Old gamers often misunderstand the quality of mobile games.
I realized this a couple of weeks ago when I asked my 12-year-old daughter whether she wanted to bring her Nintendo Switch or her Android tablet on our two-week vacation. She chose the tablet.
Why? Because her Android has Genshin Impact, Fortnite, Roblox, Candy Crush, Wuthering Waves, and Sky: Children of Light. She simply prefers those over her Switch library — which is decent but doesn’t compare to what she’s got on the tablet.
Adults tend to dismiss mobile gaming by saying things like, “There’s no 1:1 equivalent to Super Mario Odyssey, Tears of the Kingdom, or Cyberpunk 2077 on mobile.”
Fine. My daughter has access to all those games. Our family owns over 8,000 games across PC and consoles. She can play Super Mario Odyssey any time she wants, but she doesn’t. She’d rather play Genshin Impact.
And she’s not alone. Most of her friends are on their tablets or phones. It makes sense — gaming is as much about socializing as playing, and iOS and Android dominate for a reason.
Sure, we can scoff and say, “Kids these days don’t recognize a good game when it hits them in the face.”
But I remember feeling that way about Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh. They’re still thriving today, with now-grown adults still playing.
I also think back to my own childhood. My mom hated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yet, I snuck a TMNT Game Boy game into the house and played it behind her back. TMNT never disappeared — it’s still around.
With the original Switch’s price rising (at least here in Canada), it just makes sense to consider Android tablets — especially for kids. Sure, you can’t play Black Myth: Wukong on Android, but that’s why I have PCs ready for that. Kids? They just want to have fun and connect with friends.
The potential has always been there for phone games, but its far a few between that are worthwhile. Touch screens suck for controls, really limits to a few good genres, but the stores suck too for any form of support. I’m still bitter that they updated iOs and not xcom so I lost that game and couldn’t get a refund. Most good phone games are ports though, and otherwise so riddled with poor design and mtx its not worth the time. Honestly, the buggest disappointment with phones is that games could be awesome on them and they’re not.
Kids are easily entertained by all kinds of arguably crappy things. Similarly mine has access to tons of great games but will spend weird amounts of time on some janky web based crap. Its not a sign its good, he just has no taste cause he’s an inexperienced kid. I similarly wouldnt look at his choice of mismatched clothes and chicken nuggets for every possible meal and think “wow that stuff’s great!” Maturity and judgement take awhile to develop, so I dont think its bad that he does that, but roblox is still utter garbage no matter how much him and his friends love it. A lot of people love garbage - it doesn’t make it good.
Guys traditional games AND mobile games are going the way of the dodo because my 6 month old plays with their fisher price phone more than our phones or tablets. - OP
The inverse is just as true. Just because you and many “gamers” accept a rigid canon of what counts as “quality” doesn’t mean those games are actually good.
Go to any retro gaming board and you’ll hear the NES era hailed as a golden age. I’ve played nearly all those games—and apart from a few true gems, most of them don’t hold up.
Yet people still pay hundreds of dollars for cartridges like Action 52 and treat them like holy grails, even though we all know that some of the worst mobile games today are technically better.
The truth is, I don’t think the average gamer really knows quality. I think most of their taste is just parroting what someone else told them to like.
Quality deserves to be judged on its own merits—not nostalgia or consensus.
Its the age old subjective vs objective criteria, and for certain people of different perspectives one will outweigh the other. Nostalgia is very subjective - most of those classics are called classics because they were fantastic at the time of release. They dont hold up today on a technical level, so objectively their quality by today’s standards is dirt, but whether or not someone still finds it entertaining or fun to play is entirely dependent on that person. The only way to measure that is to take an average of the judgemental reactions of many people - essentially consensus.
The problem with phone games is that objectively the large majority of them are poorly made, with subversive mechanics meant to manipulate the casual audience into spending on them. Their goal isn’t fun so much as addiction. It works because it is so largely available to a massive casual audience. The large majority of these people wouldnt bother to purchase a console or a PC for gaming. I’ve met people who actively say they think video games are a waste of time but they’re on level 1000 of candy crush and spending money on power ups. These people do not visit gaming forums and are not gaming enthusiasts, they dont see an issue, nor would they care if you point it out. Subjectively, they like it, they’re having fun, and that’s fine, but that is not the audience you are speaking to here. For this crowd the issues are readily apparent. Its immediately obvious to use why these games are balanced poorly, why ads are shoved in our faces constantly, why the constant updates are anti-consumer. An enthusiast audience will always be more critical of such practices that the larger casual crowd easily ignores.
Last time I went to mcdonalds it was because of that same kid who loves phone games. He was so excited for chicken nuggets. I tried one, it was horrible. I choked down a burger that is an insult to burgers. No food enthusiast would ever recommend this, no self respecting chef would ever endorse this, and I can easily make better food at home for cheaper. But they’ve served millions, and have franchises world wide! People love it, so it must be great! It sure as fuck is not, and I certainly have the capacity to be a more discerning consumer with that just like I am with video games or any other interest.
At least Action 52 never tried to financially ruin gambling addicts.
Action 52 committed a crime worse than all those gacha games combined: it was not fun. And you had to pay good money for the privilege of being bored out of your mind.
But seriously—what’s stopping you (or anyone else) from buying games outright for your smartphone?
No one’s given me an answer, so here’s the truth:
Nothing.
But sure, keep pretending every mobile gamer is chained to gacha hell, like their phones come pre-installed with Only Microtransactions Forever™. Everyone with a smartphone is forced to play gacha 24/7, no exceptions.
Yeah, sure. Yeah, and I’m the CEO of Bigfoot Sightings Inc.
Mobile is so thoroughly dominated by gacha that any game that tries to have an ethical business model has almost no hope of succeeding on the platform, no hope of competing with the endless sea of gacha.
And I’m sure you’re about to cherry-pick like two counterexamples, but I know you know that those exceptions are so scarce that I have every reason to decide that it simply isn’t worth my time to go out of my way looking for them.
Have you ever considered that many people make games not just for some arbitrary measure of “success,” but because they genuinely love the craft of creating video games?
Some of these creators simply want to share their creativity with the world—no gimmicks, no exploitative business models.
There’s an entire universe of these passionate developers out there. We call them “indie” devs. You’ll find them on platforms like itch.io, and they’re far more common than most realize.
Many make games for PC, some for the web, and plenty for mobile as well.
If you want to play truly good games—without being at the mercy of marketing machines, no matter the platform—it’s on each of us to seek them out and discover what’s really worth playing.
If they want to share that creativity, share it on a platform where the people who would most appreciate it will actually play it.
Plenty of devs continue to make games for the Commodore 64. Should they stop just because most people don’t have one?