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TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

toucharcade.com

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Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#41

Post by firebirdn99 »

mercacona wrote: post #37
thierrydamiba wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain to me what you mean by this? What about the internet today isn’t fun? There are plenty of websites that don’t have garbage listicles and AI slop, they just aren’t as popular.

But they don’t get attention-public-funding enough to be profitable because of the garbage. The garbage is burying them in search results but also literally.

i don't know if they were ever profitable. But certainly i think there's been a paradigm shift to commercializing everything (mostly through advertising) the last decade or two and if you fall behind, whatever growth you were aiming for goes away and revenues shrink.

And also almost all advertising revenues have probably become centralized with google search, social media by facebook, and youtube, etc. That combined with rising costs, and higher opportunity cost to instead do something else means these sites are biting the dust.

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#42

Post by wahnfrieden »

minimaxir wrote: post #11
PlunderBunny wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall reading several years ago that Apple dropping affiliate links (? Not sure if that’s the correct name) was a major financial blow. I had no interest in the podcast or the reviews of games on other platforms, or the increased coverage of anime games, but I continued to support them financially in a modest way just so that I could read the roundup of new games released every week. A few years ago, there would b…

That is also correct. > Apple Kills the App Store Affiliate Program, and I Have No Idea What We Are Going to Do. (2018) https://toucharcade.com/2018/08/01/apple-kills-the-app-store...

Are there any good backend/IAP-integrated ways to do affiliate referrals now ? I guess the only way is to use in app code entry to unlock access to a promo code or a special IAP

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#43

Post by golergka »

a_t48 wrote: post #32
golergka wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're already pirating games with game emulators, what's stopping you from pirating AAA titles as well? I'm not making any value judgement here, it just feels like you compare apples to oranges.

Buying a retro game no longer gives money to the developers. It doesn’t support the development of further games, it mostly just puts money in the pockets of collectors and scalpers.

> Buying a tomato in a grocery store no longer gives money to the farmer, because he's already been paid for it.

Same logic, same fallacy.

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#44

Post by tivert »

jprete wrote: post #39
bonestamp2 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh, if they make an ad that has non-game game-play that gets a lot of clicks... why not make that game instead/too?

I've heard that they do metrics on the ads to pick particular pseudo-games to implement. But they don't make money on clicks, they make it on whales, so they are also going to get rid of pseudo-games that can't get whales to spend more microtransaction money.

> But they don't make money on clicks, they make it on whales, so they are also going to get rid of pseudo-games that can't get whales to spend more microtransaction money.

This video did a very good job of explaining it, to me, someone who never plays mobile games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhajAqI66nU (https://archive.org/details/youtube-NhajAqI66nU).

tl;dr: it's all about getting whales into the game. The type of games people will download based on ad game-play are not the most monetizable (b/c whales). So the main game is a highly monetizable city-builder (which whales spend on), with the ad's minigame somewhere (which at most only has a few minutes of playtime). The ad's mini-game is often developed as a concept for the ad first, then only actually implemented later after A/B testing the ads. It doesn't matter that most people will get frustrated and delete the game when it's not as advertised, because the people who do that aren't whales.

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#45

Post by mschuster91 »

n_ary wrote: post #26
mschuster91 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah they've run shitty ads for years now. And it seems like the one time they did face consequences for their fake ads four years ago clearly wasn't enough [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24761349

It is a common trick. There are many culprits using same tricks: Gardenscape, Whiteout Survival, Frozen City, Township, Fishdom, Hero Wars and to some extent Royal Match. All of these appear to enjoy a lot of downloads, so whatever tricks they are using works very effectively.

> All of these appear to enjoy a lot of downloads, so whatever tricks they are using works very effectively.

That's because "# of downloads" is a crap metric that's easily gamed (be it by fake ads or bot campaigns or whatnot). A more useful metric would be "# of installs still active after 1/2/4 weeks", that would disincentivize a lot of these scams, but at the cost of Google being able to claim download numbers for the vitality of their app store ("# of app installs a day!!!"), which is why Google doesn't do much against this shit despite the "quality" dragging down the image of the entire Play Store. Unfortunately there is no competition worth the name as the Apple Store is similarly plagued by copycats and fakes, so neither party has an incentive to de-enshittify.

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#46

Post by heraldgeezer »

jamesgeck0 wrote: post #38
pier25 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the mobile crowd (which is basically most of humanity at this point) really prefer spending their money in a very specific genres, and innovative gameplay Yeah although what percentage of mobile users actually play on their phones regularly these days? It's anecdotal but I haven't played a mobile game in almost a decade now. I played a lot on my iPad 1 and 3. The app fever of 2010 has passed. Again anecdotal, but I…

Anecdotally, when I was in Asia I saw people playing mobile games all over the place. Mobile is the biggest gaming platform by a large margin.

Yes, but it's all anime gacha games like Genshin, Honkai, Arknights etc.

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#47

Post by bmalicoat »

As a mobile game dev, this is a bummer. I have been fortunate to get review and preview coverage on a few of my games from TA. There aren't many sites doing what that do. I get that the market has moved and now discovery happens in the App Store and via advertisement dollars, but growing up reading EGM or IGN.com and seeing people excited about a game just from a few screenshots colored me for life. I'm sad mobile game players don't have that opportunity.

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#48

Post by tourmalinetaco »

golergka wrote: post #21
tourmalinetaco wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t bought a new game for myself for years. Most of what I play is retro emulation, and what PC titles I do play are ones I already own and have a lot of replay value. Indie titles are far cooler than AAA, but even they don’t speak out to me as often. Why spend $60 on a flop like Hyenas, or even $20 on a game inspired by Harvest Moon, when I can actually play the original games for free? Especially on mobile, w…

If you're already pirating games with game emulators, what's stopping you from pirating AAA titles as well? I'm not making any value judgement here, it just feels like you compare apples to oranges.

I would if there were any AAA games I was interested in.

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#49

Post by nox101 »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #13
burningChrome wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be a huge mobile gaming person, but then a few years ago, I found out several of my mobile games were available on PC so I just stopped gaming on my phone all together. I have several co-workers who also did the same thing. We used to talk all the time about whatever new game was coming out on mobile, but now its all about PC and console titles. You're 100% right that it takes massive amounts of money to mo…

I haven’t bought a new game for myself for years. Most of what I play is retro emulation, and what PC titles I do play are ones I already own and have a lot of replay value. Indie titles are far cooler than AAA, but even they don’t speak out to me as often. Why spend $60 on a flop like Hyenas, or even $20 on a game inspired by Harvest Moon, when I can actually play the original games for free? Especially on mobile, w…

To you and the previous commenter, is it possible you've just aged out of the market? (not sure what other word to use than "aged") but my point is, most people eventually change their habits in almost everything.

The way I game now has changed drastically over the years for various reasons. The latest for me is probably just being tired of games that seem 3% different than the last fps/shumps/twin-stick-shooter/metroidvania/...

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#50

Post by tourmalinetaco »

jhbadger wrote: post #33
tourmalinetaco wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t bought a new game for myself for years. Most of what I play is retro emulation, and what PC titles I do play are ones I already own and have a lot of replay value. Indie titles are far cooler than AAA, but even they don’t speak out to me as often. Why spend $60 on a flop like Hyenas, or even $20 on a game inspired by Harvest Moon, when I can actually play the original games for free? Especially on mobile, w…

>or even $20 on a game inspired by Harvest Moon, when I can actually play the original games for free? If by that you are referring to Stardew Valley , while it is indeed inspired by Harvest Moon , it is so much richer and deeper and after playing it I guarantee you won't want to go back . It is like saying why play a modern Roguelike when you can just play Rogue .

I’ve played a fair bit of Stardew Valley, and that complexity can be fun, but sometimes I prefer to return to Friends of Mineral Town for the simplicity, and can do so on mobile (iOS lacks a mobile port of SD to my knowledge).
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