game.
      - GeekyBear 2y ago
        > There is a willingness to play these games on a phone, but seemingly only if the cost of entry is zero dollars This is the issue that drove the rise of the mobile games as they are today. Android users in particular were extremely reluctant to pay for games up-front. > Last week I found myself in one of those "good news, bad news" situations. The good was that more than 100,000 people were enjoying the new Android version of our game. The bad news was that only about 10 percent of them paid for it https://archive.ph/mRkJw https://archive.ph/mRkJw
omneity 2y ago
If you're on iOS try Apple Arcade, where games have no microtransactions and shady monetization tactics. I couldn't believe how much "calmer" games were when they're not under pressure to trick you around every corner to get your money. Of course, that won't help with the control issues which I completely agree with.
nox101 2y ago
I've played plenty of mobile games designed for touch that were fun. They are different than console and PC but they were still fun. I play "Doug Dug" almost every day. I played Pixa (same devs). I thought they did a great job of coming up with a way to make the game fun on touch. "Skiing Yeti Mountain" was great. "Planet Quest", "Severed", "Sword & Sworcery EP", many more.

by kibwen 2y ago

jsheard 2y ago

There's no getting around the control issues without a clunky peripheral, but this site helps to find the rare examples which aren't designed to bleed you dry at least: https://nobsgames.stavros.io https://nobsgames.stavros.io Predictably many of the high quality games in that category are ones which started their life on PC or consoles and were ported to mobile later. Mobile-first game development is rotten to the core.

Helmut10001 2y ago
Too bad they don't have a kids category. Thanks for the tipp though!
- evilduck 2y ago
  Apple Arcade, a modest subscription in itself, is filled with mostly kid friendly games and none of them are allowed to have iAPs (or the iAPs are made free and then bundled in order to be featured in the Arcade catalog).
- recursivecaveat 2y ago
  I would suggest getting a last gen handheld, since they're pretty cheap now, have good libraries of actual proper games (especially with emulation), and physical controls just can't be beat. I got a near-perfect vita from Japan for $90 and I'm quite happy with it. Not as convenient as the phone in your pocket, but if you're carrying around a backpack anyways it's not bad, and for kids maybe encouraging them off smartphones ain't so bad (:
asdff 2y ago
The Nintendo DS light fits comfortably in a pocket on the other hand and had great games made for it that took advantage of that platform's featureset (I personally think the legend of zelda games for that platform have some of the best controls out of any handheld nintendo game with the stylus gestures). Clunky peripheral is from a lack of imagination not from a technological impossibility.
- cubefox 2y ago
  The Nintendo DS didn't need any peripherals, in contrast to smartphones, so this comparison seems misplaced.
  - asdff 2y ago
    Not really. Apple could design a pretty clean peripheral if they wanted to and it probably would be about as thick as the nds was. The iPad keyboard is a good model of how that might look, secured on a magnetic attachment perhaps able to be folded into different orientations. Like I said, little imagination however has taken place in this sector. Apple is content to take their 30% cut off the whale gamblers. The iOS game market is certainly massive enough where that zero overhead rent seeking on the part of Apple is quite lucrative, apparently in 2022 almost $50 billion were spent on ios games alone. $15 billion to Apple thanks to their pizzo.
- robotnikman 2y ago
  I remember when Sony released the Xperia Play phone a decade ago, with a built in slide out controller. Something like that would be great to have, but maybe instead as a peripheral that clips onto the back on your phone. Wouldn't be much thicker than the battery cases that are common now.
  - SSLy 2y ago
    like those? https://www.razer.com/mobile-controllers/xbox-cloud https://www.razer.com/mobile-controllers/xbox-cloud
  - 2y ago

overington 2y ago

That (mobile gaming) may be one use case, but I think you are misunderstanding what else this could be used for - for example including this as an upscaling block in an ML model gives the ability to run ML applications (or other) target hardware which would traditionally have been thought of as too compute- or memory restricted. Also this isn't limited to mobile devices - this could also include embedded hardware. The ability to run a smaller scale model, and scale up - while continuing to keep the accuracy high - enables features like increased privacy for developers to run their software on a wider range of devices.

andybak 2y ago

I'm more interested in this for other form factors that use ARM - headsets in particular.

nozzlegear 2y ago
Is there any reason this couldn't be applied to a Mac with an ARM chip as well? (Genuine question, I know next to nothing about anything in this space.)
- enragedcacti 2y ago
  Apple using the ARM ISA isn't really relevant here because this up-scaling technique runs on the GPU which has a different API and architecture from ARM the Company's GPUs. Apple has done effectively the same thing as ARM ASR for their own GPUs with MetalFX, which is also based on FSR 2. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-s-Metal-FX-upscaling-is-powered-by-AMD-FidelityFX-Super-Resolution-technology.784429.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-s-Metal-FX-upscaling-is-...
  - nozzlegear 2y ago
    I see, thanks for explaining and for the link!

Workaccount2 2y ago

>monetization of mobile games is invariably psychotic How did this happen? I get that the average cell phone user is relatively easy to bilk, but it seems that the oasis's of honest fair games are incredibly sparse.

jsheard 2y ago
The Nintendo Switch is a glimpse into what iOS/Android gaming could have been if there weren't such an extreme race to the bottom in that market, modern phones run circles around the Switches decade-old processor but the Switch has real actual proper games and your far more powerful phone just has casinos pretending to be games.
- rahkiin 2y ago
  Switch also has actual button input which is ergonomically much nicer than non-physical buttons that are in the way of your game content
  - jsheard 2y ago
    That's true, but the market is surprisingly willing to put up with bad touch controls. Genshin Impact has made billions of dollars by being the closest thing to Zelda BOTW on mobile, but of course BOTW is a game you buy once and Genshin is a "free" casino. Even mobile first person shooters are wildly popular despite being miserable to play if you're used to other platforms. There is a willingness to play these games on a phone, but seemingly only if the cost of entry is zero dollars, even though that means there will be much worse monetization woven into the game.
    - GeekyBear 2y ago
      > There is a willingness to play these games on a phone, but seemingly only if the cost of entry is zero dollars This is the issue that drove the rise of the mobile games as they are today. Android users in particular were extremely reluctant to pay for games up-front. > Last week I found myself in one of those "good news, bad news" situations. The good was that more than 100,000 people were enjoying the new Android version of our game. The bad news was that only about 10 percent of them paid for it https://archive.ph/mRkJw https://archive.ph/mRkJw

omneity 2y ago

If you're on iOS try Apple Arcade, where games have no microtransactions and shady monetization tactics. I couldn't believe how much "calmer" games were when they're not under pressure to trick you around every corner to get your money. Of course, that won't help with the control issues which I completely agree with.

nox101 2y ago

I've played plenty of mobile games designed for touch that were fun. They are different than console and PC but they were still fun. I play "Doug Dug" almost every day. I played Pixa (same devs). I thought they did a great job of coming up with a way to make the game fun on touch. "Skiing Yeti Mountain" was great. "Planet Quest", "Severed", "Sword & Sworcery EP", many more.