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TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

toucharcade.com

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Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#51

Post by MBCook »

Really too bad, but I’m not surprised. I know losing affiliate money many years ago hurt bad.

But the truth is I don’t care much anymore. I loved TA because they helped me find fun games. And while I’ve found a few from them in the last few years like Peglin most of their coverage is unsurprisingly what most of the industry makes: pay to win with smurfberries advertising laden crap.

I strongly believe the iOS gaming scene died the day IAPs came out.

There is the incredibly rare indie game that you can pay for now, and Apple Arcade. While I enjoy that most of the good games I’ve played before (a plus on the name = existed before). Those that I haven’t played or are new often were obviously designed for IAPs and aren’t that fun when they’re removed.

And I know devs seem to hate it, and I’m not surprised. But it’s the only option I’ve got left.

I’ll miss you, Touch Arcade. You long outlasted the era of greatness for the platform you covered. Thanks for making it as long as you did. One more sign we can’t have nice things because ruthless unnecessarily exploitive capitalism.

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#52

Post by bsder »

fidotron wrote: post #5

This is a highly visible manifestation of something that has been going on for years. I have been around mobile games for 20 years (going back to J2ME) and have never seen interest in the field so low. Essentially the noise is that people are locked into habits in the app stores. It takes huge amounts of money to get people to try something new, and this invariably leads to amazing conservatism on the part of publish…

> It takes huge amounts of money to get people to try something new, and this invariably leads to amazing conservatism on the part of publishers.

This is purely the fault of enshittifying the mobile gaming experience.

I moved through various genres like Puzzle and Dragons, Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, etc.

Each one of those games was a lot of fun because initially they left a path to play them with skill instead of money. Putting together a set of characters to beat the tough bosses in Puzzle and Dragons required a lot of skill to get the big combos you would need since you were underpowered. Clash of Clans was neat because you couldn't make a castle to protect against everything and someone with some skill could probably get an extra star off you with some work (I was really good at timing the placement of dragons against the algorithms to exploit seams and make higher leveled players cry). I had a Clash Royale deck based on Golems and Lightning that would win about 30% of the time even against players who had super powerful decks (I was casting things before stuff even hit the field in anticipation of what players would do and timing the delay from the system--sure it was high risk but also high reward).

Alas, the siren call of the microtransaction is strong. People who spend money expect to win and complain when they don't. Those games eventually all nerfed any skill-only paths. And then they expanded to make massive purchasing the only real path toward higher levels.

And that led me to stop playing mobile games altogether. There is no point. If a game is money or gacha, it's completely not interesting. If a game has a skill path, it will get nuked post haste as soon as the publisher figures out that it exists.

The only winning move is not to play.

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#53

Post by benoau »

golergka wrote: post #43
a_t48 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Except you don't have to hunt down the descendants of the grocery store or who acquired the company that acquired them that sold it for parts, decades later. With old games the rights holders are scattered and even unknown until they assert a claim they believe they have.

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#55

Post by nkrisc »

It’s a shame for sure, as I’ve occasionally used sites like TA as a consumer. But it’s also not anything I’d ever actually pay for. If these kinds of sites go away then I’ll just go on living without them. They’re nice to have, but they’re not necessary by any stretch. Life will go on, with or without video game journalism.

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#56

Post by drawkbox »

End of an era. TouchArcade was one of the better review sites and it was great to get featured there. Going for 16 years was a really good run. I hope the people involved land in good places. Game marketing has changed so much during that time. I do wish affiliate programs for games never went away as it was an entire economy and another way others would help get sales.

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#57

Post by PhasmaFelis »

thierrydamiba wrote: post #35
rightlane wrote: post #27

One of the last bastions of good games journalism, and the only good mobile gaming site. Another casualty of the garbage listicles and AI generated garbage that fills up search results. I would do anything to have the old, fun, internet back. This monstrosity we have now just isn't doing it for me.

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.

Can you name some? I know they exist, but in my experience 99% of them are small personal blogs maintained as a hobby. In 2024, it is practically impossible to focus on solid journalism and turn a profit, and every site I've seen try has either gone under or been forced to sell out to bottom-feeders and adopt listicles, etc.

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#58

Post by austinjp »

rightlane wrote: post #27

One of the last bastions of good games journalism, and the only good mobile gaming site. Another casualty of the garbage listicles and AI generated garbage that fills up search results. I would do anything to have the old, fun, internet back. This monstrosity we have now just isn't doing it for me.

Some of it might still be here:

https://search.marginalia.nu/explore/random

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#59

Post by pnw »

I remember when Apple killed the Touch Arcade app because apparently apps that include reviews of other apps are verboten. I am sure that sucked for them but in retrospect was probably good for me because it weaned me off finding and playing games on my phone.

Re: TouchArcade Is Shutting Down

#60

Post by bonestamp2 »

tivert wrote: post #44
jprete wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Does anybody know how much money someone has to spend to be considered a mobile gaming whale?
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