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Comment by wkdneidbwf | Hacker News Reader

it’s so weird to me that mobile gaming is so big while the games are by and large complete and utter garbage.

is it the micro-transaction, loot box, gambling-lite style that sucks susceptible people in and milks them?

I don't think I've ever even played a game on my phone except for playing Pokemon Go long enough to "catch" the first pokemon and then put it away.

Mobile games are good for nothing except wasting people's time and brain energy and getting people addicted to microtransactions.

Microtransactions have got to regulated away, because they're destroying people's attention spans. We waged wars against drugs and profanity in music, but yet because microtransactions makes people a shit ton of "clean" money, they're allowed. Microtransactions are incredibly addicting, and research shows that this type of gaming is harmful to the brain.

I’ve spent more than I’m willing to admit on Clash Royale back when it launched. I was in a bad place mentally to resist the lootbox dopamine cycle and I’m lucky it didn’t damage me financially.

Now I don’t touch micro transactions which means most mobile games are off limits. Apple Arcade has some decent mobile games because it doesn’t allow micro transactions.

The GUI space is one of those areas that Microsoft has done pretty poorly on, in my opinion. What they've created is so convoluted. They have Windows Forms, WPF, UWP, WinUI, .NET MAUI, and Xamarin Forms, and then there's third party toolkits like Uno Platform and Avalonia. It's all over the place, and it's somewhat frustrating, because I think Microsoft is poised to be one of the only companies that has the ability to "solve" cross-platform GUI development.

People just want something mindless to pass the time. If it also triggers the gambling dopamine response, all the better.

Lichess/chess.com are doing pretty well! (For that matter, Wordle.)

“Mobile games“ is so broad as to be meaningless as an umbrella term now.

I wouldn't classify Wordle as a "mobile game", but a puzzle game, like a sudoku or mini crossword puzzle.

It's just a different audience. Mobile gaming is huge in places like India where phones are more available than desktops or consoles.

And unlike console and pc gaming, there's very little overlap in audience and games. You cannot convince someone who has a pc or console that their phone is the device they should be pulling out to play games on. So even if they are say on a bus or a train, you cannot get them to buy a full-priced game on their phone, because they'd rather wait and play it at home. Instead it's free, short, time-waster games.

Also unlike consoles, phone manufacturers aren't very interested in investing in their device with stuff like exclusives, because no one is buying a phone based on the games on it.

Yeah, phones are capable of games probably around the gamecube era right? It's so weird no one even tries.

Yep. Been following this for a while. Mobile games are basically built for "hunting whales": people with deep pockets and nothing else to spend on other than games, so they'll happily drop tens of thousands of dollars on gacha gambling crap. https://youtu.be/xNjI03CGkb4

I think the problem is ultimately discoverability. You make it big and then rake in money with microtransactions or your game fades away and you try again with the next one. It doesn't seem like there's much room for an "average" game that does average.

Where's the Heroes of Might and Magic 3 of mobile gaming?

Slay the Spire, LoL: Wild Rift and Civilization 6 come to mind as the best games I've seen on mobile with endless replayability.

Slay the Spire is just an absolutely fantastic game—but I wouldn't call it a "mobile" game. It's on every gaming platform, and very much an exception to the rule.

It just happens to translate extremely well to mobile due to the super simple interface.

That's been avaialbe on iPad and Android tablets for a while now

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-au/game/heroes-of-might-and-magic...

I don't mean actual Homm3, I mean its equivalent types of games for mobile devices.

Good games exist, but they are few and far between, like most good things.

For instance, I see Monument Valley (both 1 and 2) as a true masterpiece. Of course, it has no loot boxes, no online play, and no competitive multiplayer mode.

I'm sure children make up a significant portion of downloads/views.

There are plenty of good mobile games if you know where to find them. Case in point, the two I play currently:

- Call Of Duty Mobile

The microtransactions are strictly cosmetic only, and even then there are ways to obtain otherwise paid skins through free currency by just playing the game.

- Soul Knight

Less than half the characters are paid, the rest can be obtained through free currency. And considering the amount of content they put in the game and that it's updated regularly, I daresay it's a fair ask.

Go and find some good implementations of board games. It will cost you more than your average game, but you will get a complete working game that you can play over and over.

Through the Ages, Brass, Race for the Galaxy, Slay the Spire. There's plenty.

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