It wouldn’t be HN without a hilariously out of touch yet confident statement.

I know this won’t be a popular comment but I used to come here because it was open to new ideas. Increasingly, popular comments here are reaffirmations of the community’s biases.

I would really hate if HN turned into yet another Reddit-like echochamber

Saying that you have an unpopular opinion for something that is almost certainly a popular one is exactly the kind of comment you'd find on Reddit.

I do agree though that people should be careful about creating echo chambers. Not every opinion needs to be weighted the same, but it's important to be open to differences between people.

It’s not just unpopular, it’s clearly false. The mobile gaming industry is the fastest growing segment and represents $77.2B in revenue.

https://www.reuters.com/article/esports-business-gaming-reve...

We do need to differentiate between the types of games though. Games like Candy Crush and Fortnite are very different. Candy Crush is a game that lends itself well to playing on a phone while Fortnite plays better with a larger screen and physical controls.

Do you really need to differentiate? The original comment surely didn't feel the need to.

Because if you want someone who's taken an emotionally charged position to look at objective fact, you need to present the data in ways that minimize the bias they might perceive.

I don't think that is a fair stance on the response to the original argument that was presented. If someone comes with a too general, and too hyperbolic statement, I don't think it is necessary to "present the data in ways that minimize the bias they might perceive". It can, for sure, be worth while to do so, if your goal is to educate. Or, it can just confuse everyone, because, maybe they did mean it exactly as it was stated, and the person who is wrong isn't who you think it is. In my personal opinion, just be fair, try to stick to facts, and have earnest discussions. If they didn't mean the hyperbolic statement, the onus is on them to clarify, not for anyone else to tip toe possible interpretations.

To summarize:

> Nobody _wants_ to play games on mobile devices, not even kids

Was responded to with a factual statement on the size of that business that "no one wants to take part of", suggesting that perhaps there might be some correlation between a 77B revenue market, and some desire for it to exist by the consumers.

To which you argued that one should make a distinction on the type of games. Which brings us full circle to my point, that, no. The original did not make such a distinction, so neither should the refutation of it require such considerations. Whether or not that is the best approach for the sake of convincing anyone is a separate matter.

Mostly from old women playing candy crush and casino games.

Please check out the HN guidelines. They discourage posting comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit.

I'm pretty sure you're being sarcastic, but if not, this is wrong. If you were swayed by the article's point that Fortnite made "only" $700M on iOS, consider that revenue from mobile gaming accounts for half of the revenue for the entire video game industry, across all platforms — console and PC combined.

Source: https://www.statista.com/topics/1906/mobile-gaming/

edit: fixed source

“Game” is an overloaded term that encompasses too many types of experiences.

Relatively few people want to play games like Fortnite on their phones. A great many people want to play crossword puzzles.

Stardew Valley is also a fantastic experience on mobile. Other than missing co-op, it's exactly the same game as on PC. It's been a great distraction on long plane trips.

Just want to point out although I was once dismissive of mobile gaming, there is a whole mostly-untapped market for genuinely great video games on mobile despite the current market being flooded with low-effort/exploitative options.

It isn't the same game as on PC as it does not force you to complete a day to save.

At first it was, but this didnt work well on mobile because the players themselves were mobile and did not have dedicated time to deal with this game mechanic. But by fixing it for mobile with backgrounding and automatic state saving, it breaks the core incentive of the game.

Just my two cents.

Core incentive to play a game should always be to have fun while doing so.

In my opinion, not being forced to complete an in-game day in one sitting, but rather at your own leisure, matches perfectly the chill and leisurely gameplay of Stardew Valley.

But is that actually an issue if the people playing it are having a good time and like the game that way?

I never opined on whether it’s an issue.

“Is game same in a fundamentally way, yes/no.” No more, no less.

I forgot about that, but I actually prefer it. But I'm also curious what the core incentive is that you feel this change breaks.

Urgency, planning, consequences

Do you go crystal farm, or do you go into town and form a relationship, or routine watering of your farm, or …

You are still required to sleep regularly to get energy back.

I think people are conditioned to expect games with an "exploitative" ad-based or in-app purchase model. The conditioning to not expect an upfront cost to purchase is reinforced by the huge number of low/no effort apps resulting from the low barrier to entry. People don't want to pay for apps with little or no utility, lots of bugs, etc., and that's the vast majority of apps.

It's going to take a big player having the fortitude sustain the marketing (and potential losses) to sell an app that doesn't fit in this paradigm.

Most people don't see them as exploitative to begin with. No more so than they think about how much exploitative work was done to make a movie behind the scenes.

For a good 80+%, it's a simple time waster to play for an hour between the day. Not a gambling simulator, not a hardcore grinding MMO-lite. And if they think something is a ripoff, they have literal thousands of other games they can try in minutes.

I agree with the point about game being overloaded, but the statement that relatively few people want to play games like fortnite on their phones is clearly false. PubG alone has tens of millions of people who play it exclusively on mobile, and it is very much a game like fortnite.

In developing world, mobile gaming is bigger than console and PC due the price difference in PC/Console and mobiles. I think this trend will continue. It is a whole different world out there.

Consoles are cheaper than mobiles.

The average price of mobiles is $317 currently, which means the median price is quite a bit lower. https://www.statista.com/statistics/788557/global-average-se...

More importantly, though, the average console game is 50 bucks, while the average mobile game is free.

You wouldn't be getting a top-end mobile phone though, right?

You can get a PS3 for next to nothing, and games also cost hardly anything. No online subscription required either.

Go down to PS2 and PS1, and you can get all of it essentially for free.

That's the case in the US, because lots of people bought them, so they're available second-hand.

for 317 you can build relatively decent PC without GPU, so add something like 200$ and you can have decent setup for maybnewest games like Cyberpunk on mid settings

I bought GTX 970 and Ryzen 7 1700 for 240$, but it was 2 years ago

> for 317 you can build

Or you can just walk into a shop and leave with a new phone.

Three-digit dollar amounts and the developing world often don't go well together. A phone can be had for comparatively cheaply, in comparison.

Well, people from poor countries probably don't need to play newest AAA games.

>A phone can be had for comparatively cheaply, in comparison.

Some phones definitely can, same with some computers, the thing is whether you're comfortable with trade-offs.

Computer unlike smartphone can be relatively easily built with used parts.

In the early 2000s you could reasonably expect people to have access to a desktop computer of some description and this advice would've been somewhat valid. In 2021, nobody really assumes you have access to a desktop computer anymore, but we do assume people have access to a mobile device of some description. In that world, a $300 mobile is a much saner investment than a $300 PC for most people.

You need a smartphone anyway. Console is the third computing device you'll buy (if at all).

If you count only flagship mobiles, sure. Many outside the US and on low incomes don't buy those, because you can get something very decent for less than $200 (which is way less than a console) and it will still handle games.

Switch is okay, but if you go for PS5 or XBOX, you will need a TV, also some space to store and use it, and dedicated time for playing. We haven't talked about the cost of games yet. Overall, consoles will be too expensive for developing world, mobiles is something you already have, and games are mostly free.

Also, a lot of what passes for games on mobile phones are little more than addictions that strip you off your money.

The consoles would never allow them and even if they did, people don’t mindlessly get addicted to crap when playing on a console like they do on their phones.

> The consoles would never allow them

They allow Fortnite[1], don't they? Or more recently Genshin Impact, which is a pure "gatcha" game - as "mobile" as it gets - and is probably doing very well[2] on PS4/5.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPHPNgIihR0

[2] https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/genshin-impact-mobile-reve...

Edit: Oh, I totally forgot about the original console "strip you of your money" game: Fifa[3].

[3] https://screenrant.com/fifa-ultimate-team-ea-total-revenue-6...

Lots of mobile "games" are basically a casino, but the currency is time and you don't ever win anything. This is to the point that when I open older (pre-microtransaction) games on my PC, I'm momentarily disoriented because those mechanics are missing and I've gotten so used to them because they are so ubiquitous.

I am with you except they are absolutely allowed on consoles. Just look at the modern FIFA and NBA2K games. They are some of the worst free to play (that you pay $60 for!) experiences ever created. Consoles also had the EA Star Wars battlefront games that were fairly exploitative.

RTS are quite good to play on phones and tablets, as another example.

> RTS are quite good to play on phones

Probably one of the most ridiculous things I read ever. For starter there aren’t even any game worth called a RTS on mobile. Screen size and lack of keyboard means that any real RTS experience is impossible. How playable Wargames: Red Dragon or Age of Empire II would be on mobile? They won’t be at all, and that one of the reasons they aren’t available on smartphones.

Enjoy your ridiculous reading, while I have fun playing my set of RTS games.

https://www.phonearena.com/news/10-best-real-time-strategy-r...

Don't like them? I don't care.

Thanks for sharing. I had no idea stuff like C&C, Total War and CoH are on mobile now. That's insane.

Don't be fooled by C&C Rivals. It's closer to something like Clash Royale than PC C&C. Loot boxes and micro transactions galore with shallow, bite-sized, gameplay.

Bad North is a great game.

Wow that sure is a blatant ripoff of Dune 2000.

Just to clarify, are you saying Fortnite made as much as half the total of the e tire gaming industry on iOS?

No. This is what I'm pointing out: the entire video game industry generated about $175 billion in revenue last year. Of that, about half (43%) came from mobile gaming.

Here is a more direct quote from statistia:

" In 2020, smartphone games generated approximately 74.9 billion U.S. dollars in annual revenue, accounting for 43 percent of the global gaming market during the measured period. Console games were ranked second with 51.2 billion U.S. dollars in global revenue."

I get the impression that money spent on mobile games is from scamming parents in children's games with dark patterns that lead young children to making in app purchases.

I think looking at the number of folks playing Fortnite on each platform and comparing that gives a better idea of where gamers prefer to play games.

My understanding is that whales are generally adults that have been taken in by the extremely addictive mechanics of the games. Like an old lady that dumps her pension into penny slots every day.

Consider: visual novels, even when entirely linear, probably count as “games” for mobile sales. They’re damn popular, are often episodic or series or have DLC to drive more sales, et c. And that’s just one kind of non-“gamer” game that’s huge on mobile.

Visual novels are classified as a game on every store I've seen, be it mobile, pc or console.

If you have a source for that impression, I'd be very interested to see it.

> gamers prefer to play games

most of the money being made in mobile gaming is coming from people who would not self-identify as "gamers". If you're just considered about where "gamers" want to game, then sure. But that's excluding a massive (and the fastest-growing) segment of the video games industry.

Gamers is a bit silly loaded term these days. Who do you exclude as not-gamers from the group that likes to play games?

That's a really good point and question.

Anyone who plays a game is a gamer, that's fair - so let me clarify my assumptions:

- I think more folks play games for longer on consoles/PCs compared to mobile devices

- I think mobile games punch above their weight in sales due to dark patterns and scammy business practices

I could be wrong

Most of the donateshitgames are targeted for adults with money actually. There is built-in socialized competition on donates. In every guild/group/party without donating You will be outsider and a person that pull whole team down.

Good god is that depressing.

The fact that the cheap, shallow, and manipulative tripe that fills the App Store & Play Store to the brim are pulling so many players and so many dollars is genuinely depressing.

The top games (Among Us, Roblox) aren't AAA but they aren't that. The most popular gacha games I know of (Granblue, FGO) are actually extremely over-detailed if anything.

OP is implying that people are playing on phones because they have them, not because it’s a good experience.

This could be especially true of a core (not casual) game like a shooter.

Maybe kids are doing purchases on the phone but playing on a computer, inflating the phone "market share"?

Are you sure those revenues are coming from competitive games like Fortnite and not from playing cards worth of App Store gift cards that gacha addicts are stacking up

I mean, I'd love this to be true, but the mobile market is currently larger than the entire consoles +PC market combined together. Clearly there must be people out there who really enjoy playing games on their phones.

It's about availability as well; a lot of people don't have a console or a TV for said console, or the space for those. Another lot of people share it within a family.

Yeah I'm thinking about it now and there's probably a lot of kids out there who only have a phone, so being able to play fortnite with their friends on it is great. When I was a kid we didn't have any games consoles, but I had a PSP - I remember the ability to play games like Battlefront 2 or GTA was absolutely mindblowing, yeah in hindsight the PSP was not the best platform to play either of those games, but to a 14 year old me that was the craziest stuff ever.

Yup. ESPECIALLY once you start considering the 3rd world. That's the entire reason Andorid started to surpass IOS in marketshare years back; because android had very low cost of entry devices into its ecosystem. For that kind of environment, they may treat their 4" phone the same way my family treated the AOL-age family computer (including arguments over visiting a website vs. needing to make a call. good times).

I loved Tomb Raider Go on Android, superbrother sword and sorcery, that Reigns game and a normal lost phone. And Father and son https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=it.tuomuseo.fa...

I am not claiming it's the best format for these games but playing it on my phone was easy and great.

There's also a solo card game, the name escapes me, I spent hours on it (edit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tinytoucht...).

My phone is the most available device and games are cheaper than Switch games if easy-to-pick-up is a criteria.

Anyway, it depends on what you like :).

(I didn't like an old man's tale at all, I thought it was ripoff).

edit: if some people on HN get my preferences from this post I am all ears for mobile game suggestions :).

> There's also a solo card game, the name escapes me, I spent hours on it.

Solitaire maybe? The classic Solitaire (Klondike Solitaire) is quite playable on phones, even in portrait mode. Self-plug: you can enjoy it in this mobile-first PWA (progressive web app) of mine: https://FreeSolitaire.win/

Found it https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tinytoucht...

Card game wasn't a good choice of words.

Thanks for the reference! That looks like a great game indeed.

> Card game wasn't a good choice of words.

Well yes, it was: “Card Crawl is a solitaire-style dungeon crawler game played with a modified deck of standard cards.”

Funnily, it’s even advertised as a solitaire game ^^

Sorry, I missed you self plug :D, I read without enough attention. I'll git it a try.

Tomb Raider Go is great! One of the few games on mobile that were worth paying money for. Can you recommend any others like it?

As far as the game mechanics are concerned: the Go serie ? Also maybe https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Arte.vanda... Vandals which comes close.

And Monument Valley which has similar game mechanics (you twist the environment around rather than make your way through it).

Regarding the ambiance: no idea :/.

But in the same vein, not on Android there is : Invisible Inc. https://store.steampowered.com/app/243970/Invisible_Inc/ and another game with a little girl and her invisible friend or something and it's turn based and tiled based and there's a back-in-time mechanic. Eh. I am useless.

Edit: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1433530/Bilal_Go/ Found out about that one. It even has Tomb Raider Go's tiles :).

In a similar vein there is also Hitman Go and Deus Ex Go.

I'm also a fan of Slay the Spire, mostly playing it on PC and Switch. But I triple dipped for the Android version, which has a little bit of clunkiness with the UI but the underlying game is there.

Great games, all of them.

Yeah, games designed for mobile devices work great on mobile devices. But Fortnite (at least the "battle royale" version) is a multiplayer shooter game, where you're much better off playing with a controller or with keyboard/mouse...

PUBG Mobile is another multiplayer shooter game and currently the most popular mobile game in the world:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-played_mobile_gam...

Fork knife doesn't appear on that list - I suspect it has many more downloads than pubg mobile. Having said that, I'm still really surprised how popular pubg mobile appears to be. I used to play the desktop version semi regularly and it was nowhere near that popular.

Speaking from experience: absolutely not true.

Many kids (like my own) prefer the mobile form factor and mobile controls.

That said, they're not playing Fortnite and likely don't even know what Fortnite is.

Kids have much smaller fingers, and so can use the touchscreen as a higher-precision input method than touchscreen. For those with adult-sized fingers, the precision sucks.

There's still the feedback issue though. How can anyone tolerate the poor control feedback of a touchscreen pretending to be a real controller?

The lack of buttons for additional fingers also seems like an issue. Unless you use the awkward claw grip that I know some people did for certain PSP games, you're limited to just your thumbs for input.

There's actually more controllers now than ever before that have even more buttons accessible to non-thumb fingers. A phone just seems like a poor choice for a game like Fortnite.

My kid doesn't mind, he says he doesn't need feedback.

On the other hand, mobile screens have multitouch and drag/swipe actions, and that's a real complaint when he's using a controller with physical buttons.

Eh. Kids have dexterity issues, depending on where we define the kid age range.

I'd argue that mobile-first games can work well.

That said, I've yet to truly enjoy playing a port of a console or PC game on mobile. The control compromises, if nothing else, are just too large.

It's fine if they include controller support, then it's just an alternative screen for playing a game.

But very few did, until very recently (in the grand sceheme of things. It didn't help that native controller support for Android took until a few years back).

40 years old kid here. iPad Pro is a perfect machine to run a casual shooter like Fortnite, I’ve spent hundreds of hours playing it this way.

My mental image of playing a (3rd? 1st?) person shooter on a table is like, is horrible. How do the controls work? Do you just pair some controller and prop up your iPad on a surface in front of you? Or is the controller attachable like a Switch?

Why the table? Just place the tablet on your laps and use both hands (vigoriously ;). There are many techniques - the advanced players use most of their fingers constantly. Touch controls could be very elaborate and precise.

> Why the table? Just place the tablet on your laps and use both hands

Because that seems incredibly awkward and uncomfortable?

It's not. I ended up putting thousands of hours into Fortnite on iOS too (so glad it got pulled - that stopped me playing!)

Playing on the table is one way - but it hurt my neck too much. I preferred the "claw grip" on my phone while laying on the couch - though I could only comfortably do 3 fingers. Some of the best mobile players do 6!

Look at this 6-finger claw technique: https://youtu.be/0SUCmew8BQE

I find it funny how, 10 years later, there are still games that require claw technique https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnW-ganA2cM

Showing that people do it doesn't make it good...

I guess I'm the rounding error here then: I like games which I can dip into for twenty minutes and that live in my pocket.

I want to play mobile games on mobile. Frenzic is a gold star example of a game that plays best on a handheld touchscreen. (It's also been out of print for years, sadly.)

A sequel is coming to Apple Arcade:

https://blog.iconfactory.com/2021/04/frenzic-overtime-coming...

My 11 year old wants to play Roblox on my phone - but only when we're out and she doesn't have the computer available.

I really do _want_ to play Vainglory on my mobile devices, but unfortunately SEMC decided to spend all their money creating an esports scene for the game out of thin air and nearly went bankrupt in the process, which in turn led them to sort of abandon the game in a half-broken state and go for the Hail Mary play with Catalyst Black

</rant>

To date MOBA has never recovered from this dumpster fire. All the alternatives that have since cropped up feel inferior to what SEMC had accomplished with Vainglory.

LoL: Wild Rift is surprisingly competent, and matches last around 15 minutes, speaking as a (former) dota player who hasn't played the regular LoL.

Sadly, the absence of tap controls makes it a non-starter on mobile... Virtual joysticks lack the fine controls that allow for higher (skill) levels of playing

I don't disagree, but it's a separate game with equal footing for everyone, and better than I expected it could be. It would of course never work cross-platform.

I do most of my gaming on... my watch.

Yes, my watch. I have 2048, an Arkanoid clone, Pong, and a fun little strategy game called Tiny Armies.

Now, to be clear, I do very little gaming. Don't own a desktop or console, the only games I play on my laptop are occasional web-based games (usually when something shows up on HN and I'm bored). I had a phase of playing games on my tablet but I just kinda fell out of the habit, and for whatever reason, the only phone game I've played in the last five years is Monument Valley.

I did game on my phone more often in the early Teens: Doodle Jump, something called Bit Trip Beat, Osmos, and yes, Flappy Bird. Just kinda stopped doing it.

So when I'm standing in line, or watching video and kind of bored with it but not so bored I'll stop watching, I do some casual gaming on my watch.

That’s the answer. You play casual games. OP should have written that nobody wants to play core games on a phone.

Which is also wrong. All games, including the ones that boomers like us think are completely unsuitable for touch devices, are immensely popular on phones.

Yeah, but if the kids’ parents don’t let them buy a Playstation, then they have to make do with what they have. Gaming on a clunky mobile device is still better then no gaming at all.

Kids play games on the platforms that are available to them. I used to play playstation on a tiny screen that mounted onto the back of a playstation because it was the only option to play in the car and when my parents dragged me along to boring events.

I didnt love the tiny screen but given the option between no playstation and playstation I was going to play on the tiny screen.

People would if they had physical buttons The Gameboy and switch show that mobile gaming could be popular.

Mobile phones are the most affordable console on earth. It's like game and watch of the 80s

Lol no.

Exception: Lichess

I see kids constantly playing games on their phones or tablets. Minecraft is/was huge on mobile.

Good point - I've seen that too, but most of those kids moved on to playing Minecraft on Xbox and only use mobile devices if they have to (ie, aren't home)