The real horror of ‘Until Dawn’ is that Sony sent it to die
“Are we, like, in a movie right now?” It’s an apt question one of the handsome teens starring in PlayStation 4’s latest exclusive, Until Dawn, asked about an hour after I picked up the controller. Yes. No. Maybe. It’s kind of hard to explain, and it appears Sony would rather not. At its core, Until Dawn is an interactive teen-horror movie (think ’90s genre staples Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer) set at a remote ski lodge where a murderous psychopath is on the loose. But after critics almost universally chastised Sony’s other AAA tentpole, The Order: 1886, earlier this year for its gorgeous but bland cinematic leanings, “interactive movie” is a label the gaming juggernaut would rather not bandy about here.
In fact, Sony would prefer you not pay attention to this game at all. It’s getting no love from the company’s marketing department and was weirdly absent from this June’s E3 media briefing. And that’s a damned shame because Until Dawn is one of the best horror experiences — interactive or not — I’ve ever had.
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For anyone that played 2010’s Heavy Rain on PlayStation 3, Until Dawn will be incredibly familiar.
The Hayden Panettiere-starring Until Dawn began as a game for the PlayStation Move in 2012. Developer Supermassive Games made a few titles for Sony’s motion controller prior to that (e.g., Tumble, Start the Party) to moderate success, but the road to PlayStation 4 has been paved with numerous delays these past three years.
The radio silence broke at Gamescom last year in Cologne, Germany, when Sony announced the game was coming to its latest console and that the PlayStation 3-specific Move-controls were being translated to the DualShock 4, a gamepad also capable of motion control. Beyond an appearance last December at the first annual PlayStation Experience in Las Vegas, a consumer-focused event, new details about Until Dawn have been few and far between. This isn’t how big-budget exclusive games usually fare; you know practically everything about them before release due to PR-orchestrated hype.
Until Dawn‘s choice-based gameplay
That pre-release obscurity works in Until Dawn‘s favor, though, because I had no idea what to expect when I started playing. Let me be clear right up front: This is not a “game” in the typical sense. You can’t draw a weapon whenever you want. Said armaments don’t require scrounging for ammo; nor do you fight end-of-level bosses. But that’s why Until Dawn is so refreshing: You’re sitting in the director’s chair for a killer ride.
Gameplay revolves around guiding the oldest looking teenagers you’ve ever seen (apart from Andrea Zuckerman on Beverly Hills 90210) from one gently flashing object of interest in the environment to the next in order to advance the story. This progression sees the player making binary, narrative-affecting choices at key moments and pressing buttons in sequence as they appear onscreen (referred to as quick-time events). And really, that’s about it. For anyone that’s played 2010’s Heavy Rain on PlayStation 3, which used similar play mechanics to tell its story, Until Dawn will be incredibly familiar.
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If you’ve ever found yourself screaming at the TV while watching stupid teens do absurd things in horror movies, Until Dawn is the game for you. It smartly flips genre tropes on their head, embracing gaming’s player-first nature by suddenly giving you control. For example, I happened across a machete after one terrifying encounter and instinctively yelled, “Get the fucking machete, dude!” and then was pleasantly surprised by a prompt to pick it up.
The team at Supermassive Games definitely knows how to construct a shot.
That Until Dawn feels like an awesome indie fright-fest rather than late-night Netflix stoner fare, like Zombeavers, is because it was written by Larry Fessenden and Graham Reznick, a pair of Hollywood scribes whose resumes read like contemporary horror’s greatest hits. In fact, the movie-poster-adorned walls of Dawn’s ski-lodge home theatre highlight the writers’ past IMDb credits: The Innkeepers, The House of the Devil and Stake Land. It’s a knowing wink to horror fans. Without the duo’s guidance, it’s possible Dawn could’ve devolved into a cheesy trope-fest.
Until Dawn feels like an awesome indie fright-fest rather than late-night Netflix stoner fare
It’s clear Fessenden and Reznick have the utmost respect for horror and they gleefully play with how well-tread genre archetypes generally work. There’s a scene where a jock and the “hottest girl in high school” slink away to a secluded spot to have sex, because that’s what happens in horror films. However, lines like, “It’s so cold in here my tongue would get stuck to your flagpole,” make the clichéd situation feel fresh, and most importantly funny. Dawn expertly balances between a genuine atmosphere of suspense and humor because a player can only take so much interactive stress before calling it quits.
But as much as I love Until Dawn, it has some definite flaws. The game uses incredibly cool-looking cinematic camera angles to frame each scene — think: early Resident Evil releases — but the flip side is that the game’s sometimes-clunky movement is occasionally at odds with player progression. I awkwardly stumbled around scenes because I couldn’t see exactly where I needed to go (there’s no free-look system) more than a few times. It was a hard slap that took me out of the moment and reminded me that I wasn’t watching a movie; I was playing a slightly unpolished video game.
Horror flicks famously have a hard time wrapping up their stories too, and Until Dawn suffers a bit from this, squandering some of its momentum before the end credits roll. One of gaming’s greatest sins — backtracking through previously explored areas — is on full display here and a few parts feel like years-late commentary on the horror genre itself. For the most part, Until Dawn‘s third act does what it needs to and reaches a satisfying conclusion. It, however, can’t quite match the intensity and mystery of the five or so hours that preceded it.
Unlike The Order, which developer Ready at Dawn framed the entire game with constant letterbox bars for a more cinematic appeal, Until Dawn doesn’t rely on any such presentation crutch to justify its movie-like presentation, nor does it need to. In fact, it’s pretty telling that the black bars only appear in the pause menu and non-interactive cutscenes. The only assist Until Dawn really needed was some pre-release buzz from Sony’s well-oiled hype machine. The sad truth, however, is that Sony’s sending this game to die by no fault of Supermassive’s own. Until Dawn is an incredibly strong exclusive, and given its history of delays, pushing the release date a few more months wouldn’t have hurt; the game is perfect for Halloween frights. That Until Dawn isn’t getting any corporate love is almost as scary as the game itself.
Filed under:
Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Sony
Tags: gaming, GrahamReznick, HaydenPanettiere, hd, hdpostcross, horror, LarryFessenden, playstation, playstation4, ps4, sony, supermassivegames, teenhorror, theorder1886, untildawn
Nintendo is once again open to movies based on its games
Nintendo has lately been willing to license its characters for movies (see Donkey Kong’s appearance in Pixels), but it’s been a long time since there was a flick based on its characters — maybe it’s still having traumatic flashbacks to Super Mario Bros. from 1993. Whatever the reasons, it might just have a change of heart. Shigeru Miyamoto tells Fortune that the firm is thinking “more and more” about including movies as part of its strategy. He used to see movies as passive content that was at odds with gaming, but a shift to treating Nintendo as an “entertainment company” has once again raised the prospects of movie adaptations.
This doesn’t mean that you’ll see motion pictures soon, if at all. Nintendo put the kibosh on rumors of a Zelda movie just this year. However, such a move wouldn’t be surprising. The company’s traditional console-based gaming business isn’t making a lot of money right now, and it’s branching out into other areas (such as smartphone games) in hopes of improving its fortunes. Movies would not only add revenue, but boost the profile of its games if done well enough.
Filed under:
Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Nintendo
Via:
IGN
Source:
Fortune
Tags: gaming, hdpostcross, licensing, movies, nintendo, shigerumiyamoto, videogames
The gorgeous faces and stunning cinematography of ‘Until Dawn’
The PlayStation 4’s latest exclusive Until Dawn is absolutely stunning visually. In particular? Its faces. By using 3D performance capture techniques that include strapping an HD camera rig attached to their heads to grab practically every minute detail and expression, the actors (including Hayden Panettiere and Peter Stormare) bring life to the characters in a pretty realistic fashion. What’s really cool is that oftentimes once you let the DualShock 4 sit idle for a moment, the camera will zoom in on the face of whichever of the randy teens you’re controlling. If motion controls are enabled, you can tilt the gamepad this way and that and the possibly-doomed cabeza will follow suit accordingly. It’s pretty neat!
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Sadly, Until Dawn is severely lacking a proper photo mode though. I never thought I’d praise a game’s cinematography, but I was consistently wowed by how every scene was composed and framed during my playthrough. Those sometimes-annoying camera angles, combined with just how good the game looks, scream for the ability to futz with exposure, saturation and depth of field adjustments for even more stunning, shareable shots. Seriously. Take a gander at the gallery below and try telling me that something like The Last of Us: Remastered‘s or Infamous: Second Son‘s digital dark-rooms couldn’t make the screenshots look even cooler and more desktop-image worthy.
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Filed under:
Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Sony
Tags: 3dMotionCapture, cinematography, faces, gallery, gaming, HaydenPanettiere, hd, hdpostcross, PerformanceCapture, PeterStormare, photogrpahy, PlayStation, playstation4, ps4, sony, supermassivegames, untildawn
‘Star Fox Zero’ swoops onto Wii U on November 20
Nintendo Wii U owners, mark your calendars. The Japanese console maker will be launching Star Fox Zero, the next space adventure from Shigeru Miyamoto, on November 20th in the US and Europe. It’s one of the biggest titles headed to Nintendo’s home console this fall, alongside Super Mario Maker, JRPG Xenoblade Chronicles X and the adorable Yoshi’s Woolly World. Of the three, Star Fox Zero is arguably the most anticipated. It’s been over a decade since Star Fox: Assault graced the Gamecube, but with the 3DS port of Star Fox 64, as well as the crew’s appearances in Super Smash Bros., the series has stayed fresh in people’s minds. Can Miyamoto and PlatinumGames deliver with the anthropomorphic space animals again? We’ll be able to find out in just a few months.
Filed under:
Gaming
Source:
Nintendo
Tags: foxmccloud, miyamoto, nintendo, NintendoWiiU, shigeru-miyamoto, starfox, starfoxzero, wiiu
The Mega Yarn Yoshi Amiibo is coming to take over the world
If you thought that 8-bit Mario Amiibo from E3 was huge, you ain’t seen nothing yet: Mega Yarn Yoshi is coming to take the “biggest Amiibo” crown. The beautiful toy you see above is an officially licensed super-sized version of the popular Yarn Yoshi Amiibo. It’s a fully-functional NFC figure, so you’ll be able to use its foot to interact with various WiiU titles. It’ll activate the “Double Yoshi” feature in Yoshi’s Wooly World, create an A.I. fighter in Super Smash Bros. or get a sweet Mii costume in Mario Kart 8. Priced at $39.99 and scheduled for release this November 15th, it’s likely to sell very quickly. You’ll want to keep a close eye on pre-orders as this green giant is going to cost a bomb on eBay once stocks run out.
Filed under:
Gaming
Source:
Nintendo
Tags: amiibo, figurine, nfc, nintendo, toy, yoshi
Pokemon players arrested after bringing guns to World Championships
In a bizarre turn of events, police have arrested arrested two men for threatening the Pokemon World Championships in Boston. Investigators from the Boston Police Department (BPD) were tipped off after James Stumbo and Kevin North, 27 and 18 respectively, posted an image of an AK-47 and shotgun on Facebook, saying “(we) are ready for worlds Boston here we come!!!.” Police searched their car on yesterday afternoon and discovered those weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a hunting knife. What makes it bizarre is that both players had actually qualified for the World Championships — no easy feat — and Stumbo was even the Nebraska state Pokemon champion.
According to Motherboard, players and the public hadn’t been informed about the threats and were only clued in by the presence of police and bomb-sniffing dogs. Police weren’t taking any chances, screening every bag and setting up officers on each floor of the convention center. The BPD said that they were informed of the threats by “private security (that reached) out to their local Boston police district and relay(ed) information to detectives… in order to identify the very real threat.” The suspects have been arrested and charged with unlawful possession of firearms, among other infractions.
Filed under:
Gaming
Via:
Motherboard
Source:
Boston Police Department
Tags: BostonPoliceDepartment, gunmen, Pokemon, PokemonWorldChampionships, threats
The ‘Uncharted’ PS4 collection isn’t just a quick-and-dirty port
There’s no doubt that Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection is an attempt to rekindle interest in the franchise (and score some extra sales) ahead of Uncharted 4‘s release next year. However, that doesn’t mean that Bluepoint Games’ PlayStation 4 port of the first three Uncharted games is a simple cash-in. The team at Digital Foundry has conducted a shot-by-shot comparison of the anthology’s trailer with the respective moments in the PS3 games, and it’s clear that there are many, many little visual upgrades (beyond just the jumps to 1080p and 60 frames per second) that add up to a lot. More detailed objects are everywhere, lighting is more natural and cinematic depth-of-field effects occasionally pop up — just take a look at Nathan and Sully in the PS4 edition (pictured at left) versus its PS3 counterpart (right). There are even elements that weren’t there at all before. The games treat fire and dust differently than they did in the past, and you’ll see new details like low-hanging clouds.
Not everything is a step forward. There’s a noticeable lack of motion blur, which might rob some action-heavy scenes of their thunder. Even so, it’s evident that The Nathan Drake Collection is as much about creating a consistent Uncharted experience as anything else. Bluepoint is sprucing everything up so that you won’t feel like you’re stepping into a time machine when you play the older titles. Yes, the series won’t be exactly how you remembered it, but it beats having to settle for upscaled versions of action-adventures that are starting to show their age.
Filed under:
Gaming
Via:
VG24/7
Source:
Eurogamer, Digital Foundry (YouTube)
Tags: bluepointgames, gaming, naughtydog, playstation, ps3, ps4, uncharted, unchartedthenathandrakecollection, video, videogames
‘Pac-Man’ embraces mobile with an endless running game
Pac-Man is no stranger to the mobile world, but most of his games are just the classic maze runner scaled down to phone size. Wouldn’t it be nice if the yellow chomper got a game that’s actually meant for small screens? Bandai Namco agrees. It recently launched Pac-Man 256, an Android and iOS game that blends old-school gameplay with the endless runner format that you’ve seen in big-name smartphone titles like Temple Run. You still have to navigate twisty corridors and avoid ghosts, but this time you’re also outracing Pac-Man‘s infamous level 256 glitch — no power pellet will save you if you move too slowly. It’s an intriguing concept, although you’ll want to watch out for the ugly side of modernization… that is, in-app purchases. You can last quite a long time without paying a cent, but Bandai Namco is hoping that you’ll shell out anything from 99 cents to $8 to get a credit boost and keep your run going. So long as you don’t mind the occasional cash grab, though, this could be a good way to rekindle your nostalgia while you’re waiting for the bus.
Filed under:
Cellphones, Gaming, Tablets, Mobile
Via:
The Next Web
Source:
Bandai Namco, App Store, Google Play
Tags: bandainamco, endlessrunner, gaming, mobilepostcross, pac-man, pac-man256, pacman, video, videogames
Nintendo patent hints at a return to disc-free game consoles
Nintendo has said little about what its future NX console will involve (besides not running Android), but one of the company’s recent US patent applications might be a hint as to what it’s planning. The would-be patent, filed this February, talks about a “stationary game console” that uses only hard drives and external cards for storage — the first time a TV-based Nintendo system would go without discs since the Nintendo 64 from two decades ago. As the company explains, the rise of broadband makes optical drives obsolete. Why include a disc reader when any game you want is just a download away?
There aren’t any big clues as to the NX’s hardware, and there’s no guarantee that this amounts to a Nintendo roadmap. It could easily change its mind if it decides that it needs Blu-ray or another format to handle large releases. However, a disc-free system certainly makes sense, especially for a system that might not ship for another year or two. While all the big TV game consoles currently ship with disc drives, it’s no secret that the technology is on its way out — it’s slow, complicates game updates and adds to the cost of a system. Ditching plastic media would let Nintendo embrace the future while keeping its historically low hardware prices.
[Image credit: Jeff Daly/Invision for Nintendo/AP]
Source:
NeoGAF
Tags: console, gaming, nintendo, nx, patent, uspto, videogames
Why doesn’t anyone seem to take mobile gaming seriously?
It seems like mobile gaming has been “on the cusp” of being the go-to platform for game developers for years now. You see it over and over again from pundits and fans alike that “this will be the year mobile gaming really takes off and we start seeing some big name titles”. Except that it never seems to actually happen.
What’s going on, and what keeps blocking the path to what seems like a natural evolution in gaming? Let’s take a look at the possibilities.
Money
Let’s get the elephant out of the room right now. The biggest worry for big name studios is whether or not they’re going to make money on mobile. Upon a cursory glance, it doesn’t appear that revenue is a problem. In 2014, Apple’s App Store recorded over $10 billion in sales with every indication that Android is catching up. This still falls short in comparison to the $46.5 billion in sales for the console and PC gaming industry, but there’s definitely money to be made.
The stats look juicy. Especially if you consider that everyone expects mobile to grow considerably while PC and console should slow down a bit. These stats all point to one thing: mobile is the future.
The stats all say the same thing. Mobile gaming is the future.
Unfortunately, when you peel back those numbers you begin to see some unsavory trends. Revenues are growing, but it’s how they’re growing that seems to be the problem. In 2014, Freemium games (free with in-app purchases) accounted for more than 95% of revenue in the Google Play Store with iOS not far behind. This means that people aren’t actually buying stuff. They’re downloading games and then maybe paying money later if they like it. It doesn’t help that well over 90% of new games and apps are Freemium which only bolsters the strength of that business model.
This is a problem because that’s not how games are traditionally made. Generally, there’s a larger up-front cost to playing a high-end console or PC game. Do they have in-app purchases? Of course they do, but they’re generally things like expansion packs which adds a ton of extra content to the game. You can’t buy gems in Halo and you don’t buy gold in Skyrim.
When you add it all up, it means that in order to make money on mobile, you have to compromise your game in order to make it fit with the business model that works there. Freemium titles are huge on mobile while more expensive, pay-once titles account for a few percentage points at best.
When you’re a business, it means more when people vote with their wallets, not their words.
That leaves developers with two options. The first is that they abandon the effort and stick to console and PC where their kind of business model pays big. The other is that they bastardize their IP by creating masturbatory, fan-service games like Mortal Kombat X on mobile, Sonic Dash, and to a smaller extent Fallout Shelter that take legendary franchises and neuters them into something that fits into the more profitable business model. To really drive the point home, Sonic Dash has between 50 million and 100 million downloads. The actual Sonic the Hedgehog games (full ports of Sonic 1 and Sonic 2) have a combined total of between 200,000 and one million, making them anywhere between 0.2% to 2% as popular as their freemium counterpart.
The sad truth is that when you’re a business, it means more when people vote with their wallets and not their words. The ones spending money are doing it on Freemium games and not pay-once games. No amount of logic or reasoning is going to change that. People simply aren’t buying games on mobile. They’re paying for in-game content from titles they got for free. That is just the way it is. At least for right now.
Piracy
Unfortunately, there are no widespread studies done on just how bad piracy is on mobile. There simply aren’t any stats to confirm or deny that it’s that big of a problem. That means there must be no problem, right? Well, much like we discussed with revenue above, once you look under the veil and get a little deeper, you begin to see that it’s not as it seems.
Piracy is, in fact, a rather bothersome problem on mobile and developers have been complaining about it for a long time. Madfinger Games, developers of the hit shooter Dead Trigger, went on record back in 2012 to confirm that Dead Trigger and Dead Trigger 2 went Freemium due to overwhelming amounts of piracy. The game is now far more profitable even if the decision left a bad taste in the mouths of some people.
The indie game Gentlemen! was paid for 144 times and pirated 50,000 times back in 2013.
These complaints can be found everywhere. Earlier this year, ustwo, developers of the hit game Monument Valley, announced that only 5% of Android installs were paid for. The indie game Gentlemen! was paid for 144 times and pirated 50,000 times back in 2013. Jack Underwood spent much of early 2015 lamenting the 85% piracy rate of his app called Today Calendar. In August of 2015, Noodlecake Studios reported that their Shooting Stars game had an 89% piracy rate. The reports are all there, buried under the misguided belief that nothing is actually wrong.
It gets worse. People are not the only entities trying to steal games. After Flappy Bird made it huge in 2014, thousands of developers made clones to try to cash in on the success story. You can find clones for all of the big hit games that offer small variances but keep the overall aesthetic and mechanics. In some cases, the clone becomes more popular than the original. A notable example is the game Fives, which is a variant of the game Threes!. For a long time, Fives was the more popular game despite being a replica.
Amazon walked away with over $50,000 in free downloads.
How much lower can it get? Well, if people and other developers aren’t trying to snatch up your idea, sometimes the app stores themselves will. Back in 2011, Shifty Jelly, developers of the intensely good podcast app Pocket Casts, decided to take part in the Amazon Free App of the Day. The idea was their app is given away for free and they’re reimbursed for the revenue. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and the developers were hung out to dry while Amazon walked away with over $50,000 in free app downloads. These instances don’t happen very often, but it still sucks when it happens.
When you add it all up, you start getting the idea that if someone wants your game for free, they’re going to get it one way or another. Either a competitor will release something like it for cheaper or piracy will rear its ugly head and compromise the revenue stream. It is possible to make games that are profitable on mobile, but only if you do it just right.
Lack of promotion
We have gone in depth before on just how badly Google Play can be at promoting things. Games and apps are promoted seemingly at random with the only consistency being the top charts.
Popularity and revenue are inextricably linked and these lead to the same pitfalls.
Unfortunately, the top charts are a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. They show the most popular apps which, in turn, get even more popular thanks to their existence on the top charts. Generally speaking, users are more inclined to try a game or an app if it’s free, which makes those the most popular. Thus, the games and apps that tend to dominate the charts are free or Freemium.
This eventually spirals all back into the same conundrum we saw when we discussed money. Popularity and revenue are inextricably linked and obtaining both leads to the same pitfalls. Either developers create Freemium games that adhere to what’s popular in Google Play or stick to the platform where they’re already popular. With popularity comes exposure and all of those things eventually lead to revenue.
Hardware
Perhaps the most complicated issue that big-name video game developers face are the devices they’re developing on. Mobile devices come in all shapes and sizes but predominately share one integral feature. They’re all touch screen devices. This has caused its own unique wave of challenges.
First and foremost is the lack of physical feedback. “Twitch” genres such as platformers, first-person shooters, adventure games, and others often require delicate and precise movements and actions on the part of the player. Touch screens lack the physical feedback gamers can get from a controller or keyboard with physical buttons, which makes these delicate movements clumsy and frustrating.
Developing games on a touch screen has its own unique set of challenges.
Hardware vendors have attempted to mitigate this problem in a number of ways. Years back, Sony had the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play which had a built-in controller pad. NVIDIA built the Shield which also came with a built-in controller. The NVIDIA Shield Tablet has its own controller. Couple that with controller vendors such as Moga, and you have a small arsenal of controllers to help alleviate the problem.
The only problems are that sales and mainstream adoption have been slow. Mobile phones are popular and special because they can be carried anywhere in a pocket. The same can’t be said for bulky controllers. They also tend to be expensive and support for games tends to be sparse. When you mix it all together, you find an ecosystem that could use some massive improvement.
Many of the more popular game genres can’t catch a foothold thanks to hardware constraints.
With all of that being said, there are some genres that have managed to thrive. Racing games have adopted the “tilt steering” mechanic which has been wildly successful. RPGs, jRPGs, strategy games, tap/swipe-to-play games, puzzle games, and simulation games have all found a warm welcome thanks to their simple control needs.
It’s not a problem for all games and game developers, but many of the more popular genres still can’t gain a decent foothold thanks to hardware constraints.
Over-saturation
Simply put, there are a ton of mobile games out there. The exact number is hard to pin down because more are coming out every day. However, if you look at this chart you can see that right around 10,000 games are submitted every single month on iOS alone and we imagine the numbers are comparable on Android. That’s just over 300 per day and about 120,000 per year.
What comes next is truly a philosophical debate. On one hand, most app stores treat every developer equally. Final Fantasy is put right next to Doom & Destiny, while Call of Duty is put right next to Dead Trigger. The big fish are sat right next to the small fish and it’s every person for him/herself. That’s kind of magical in a way because you can see Fallout Shelter -a title from an illustrious series of games from a well-known developer- right next to FallenSouls – Sapphire War from jin boli, a completely unknown developer. There seems to be no preferential treatment which puts everyone on an even playing field which is actually really cool.
On the other hand, big developers are used to receiving at least some preferential treatment. On console and PC, the big name games are used to help promote the platform. XBox, PC, PlayStation, and even Nintendo will promote the big name titles to show people that each platform has those games. That gives big name developers a bit of a revenue boost and in return, the platforms get a little extra boost by giving them flagship titles to promote. Unfortunately, this shuns indie developers a little bit.
Whether or not mobile app stores should adopt the practices of PC and consoles is subject to debate but the bottom line is that large developers don’t have the pull they have in the PC and console markets and have to duke it out with literally every other mobile game developer. There are a ton of mobile game developers releasing a ridiculous number of games and some bigger names may be worried about getting lost in the noise.
The culture
The culture around mobile gaming is unique because there really isn’t a culture around it. The idea of a “hardcore mobile gamer” isn’t something that gets thrown around all that often. This can be troublesome for large developers because they’re entering into an environment where they may or may not get any traction. It’s like going to a house party where you don’t know anyone expecting to make a new best friend.
It also doesn’t help that what little mobile culture exists is generally mocked by “real” gamers. The typical experience is explained the same way. Someone downloads a ton of Freemium or cheap games and then bases the entire atmosphere based on that experience. Among gamers, the attitude isn’t much better with comments that more or less state that casual gaming isn’t “real” gaming for various, often stupid reasons.
It has become cool to hate Freemium games.
This kind of vitriol may not figure heavily into things like marketing and revenue strategies, but we’ve seen developers and players alike express distaste for the Freemium model time and time again for years. It’s become so cool to hate freemium games which is not good news for developers trying to make money using that model.
The culture around mobile apps in general isn’t very helpful either. For every person that openly states that they’d pay for a game, there seems to be another one that simply won’t pay that much for an app or a game on a smartphone for some personal, totally arbitrary reason. Behind them, there seems to be ten more people who don’t say a word and just go pirate the game somewhere. Above them all is a community of gamers that shuns their very existence. It’s a giant mess and one that likely won’t get worked out for some time.
Don’t forget the studios that are taking it seriously
We’ve gone through and discussed many reasons why a lot of big developers don’t take mobile gaming seriously. However, to state that no big developers take the platform seriously is also certainly not true. There are developers out there right now trying to turn this culture around and create a library of awesome games for people.
The list is quite long and includes studios such as Double Fine, Square Enix, Rockstar Games, SEGA, Bethesda, EA, Mojang, Disney, and many others. These have brought us a ton of great, long, solid games such as Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy, Minecraft, and many more.
If you don’t mind doing a little digging, you can find some big name titles that refuse to follow the Freemium model.
On top of those, you have studios that are porting classic titles to mobile. Developers Beamdog have done Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate II, and Icewind Dale while Aspyr Media brought us Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The list goes on and on of smaller developers that have ported huge titles to mobile for our enjoyment.
And then finally you have the developers who have become household names on mobile. Rovio, Gameloft, ustwo, Supercell, Glu, and others. Facebook giants such as Zynga have also created quite a presence on mobile.
The bad news is that many of these game studios are either buried under the frenzy of viral games or freemium titles or engaging in the freemium wars themselves. The good news is that if you have some patience and don’t mind doing a little digging, you can find some big name games that refuse to follow the freemium model and try to pave the way for more big name developers to follow. Good games on Android do, in fact, exist. It’s just a matter of finding them.
Wrap up
Here’s the thing folks, mobile gaming will be a respected platform someday. Every major revolution in gaming was met with scoffs and doubt at first before things turned around. In the early 1980’s, there was a time when console gaming was considered dead and now it’s one of the most robust gaming platforms ever. It will take time and these quirks will get ironed out. It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when.
AIVAnet 