It's weird, with all this talk on how powerful the iPad Pro and the new iPhone X lets be honest. The App Store is reminiscent of the state of gaming that lead up to the video games crash of 1983.. I.E. 600,000+ flood F2P/P4F crappy "games", Cash grabs, and copy cats all pandering to the lowest common denominator. (Whales and dolphins) I know Apple is proud to tout $$figures, but the truth is %70 of those revenues come from less then 1% which means an overhwhelming number of people find F2P/P4F not worth paying for. -I don't care about the hardware excuses anymore (Bioshock ran decently on an iPad Air 2-3 years ago) -Apple has made some efforts with the whole 'metal' development -iPhones/iPads are multimedia devices like pcs and have the added benefit of long battery lives that people can choose to manage themselves -There are the occasional ports like Autogrid, XCOM, NBA2K8, Rome. -There are MFI controllers on the market that have proven to be good = Steel Series Nimbus and Gamevice. -people are willing to pay $700+ for these devices and $30+ for professional apps, but find $5-$10 for console/pc class games expensive The App Store when it comes to games has remained abysmal and shown little improvement since 2009. So what's going on? There are high expectations and standards for Apple devices, but the very opposite for game content. Yeah, yeah, if I want console/pc class games on the go it is best I get a Switch, the question that needs to be brought up more is why can't iPhone/iPads do this? IF La Noire was available, only able to run on the three of latest generations of iPhone/iPads, 8GB, and was $30+ with convenience of able to play it on the go (even if you have to conserve battery life) would you?
I do agree with some of your points but i wouldnt say its been abysmal since 2009. I do think theres been a 'slight' increase/surge of premium priced games recently, lots of games i've seen on Steam then seem to be on iOS and i've spent a lot of money the last few months on some of these games. I arrived to iOS in about 2011 and theres been plenty of classic games, i buy so many. Obviously a lot of shovelware as well but there have been some gems. I totally agree that people buy these expensive devices and then you see begging posts from people asking the dev when will there be a $1 sale off their latest game etc ! Then moan when its all freemium when devs dont make enough money with premium games ! Its sad that Doom/Wolfenstein arent on ios. I mean we dont even have these old 'ports' of Doom/Wolfenstein/Duke Nukem anymore as they've been lost to the 32 bit cull. Would LOVE to see Quake II appear on iOS but sadly hasnt happened. Would like more 'big name' ports though on iOS, for me Baldurs Gate was great (just about playable !) but Bioshock was a huge letdown, had that for i think a few months before the latest iOS killed it. As a retro gamer the 'pinnacle' of ports seems to be GTA San Andreas, the rest are older games (Baldurs Gate about 1999 or so). I think we need some big name ports to really shake things up
If not Skyrim, then maybe Oblivion? I agree, iPhones and iPads have come a loooong way, and now the graphic capabilities of the new devices rival that of the PS3 and Xbox360. I think they are also on par with the Nintendo Switch, which is getting Skyrim. IIRC,Todd Howard of Bethesda before promised an Elder Scrolls games, TES travels I think, and that was in the 3GS/4 era? I'm quite sure present devices can run Oblivion and Skyrim. Heck even a game like Morrowind would would be 1000000% sure to run on ultra high settings.
If only people were willing to pay. We made our own bed. And Apple doesn't help with pushing game-breaking updates often.
It comes down to the money. Nintendo owners have been shown to happily pay $70 for a game; iOS owners tend to shy away from anything over $2.99. I have no doubt that the current generation of iPads and iPhones could run Skyrim, but not enough people would pay for it to make a touchscreen port worth the effort. Apple really needs to start packing in controllers with iPads - it would completely redefine it as a gaming device.
This has to be sarcasm, right? You just nailed it on the head. Yes, people being unwilling to pay much on mobile has something to do with it, but in many instances a port of an existing game (where the major costs have already been sunk and hopefully recouped on other platforms) can work really well on mobile, even at lower prices. See the GTA games selling in the ten dollar range and constantly being in the charts. But the second you start bringing newer generation big open world games over, then you're going to start sacrificing your battery. And for 99.9999999999% of people that is unacceptable. You can live with playing a game like that on Switch and only getting 3 hours out of it because you aren't relying on your Switch being charged to get a call from your kid to pick them up from practice, or using it to find your way when you get lost on a road trip. Or in a serious emergency, possibly being the difference between life and death. "Why did Gary die? Welp he bled out because I couldn't call 911 after playing LA Noire all morning." For the vast, VAST majority of iOS device owners, gaming is secondary to the myriad of other things they rely on their phone to do. YOU might be willing to have your device die in a few hours, or carry around a battery pack, or only play while plugged in, but you're in the minority. And I mean TINY TINY minority. That's not even touching on the control factor. Yes, MFi controllers are pretty good and make a lot of games much more playable. But sales numbers for these things are depressingly low. People don't WANT controllers for their mobile devices. The entire point of gaming on a mobile device is that it's quick, it's always on you, and you always have everything you need right there with you. The second you start needing to lug around some form of controller peripheral, you've lost basically everybody. The "hardcore" gaming segment of the mobile community will always exist, and will be more willing to make some of the concessions noted above. But we're talking a handful of people within a market in the BILLIONS. Even if thousands of people want to make their mobile device a full blown gaming platform with controllers and higher priced games, they are still a minuscule sliver of the pie, which very few companies will be in a position to realistically cater to. The reasons the Switch is doing so well is because it's a dedicated gaming device. The only reason you buy one is to play games. It comes with built in physical controls, and it offers a number of different ways to play both on the go and at home on a TV like a regular console. It's also CHEAP compared to iOS devices. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of amazing premium games on mobile. Enjoy them for what they are, and if you absolutely MUST have a console-like, AAA or whatever gaming experience on the go, then get a Switch. It's never going to happen for iOS in our lifetime.
Switch has Tegra X1, which is in the Pixel. X1 benchmarks: https://browser.geekbench.com/android_devices/331 Single-Core Score: 1347 Multi-Core Score: 3034 iPhone X benchmarks: https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/52 Single-Core Score: 4204 Multi-Core Score: 9944 iPad Pro 10.5" benchmarks: https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/46 Single-Core Score: 3889 Multi-Core Score: 9217 Yes, iOS devices are fast enough to run Doom, Skyrim, and Wolfenstein. No, iOS users are not willing to pay $60 for any of these games.
" There are literally hundreds if not thousands of amazing premium games on mobile. Enjoy them for what they are, and if you absolutely MUST have a console-like, AAA or whatever gaming experience on the go, then get a Switch. It's never going to happen for iOS in our lifetime." so in other words no. Mobile gaming is not going to improve and full fill it's potential. 1.The market is a paradox of high end expensive devices, with low standards and expectations of free objectively crappy games. 2.The battery excuses has been done to death, iPads and iPhones are multi-media devices and knowing the limits of battery conservation does not excuse it from allowing heavy applications and games from running, it just requires the end user to manage their power use. *I use my iPad as both my work and primary mobile gaming device, but I know what apps to use at given times. 3.If you look at the facts and statistics of F2P/P4F/FREEMIUM it really is abysmal. The ugly truth is most people who play on mobiles, are not actually gamers (as in the type that play on consoles/pc and handhelds) they are the type that simply has a game available on their phone which is free and simply play it. -It's like the market of grandmas and grandpas that the Nintendo Wii captures years ago, but they are a fickle group and have disappeared, this is the same for mobile where MOST of the income comes from a very small segment of the market i.e. WHALES and DOLPHINS, If one looks at the typical mobile game on the app store F2P/P4F/FREEMIUM it is objectively sh#t, and this has been the standard, is anyone surprised most people would not pay for these games? I think the perceived psychology is backwards. People will not pay money for games because they are cheap, people will not pay for games that are sh*t! THIS was what caused the video games crash of '83 when you had companies, devs and publisher who had no business making games, flooded it with knock offs, rip offs, quick and cheap crappy games. The App store is no different. The App store has actually crashed it's just everyone is in denial, because most devs/publishers who make quality and AAA titles will NOT bring those games to mobile and people have accepted trash and quantity over quality. Nintendo said something famous after the '83 games crash. "The name of the game is the game" I think the Apple Apps store when it comes to games either needs a very big crash or the Switch actually dominates the mobile games market and shows quality>quantity.
The point exactly. high expectations for premium and expensive hardware, but the opposite for content. It doesn't have to be $60 either, it could $30+ because of the huge install base of iOS. Doom has a pedigree and enough recognition that console/pc and handheld gamers can inform the clueless iOS "gamer" when they on occasion say "what game should I get?" I am an iOS user and gamer, and I am willing to pay for good quality apps because I'm normal and not a whale. MOST people will not pay for these free crap games because they are crap, not because they are cheap. (we all know it) MOST of the revenue comes from WHALES who are simply exploited of their OCD. This is something the gambling industry knows very well.
choose between the two games. 1. FREE - Candy Crush with it's simple game play (and I can accept is fun for a little while) and its perpetual IAP of extra candy, jewel, energy, time whatever..... or 2. $20 - Super Mario Kart one time pay, with simple gameplay (and we can all accept is fun) and has more content and replayability without having to keep perpetually paying for more energy, time, jewels etc.. I believe under all the marketing glitz and download numbers that Apple, publishers and devs will bring out for Candy Crush, the truth is either most people will get Super Mario Kart for $20 or more people will download Candy Crush and less will actually pay for it. Candy Crush will most likely make more $money overall, but from a far fewer percentage of people, but Super Mario Kart will make a decent amount of money and provide more value to gamers.
https://www.polygon.com/2015/10/19/9567017/the-mobile-games-market-is-an-absolute-mess-thanks-to-you "Even apps that find success in their marketing campaigns cannot make up the money spent on development because people would rather spend $5 on a latte every other day than on the app. Why? Because the most popular games are free-to-play, with a monetization model that lets most players play for free while milking some customers for thousands of dollars." "Most players have become conditioned to feel entitled to free content more and more." This I disagree with, I think it more accurate "gamers" on mobile have been conditioned into lower expectations and acceptance the very low standards. "Since the difference in income is so huge, it makes the decision for a developer almost binary. Either we make a mass-appealing game the Clashes of Clans or Candy Crushes and have a chance to make a living, or we make a niche game and have no chance at all. At the end of the day, all these factors make creating good content for mobile devices more and more difficult." which is very strange. People again are willing to pay premium for the hardware and have high expectations, yet somehow the complete opposite when it comes to the quality of the content. F2P/P4F/FREEMIUM, knocks, copy cats and just plain outright crap has become the standard for mobile games, while good games $5+ which we all know in reality is very cheap are struggling. what I am trying to figure out is, what is keeping mobile games in the pits since 2009. -is it driven by Whales who's OCD are exploited? -is it a standard and lowered expectations many mobile gamers have come to accept and don't see mobile gaming improving? -is it denial? -it is Apple and Google with a quantity>quality as long as it makes $billions before an inevitable collapse? I don't see any vast improvements any time soon and will probably have this discussion again in 5 years when mobiles are several magnitudes more powerful then today's Macbook Pro '15 amd the top game on the charts is Candy Crush and Clash of Clans.
Why don't you do everyone a favor and list all of the amazing high tier mobile games from 2009 that you think haven't been surpassed in the 8 years since. I'd love to hear what those are. Maybe then we can at least try to see where you're coming from, as right now you're making zero sense.
This thread is particularly hilarious on a week when we get The Witness, the latest Phoenix Wright, Thimbleweed Park, Morphite, etc. All of which, BTW, will get far more play from me than anything on my Switch.
" Maybe then we can at least try to see where you're coming from, as right now you're making zero sense." nah. you know exactly what I mean. The state of mobile gaming is abysmal, it is ruled by a F2P/P4F/FREEMIUM model of copycats, knock offs and rip offs, and at the expense of good paid games gamers want and developers who care about making good games are struggling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXxDKgqBWXA&t=25s as long as the very low status quo of crap on the Appstore remains when it comes to gaming, we will never see the likes of this calibre on mobile (even when we all know it is potentially capable of it) You maybe satisfied by the very low bar of quality and rip off model of game content on mobiles for the past 9 years, but many gamers have higher standards.
infographic-whales-account-for-70-of-in-app-purchase-revenue http://www.adweek.com/digital/infographic-whales-account-for-70-of-in-app-purchase-revenue/ http://www.alistdaily.com/digital/the-current-state-of-mobile-gaming/ "Women represent the majority of mobile gamers, making up 63 percent of the total player base. Despite this revelation, 72 percent of the women surveyed said that THEY DO NOT consider themselves a “gamer” even though 59 percent of women said they play games at least 10 times per week." an easier way to understand this is, like having Solitaire on your pc. It is free, you do not pay for anything and you play it almost everyday at work logging in the hours. It does not mean you are a gamer, it just means the game is simply there. Now imagine that the App store is 90% made up of Solitaire, most will play because the game is simply on their mobile phone, they play at least 5 times a week since they have their phone with them at work, and the boss is the only one spending hundreds to thousands of dollars buying card foil covers. This will give you a picture as to what holds back the mobile gaming industry. not excuses like battery consumption a diamond in a rough/ needle in a haystack whales are gamers (which is false and misconstrued)
Dude, you are like a composite of every troll we’ve had around here over the last 9 years. I think it’s time to move on.
