As an experiment, I Googled ‘mobile games killing dedicated gaming systems.’
I found near endless articles that suggest that mobile games are killing dedicated game systems and mobile games will kill the dedicated game system industry.
Dedicated Handheld Consoles Anyone?
I then Googled ‘mobile games killing PC games’ and to my surprise I found that the articles that suggested that mobile games are killing the PC gaming industry were very rare as the overwhelmingly vast majority of the articles were about the ‘death’ of dedicated gaming systems, in fact they outnumbered the articles about mobile games killing the PC gaming industry by like 15:1, with them mostly being mention alongside dedicated gaming systems.
Personally I attribute it to the work of the late Steve Jobs. In 2007 (2008?) Steve Jobs proudly announced that Apple had developed a new ‘game console’ only to show an iPhone. Not that the iPhone was bad, it single-handedly revolutionized smartphones at the time by starting a trend, lack of physical buttons, that smartphone manufacturers adopted more and more even to this day, but the thing was that major publications and media outlets failed to distinguish video games as they had evolved since the Atari and Colecovision days from the ‘apps’ that are found on a smartphone. This was mainly due to the wild popularity of Apple products; sites like ‘iGN’ and GameFAQS knew that they could get more hits on their sites from the ubiquitous Apple aficionados if they acknowledged Mr. Jobs’ notion that the iPhone was a game console rather than a simple app player so they lumped iPhone games in with console games to exploit the popularity. Jobs’ said that the iPhone was a game console with a lot of boldness and the madness that comes with the territory of being a genius but mostly pride. At first the people who acknowledged iPhones as game consoles would not acknowledge Android devices as game consoles, but now that Android device popularity is through the roof the more ‘smart’ media outlets are acknowledging Android devices as game consoles and others are writing articles about how mobile gaming is killing the dedicated game system industry.
The main thing that the articles that prophesy the death of dedicated game systems point out are the huge profits that the free to play/freemium developers were getting. Freemium require in app, real money purchases to truly enjoy. They spawned from premiums, which are paid apps that have allow for in app purchases, after the developers of them found that they were making the majority of their money from the in app purchases rather than the money they initially get from selling the app, they felt that if they made the app free then they would net more money on in app purchases as their apps were downloaded on more peoples’ devices. The dedicated game system industry has adapted with there being a growing number of enjoyable free to play games however.
Another thing that was mentioned in the articles a lot was the decline in the sales of dedicated game systems and their games compared to the growth of the profits of mobile games. Here they do not acknowledge relevant factors. For one thing, naturally there would be some decline in sales compared to say 1997 because the world economy has been in a slump since all of these bullshit wars have been getting started. One thing leads to another (i.e. rising gas prices and minimum wage increases resulting in inflation) and all of the sudden a dedicated game system turns from a spare cash hobby into an expensive luxury item overnight. This is not always the case as Maddens, Call of Dutys, Halos, etc. continue to sell record numbers on release day. Mobile devices come into play here because they are virtually required devices, because they are virtually required they can be owned by a lot more people than dedicated games systems, naturally with greater exposure they can generate great profits for app developers.
Probably the most ubiquitious reasoning behind the claims that mobile games are killing the dedicated game system industry is a theory that because mobile games are cheaper fewer and fewer people will buy the more expensive ones. This theory gets refuted year in an year out by the mainstream games’ first day/week/month sales raising the bar higher than the one set by the previous entry yet these wannbe video game industry analysts still cling to this illogical belief.
A middle to upper class wine drinker could get a shitload more cheap, inexpensive wine than expensive wine, but they choose to get expensive wine because they like the higher quality and they can afford it, they only get cheap wine when they are as the gas station and they do not feel like going to liquor store. A person who is not a wine connoiseur cannot distinguish between cheap and fine wine. If a wine drinker falls on hard times and is forced to consume cheap wine for an extended period of time, they will subconsciously condition themselves to believe that there is no difference between cheap wine and fine wine to justify their having to settle for less and project their situation outward. Gamers can easily be likened to wine drinkers.
Sure there are some decent time waster mobile games, but when you see the games that they were blatantly and shamelessly cloned from you realize that there is no contest. This is accentuated by the fact that these ‘console quality,’ wannabe AAA games are meticulously designed to have a player have their bank or credit card account sucked dry before any actual fun is had. Energy points, credits, in game cash bought with real money, subscriptions, you eventually get to a point where you are tired of it and want something better then that last pop up advertisement for that bullshit romance novel gets in your way and it pushes you over the edge. Once you see through the the illusion that you can you can pay less and get more, you turn on your Vita/3DS/PC/PS3/Xbox 360/Wii U and breathe a breath of fresh air when you remember what real gaming is like.
The thing about mobile games is that they are first and foremost apps, they tend to get bogged down when other processes are running in the background, by default they can only have so much RAM allocated to running them because they always have to be play second fiddle to some other function or task and there is a priority on recognition of ad clicks. Games on dedicated game systems do not have this shortcoming in gaming prowess because the system itself is designed first and foremost for gaming.
Sorry for the ramble, I was bored.
More on topic, for the most part there is significant difference between playing games on a smartphone/tablet, many would rather play Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories or Vice City Stories on PSP rather than play (or rather try to play) Grand Theft Auto III or Vice City on a mobile device with touch controls, and even if one connects a Bluetooth controller to play it on an Android device they would still have to deal with ubiquitous frame rate issues, disappearing objects/people, and crashes, overheating, things that they would not have to worry about on a dedicated handheld gaming device. Trying to play the bare bones, watered down version of Street Fighter X Tekken with touch controls on iOS and the virtually flawless Street Fighter X Tekken port on Vita that allows for cross platform play between Vita and PS3 players would allow one to see that there is a space in the industry that smartphone/tablet games cannot compete with in terms of gaming prowess. Then you have to take into account all of the console exclusive games that will not make it to mobile platform anytime in the foreseeable future. It is not not accepting ‘change’ or what have you it is understand that handheld games systems offer a better overall experience than gaming on smartphones and tablets because tablet games are restricted to touch only. Another thing I wanted to touch on is that mobile games tend to be grossly overrated by those who wish to create the illusion that there is no distinction between mobile gaming and gaming on a dedicated gaming device, despite the fact that hardly anything could be further from the truth, sites like ‘iGN’ will give crap iOS games 9/10-10/10 scores while giving console games 3/10s, 2/10s etc..
Written by Akhi216
*http://gawdalmighty.com/3ds-ps-vita-iphone-6-ipad-5/
No comments:
Post a Comment
Leave Your Message here