2) Mobile gaming brought in $90 billion dollars in 2023, making up 49%
of revenue of the global gaming market.** And, as far as I can tell,
that's just for the sale of games and MTX, and doesn't include revenue
from advertising/data-harvesting.
"Real" gamers often focus on whether the best option is PC or
Playstation or XBox, and bemoan when their favorite game only appears
on one platform or the other. But the above is a reminder that, as far
as the financiers are concerned, the BEST platform is the one that
brings in the most cash... and that's mobile gaming. Everything else
is small potatoes in comparison. And if those other platforms want to
keep up, they'd better start following mobile gaming's example.
Which is why we keep seeing more and more MTX in our 'real' games.
It's depressing, really.
On Wed, 12 Jun 2024 10:14:31 -0500, Mandrake <prmandrake@gmail.com>
wrote:
JAB wrote:
On 06/06/2024 22:42, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
I'm surprised the market doesn't dry up. I just don't find these games
fun. Like you said they take an idea and make it all the same by adding
MTX. It really comes down to which player is captivated enough to spend
the most money. That's not competition - that's an auction.
For PC games, a lot of the titles that use extraneous MTX (cosmetics,
etc.) are involved in the grey-market gambling that is a major part of Steam's ecosystem. Having little value in themselves, they're used as
'poker chips' for the gambling websites, representing more valuable
prizes for better games.
Even when the MTX are legitimate, it doesn't take all that many gamers
to be engaged with the MTX before it becomes extremely profitable;
more profitable than selling the games themselves. There are people
who literally spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on MTX (Although
most 'whales' -as the big-spenders are called- only spend ~$500 to
$2000 on a game). But even the tiny fish -the sort who spend <$10 per
game- are amazingly lucrative if you can lure in enough of them. Which
is why so many of these games are given away for free.
The truly sad thing is how so many gamers have become acclimatized to
this sort of thing. There's an entire generation of gamers who no
longer expect to receive full and complete games for their purchase;
who are shocked when they learned we used to get things like cheat
codes or fun extras like 'big head modes' and extra characters for
free, included in the base game. Which isn't to say publishers weren't money-grubbers back in the 80s and 90s either (you just have to look
at arcade game design to disprove that theory!) but even they never
took it as far as modern publishers.
On Thu, 13 Jun 2024 13:10:17 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
On 6/13/2024 10:22 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
The truly sad thing is how so many gamers have become acclimatized toThey also didn't have an internet ecosystem with things like PayPal to
this sort of thing. There's an entire generation of gamers who no
longer expect to receive full and complete games for their purchase;
who are shocked when they learned we used to get things like cheat
codes or fun extras like 'big head modes' and extra characters for
free, included in the base game. Which isn't to say publishers weren't
money-grubbers back in the 80s and 90s either (you just have to look
at arcade game design to disprove that theory!) but even they never
took it as far as modern publishers.
make MTX feasible at current tech.
Yeah. If Arcade manufacturers of the 80s could have socked players for
more, they certainly would have.
(but maybe I'm still just sore at the $1USD in quarters I shoved into
"Dragon Lair" back when that game was the new hotness only to die
thirteen seconds later. ;-)
Not that Paypal itself is required these days. All the modern MTX
happily accept payments from (slightly) less skeevy payment vendors, including credit cards and banks. I'm pretty sure that if Steam could,
they'd put a box in everybody's house to take cash if they could.
Still, there was an era -mid 90s to early 2000s- when publishers
seemed to be competing on the quality of their product. That isn't to
say there weren't some bad games back then but the way to financial
success was to invest in your development teams and let them crank out
games people wanted to play. Now it seems to be "crank out any old
shit, you'll find some suckers who'll play it and then monetize the
hell out of them".
Still... gotta give mobile games at least THIS much credit; they do
give you more bang for your buck than 13 seconds of gameplay. ;-)
On Thu, 13 Jun 2024 13:10:17 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
On 6/13/2024 10:22 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
The truly sad thing is how so many gamers have become acclimatized toThey also didn't have an internet ecosystem with things like PayPal to
this sort of thing. There's an entire generation of gamers who no
longer expect to receive full and complete games for their purchase;
who are shocked when they learned we used to get things like cheat
codes or fun extras like 'big head modes' and extra characters for
free, included in the base game. Which isn't to say publishers weren't
money-grubbers back in the 80s and 90s either (you just have to look
at arcade game design to disprove that theory!) but even they never
took it as far as modern publishers.
make MTX feasible at current tech.
Yeah. If Arcade manufacturers of the 80s could have socked players for
more, they certainly would have.
(but maybe I'm still just sore at the $1USD in quarters I shoved into
"Dragon Lair" back when that game was the new hotness only to die
thirteen seconds later. ;-)
Not that Paypal itself is required these days. All the modern MTX
happily accept payments from (slightly) less skeevy payment vendors, including credit cards and banks. I'm pretty sure that if Steam could,
they'd put a box in everybody's house to take cash if they could.
Still, there was an era -mid 90s to early 2000s- when publishers
seemed to be competing on the quality of their product. That isn't to
say there weren't some bad games back then but the way to financial
success was to invest in your development teams and let them crank out
games people wanted to play. Now it seems to be "crank out any old
shit, you'll find some suckers who'll play it and then monetize the
hell out of them".
Still... gotta give mobile games at least THIS much credit; they do
give you more bang for your buck than 13 seconds of gameplay. ;-)
Still... gotta give mobile games at least THIS much credit; they doYup. 14, sometimes even 15 seconds of gameplay.
give you more bang for your buck than 13 seconds of gameplay. 😉
On 14/06/2024 16:00, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
On Thu, 13 Jun 2024 13:10:17 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
On 6/13/2024 10:22 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
The truly sad thing is how so many gamers have become acclimatized toThey also didn't have an internet ecosystem with things like PayPal to
this sort of thing. There's an entire generation of gamers who no
longer expect to receive full and complete games for their purchase;
who are shocked when they learned we used to get things like cheat
codes or fun extras like 'big head modes' and extra characters for
free, included in the base game. Which isn't to say publishers weren't >>>> money-grubbers back in the 80s and 90s either (you just have to look
at arcade game design to disprove that theory!) but even they never
took it as far as modern publishers.
make MTX feasible at current tech.
Yeah. If Arcade manufacturers of the 80s could have socked players for
more, they certainly would have.
It was a sound business model and I didn't think it was that expensive
(10p a go) as long as you were half decent at the game and even less so
if you played with friends and spent more time watching someone else
play than playing yourself.
(but maybe I'm still just sore at the $1USD in quarters I shoved into
"Dragon Lair" back when that game was the new hotness only to die
thirteen seconds later. ;-)
Oh I remember Dragon's lair and for us I think it was 50p a game. I
never played it more than a few times before I realised that you weren't playing a game as such but instead can you remember what to do to avoid
dying like you did last time.
Not that Paypal itself is required these days. All the modern MTX
happily accept payments from (slightly) less skeevy payment vendors,
including credit cards and banks. I'm pretty sure that if Steam could,
they'd put a box in everybody's house to take cash if they could.
Still, there was an era -mid 90s to early 2000s- when publishers
seemed to be competing on the quality of their product. That isn't to
say there weren't some bad games back then but the way to financial
success was to invest in your development teams and let them crank out
games people wanted to play. Now it seems to be "crank out any old
shit, you'll find some suckers who'll play it and then monetize the
hell out of them".
There's still lots of games out there that are based around the idea of
you pay us money and we'll give you a game you like. Unfortunately the
big money seems to be made with here's a game that's just about adequate
and now we'll chuck the sink of phycological warfare at you to keep you paying and playing.
The bit I don't understand is overall they don't even seem to be
particularly good games but people buy them in their droves anyway.
Still... gotta give mobile games at least THIS much credit; they do
give you more bang for your buck than 13 seconds of gameplay. ;-)
I do play quite a few MTX mobile games just to pass the time but I've
never spent money on them. Basically it's play until the soft paywall
kicks in and then delete and find another one.
And then watch as your market starts to shrivel up in front of you,
and you wonder what you'll do once those whales that are keeping you
alive find something new to throw their money at.
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