Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone • Hacker News Board

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#21

Post by dragonbonheur » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:54 PM UTC

When the whole mobile/app thing began with Java ME, I thought their prices would be within $10-$25 because programmers would not have to sell physical copies anymore and along came Apple selling mobile software more at $0.99-$5 and even at $5 people think software is too expensive compared to the $40+ they were paying for console games or other programs.

This aggressive dilution of the monetary value of software is what I think contributed the most to the loss of gameplay quality and the near-criminal, constantly-nagging-for-payments-and-ad-views behavior of app publishers today.

Mobile software should have been sold more like shareware used to be sold - free demos with limited functionality -$5 onwards for complete versions.

But now it is too late, the dilution of value of mobile software has only benefited app store owners.

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#22

Post by Retric » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:54 PM UTC

jwcooper wrote: post #14

If you can get past maybe the top 50 or 100 grossing games there are a lot of really good games out there that aren't looking to leech money from you. I have plenty of games that have been worth every penny I spent with a lot of depth and strategy required in order to master them. Letterpress, Spelltower, Hearthstone, Tiny Wings, Ticket to Ride, Strategery, GD Swarm, Ridiculous Fishing, Monument Valley...I could go o…

You seem to have a low bar for what constitutes a great game. (EX: Tiny Wings) Which is not a bad thing. I would suggest you look into free flash games, there are some real gems out there.

However, IMO many people are simply have different expectations. Mobile has plenty of processing power, but poor controls which is a real limitation preventing a wide swath of what people think of as video games.

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#23

Post by Derpdiherp » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:55 PM UTC

jwcooper wrote: post #14

If you can get past maybe the top 50 or 100 grossing games there are a lot of really good games out there that aren't looking to leech money from you. I have plenty of games that have been worth every penny I spent with a lot of depth and strategy required in order to master them. Letterpress, Spelltower, Hearthstone, Tiny Wings, Ticket to Ride, Strategery, GD Swarm, Ridiculous Fishing, Monument Valley...I could go o…

For sure. Most of these have been in the Mobile Humble Bundle. I don't really buy mobile games outside of it.

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#24

Post by tcfunk » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:55 PM UTC

Goronmon wrote: post #19

Honestly, the lack of dedicated controls will never allow for mobile gaming to be anything more than a time diversion for most people. A touchscreen just isn't something that's comfortable to use for extended lengths of time, in my opinion at least.

I think there's certain games/tasks for which touch screens are miles ahead of the old mouse and keyboard. Card games, for example, lend themselves very well to touch screens.

That's only one example, but I think the issue is that so many games try to adapt touchscreen to old control methods, rather than create new control methods for touchscreens.

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#25

Post by jerf » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:56 PM UTC

Goronmon wrote: post #19

Honestly, the lack of dedicated controls will never allow for mobile gaming to be anything more than a time diversion for most people. A touchscreen just isn't something that's comfortable to use for extended lengths of time, in my opinion at least.

Yes, I'm intrigued how one is going to bring "old-school arcade sensibilities" to a system where the inputs really need to be interpreted as "a user pressed sort of hereish, sort of nowish" and when the user does that, they also have to cover some percentage of the screen to do it. Precision is not available. Not all games require precision, so it's not a fatal problem, merely just another design issue to deal with, but it does sound fatal to a lot of "old school arcade" ideas.

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#26

Post by saturdaysaint » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:56 PM UTC

In all fairness to Bushnell, the clickbait headline is drawn from the considerably more measured "I have been so pissed off with some mobile games I’ve wanted to throw my phone".

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#27

Post by jwr » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:56 PM UTC

From someone who grew up using a Commodore 64: he's right. We've forgotten how to design great games. I don't claim to understand why, but we did.

This is more visible on consoles, where the overall gaming experience is simply terrible, but mobile isn't that much better.

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#28

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:57 PM UTC

roymurdock wrote: post #15

jwcooper wrote: post #14

If you can get past maybe the top 50 or 100 grossing games there are a lot of really good games out there that aren't looking to leech money from you. I have plenty of games that have been worth every penny I spent with a lot of depth and strategy required in order to master them. Letterpress, Spelltower, Hearthstone, Tiny Wings, Ticket to Ride, Strategery, GD Swarm, Ridiculous Fishing, Monument Valley...I could go o…

How do you discover quality games? I've found the ability to discover apps outside the top 100 to be virtually non-existent with the current app store configuration.

By doing as we always did, reading game reviews by people that work doing only that.

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#29

Post by gambiting » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:58 PM UTC

mfoy_ wrote: post #11

howlingfantods wrote: post #5

I played Clash Royale for several days and the insistence on payments to progress was really off putting. The gameplay itself was quite addicting so I presume they're trying to avoid players burning out from binging. But the fact you either had to pay money or wait three hours to do anything of value was just too much to bear. The entire game design is genius in how it funneled you toward purchases.

I'm 99% sure most mobile games are designed to psychologically drive players to spend as much money on microtransactions as possible. That, and now they are specifically targeting whales, so there's less "a little goes a long way" on IAP and now you really have to shell out to get anywhere. I know that I've personally spent more on in-app purchases that I care to admit just to get an edge on other players in some of…

Clash of Clans had a revenue of 1 BILLION dollars in 2015 alone. That's insane. I'm sure they measure every single metric that can be measured in that game and make sure it's as engaging as possible by optimizing their interfaces and looking at the psychology of players.

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#30

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 3:00 PM UTC

dragonbonheur wrote: post #21

When the whole mobile/app thing began with Java ME, I thought their prices would be within $10-$25 because programmers would not have to sell physical copies anymore and along came Apple selling mobile software more at $0.99-$5 and even at $5 people think software is too expensive compared to the $40+ they were paying for console games or other programs. This aggressive dilution of the monetary value of software is w…

Same thing on the desktop.

Software development outside of the desktop and enterprise space is only sustainable via services/books/consulting, because no one is paying for software if they can get it for free.