There's an interesting bellwether in mobile games right now. There are two easy statistics to track when trying random free-to-start games: time to first ad (TT

There's an interesting bellwether in mobile games right now. There are two easy statistics to track when trying random free-to-start games: time to first ad (TTFA), time to paywall (TTP). Most LLM-using mobile games are already at incredibly weak TTP scores and perhaps the only current stratum of mobile games where TTP is almost always ahead of TTFA. TTFA before TTP is almost nonexistent because they claim to need a monthly subscription as soon as immediately after install, despite being advertised as free to start. It's also one of the few types of games where the paywall explicitly does not include "no ads". Some of these games running on monthly subscriptions still need ads for unit costs. (The bulk of mobile games try for a sweet spot of TTFA in the order of hours of gameplay and TTP in the order of days of gameplay. Easier to get people hooked on your game if you can give them a few hours of uninterrupted fun up front.) It seems pretty condemning of software economics with LLMs involved.