First of all I gotta say this doesn't mean there aren't any good mobile games, there are plenty of original awesome iOS / android games that are worth of your time I am going to be ranting about the awful relationship between gamer, mobile games and mobile monetization and how it's absolutely squandered the insane potential of the mobile platform as the true successor to handhelds.
So I'm going to begin with something that I don't know if many people will be able to relate to. But I love playing iOS ports of JRPGs and RPGs in general. There is something incredibly fun about replaying a game (even in a less than stellar port) on my phone. It's comfortable, I can play it anywhere and I have a great selection of peripherals to choose from that can change the experience.
For example I am currently playing Final Fantasy VI on iOS, I'm about 24 hours in, only about 3 or 4 dungeons away from Kefka's tower. In that time I have experienced the game in the following ways:
1) On my iphone with the touch screen controls in multiple places from my desk, while standing in the kitchen waiting for the oven to preheat, the sofa etc etc.
2) On my ipad with an xbox one controller paired (this is possible because of the super snappy icloud save upload and download system letting you switch between devices in seconds)
3) On my phone with my xbone controller paired while I have the phone propped up on my belly as I'm laying in bed
4) On my phone with my xbone controller while I have my phone connected to my TV via hdmi adapter (this is my favorite way because it feels like a switch in docked mode)
If i started listing the different headphone / speaker combinations things would get crazy
Even though I'm playing a 25+ year old game this feels like the way I always saw the future of handhelds. It's liberating, I can play on my own terms in the way that's most convenient to me in that moment. Maybe I've got a good 4 hours to burn and I can go hard or maybe i'm killing time DURING a teleconference that I definitely didn't have to be on, or maybe I'm just trying to play for 20min in bed before going to sleep.
I wish that there had been a future for mobile games that put phones as the next step in handhelds. Everyone always said the Vita and 3DS weren't competing against each other they were competing against phones. But that always seemed weird to me because gamers as a whole seem to HATE mobile games. Look at what happened with the announcement of Diablo Immortal! Absolute vitriol towards the game, but yet it felt deserved.
Why is this?
Simple, mobile games have been positioned as a freemium space to hunt whales since their inception. They've felt designed to hide their costs, to try to get you hooked with a free taste only for the fun to be paywalled off. And when that's not the case they've been treated as cheap cash grabs praying on nostalgia that get minimal support.
Plus up until recently most people have only really been able to play mobile games with (mostly) frustrating touch screen controls. Unless their control scheme was super simplistic or heavily menu focused touch screen controls feel super blegh.
Because of this the quality of games we get on mobile is so sporadic, most of the higher quality modern titles we get are usually mobile ports of successful games like fortnite or pubg. It's rare that we get an original mobile game that feels like it was treated with the same respect and care as a full console release.
It's quite frustrating, so many people have devices with enough potential power that would put the PS2 to shame in their pockets, imagine the experiences you could create if they wanted to make dedicated games for them! And with peripherals that allow you to connect it to a TV, and bluetooth controller compatibility letting you use a DS4 or xbone controller it really feels like everything is set to allow phones to finally grow into real gaming platforms. We just need devs to start taking advantage of the true potential here, like with what we're seeing from NieR Reincarnation but you know less f2p and more just an actual full fledged release.
Remember how we would pay 20-40 dollars for grand complete experiences on the GBA, DS, and PSP?
Imagine if devs were just adopting that model to mobile devices and just throwing out a tagline "recommended for play with controller". But it would be received poorly probably because core gamers seem to - at best - feel indifferent towards mobile releases.
I've finished a good amount of full games on iOS, from KOTOR to Shin Megami Tensei 1 (rip in peps 32bit apps) and after I finish a game on iOS, I'm always left feeling like this could have been something great.
So I'm going to begin with something that I don't know if many people will be able to relate to. But I love playing iOS ports of JRPGs and RPGs in general. There is something incredibly fun about replaying a game (even in a less than stellar port) on my phone. It's comfortable, I can play it anywhere and I have a great selection of peripherals to choose from that can change the experience.
For example I am currently playing Final Fantasy VI on iOS, I'm about 24 hours in, only about 3 or 4 dungeons away from Kefka's tower. In that time I have experienced the game in the following ways:
1) On my iphone with the touch screen controls in multiple places from my desk, while standing in the kitchen waiting for the oven to preheat, the sofa etc etc.
2) On my ipad with an xbox one controller paired (this is possible because of the super snappy icloud save upload and download system letting you switch between devices in seconds)
3) On my phone with my xbone controller paired while I have the phone propped up on my belly as I'm laying in bed
4) On my phone with my xbone controller while I have my phone connected to my TV via hdmi adapter (this is my favorite way because it feels like a switch in docked mode)
If i started listing the different headphone / speaker combinations things would get crazy
Even though I'm playing a 25+ year old game this feels like the way I always saw the future of handhelds. It's liberating, I can play on my own terms in the way that's most convenient to me in that moment. Maybe I've got a good 4 hours to burn and I can go hard or maybe i'm killing time DURING a teleconference that I definitely didn't have to be on, or maybe I'm just trying to play for 20min in bed before going to sleep.
I wish that there had been a future for mobile games that put phones as the next step in handhelds. Everyone always said the Vita and 3DS weren't competing against each other they were competing against phones. But that always seemed weird to me because gamers as a whole seem to HATE mobile games. Look at what happened with the announcement of Diablo Immortal! Absolute vitriol towards the game, but yet it felt deserved.
Why is this?
Simple, mobile games have been positioned as a freemium space to hunt whales since their inception. They've felt designed to hide their costs, to try to get you hooked with a free taste only for the fun to be paywalled off. And when that's not the case they've been treated as cheap cash grabs praying on nostalgia that get minimal support.
Plus up until recently most people have only really been able to play mobile games with (mostly) frustrating touch screen controls. Unless their control scheme was super simplistic or heavily menu focused touch screen controls feel super blegh.
Because of this the quality of games we get on mobile is so sporadic, most of the higher quality modern titles we get are usually mobile ports of successful games like fortnite or pubg. It's rare that we get an original mobile game that feels like it was treated with the same respect and care as a full console release.
It's quite frustrating, so many people have devices with enough potential power that would put the PS2 to shame in their pockets, imagine the experiences you could create if they wanted to make dedicated games for them! And with peripherals that allow you to connect it to a TV, and bluetooth controller compatibility letting you use a DS4 or xbone controller it really feels like everything is set to allow phones to finally grow into real gaming platforms. We just need devs to start taking advantage of the true potential here, like with what we're seeing from NieR Reincarnation but you know less f2p and more just an actual full fledged release.
Remember how we would pay 20-40 dollars for grand complete experiences on the GBA, DS, and PSP?
Imagine if devs were just adopting that model to mobile devices and just throwing out a tagline "recommended for play with controller". But it would be received poorly probably because core gamers seem to - at best - feel indifferent towards mobile releases.
I've finished a good amount of full games on iOS, from KOTOR to Shin Megami Tensei 1 (rip in peps 32bit apps) and after I finish a game on iOS, I'm always left feeling like this could have been something great.
