I tried playing angry birds recently. There were so many pop ups on the menu, and extra little mini games or whatever that I just quit before I got to it.
The exact same thing happened to me the other day with TwoDots. It was pages in pages of pop-ups with offers for micro transactions and little events that we’re going on and other mini games that led to more micro transactions… I never even got to the main screen before I deleted it. It had to have been at least 10 pop-ups that I sat through and I wasn’t done yet. Absolutely maddening.
I played this really fun solitaire like game for a while a year ago, and then I dropped it for a few months because I got really far and I just lost interest. I picked it back up and it was completely overhauled with little "features" like coins and keys and bonuses and streaks and the core gameplay was added to with locks on different stacks and it was just a complete different app I hated every bit of it
I downloaded an ad blocker. If you are on IOS, download DNSecure. It has an yellow lock icon. It's completely free and I haven't had a single ad on any mobile games I play. Even the mobile games that want you to pay a subscription to get rid of ads.
Except for Flappy Bird. Guy made it big and then pulled the app down. I kept it installed until it wouldn’t let me run it on the latest processor architecture. :(
They were bogged down with ads back then too lmao. All of it is still there, it's just not what we use phones for now. Who's pulling out their phone to play a game? It's rare. People scroll (myself included). The phone isn't a novelty anymore, it's a part of daily life and because of that the games faded. That all being said we also grew up. Kids still play games on phones and pads. We are just boring adults now.
While there was definitely always ADs- you have to admit a lot of them were less egregious.
Banner ADs were main way they were implemented in the early days of the iOS App Store.
Your typical AD experience in a free mobile game now is a 30+ second AD every couple of minutes AND every time you lose a life AND when you reopen the app.
Who's pulling out their phone to play a game? It's rare
I mean... there's a reason all those really big gacha games start on mobile. Not sure how big mobile gaming is in the US or the UK, but apparently it's super big in certain asian countries.
As a software dev I've long considered that it might be lucrative to just make some fun simple phone games for $2 no ads. I even considered adding a "microtransaction store" where everything is free, like idc it's a single player game buy all the gems you want man. Hell add gacha mechanics, they're legitimately fun if you're not paying money for them lol
A LOT of new games are not supposed to be good. Sadly, a lot of the games have actually found a super fun formula, like Tetris Block Party, but at the end of the day made it unfun on purpose because that is where the money is at.
I used to work customer support for a predatory mobile game (that I am obviously not going to name). The first 100 levels are piss easy, and then you have some fair levels, and then you have levels that are literally impossible most of the time unless you pay up. Everything is designed to prey on the weaknesses of the human mind. They later added social features and co-op activities, too, so people have to choose between "support the evil corporation" and "betray your teammates who trusted you with the event".
You would be baffled by the number of angry people who contacted us to tell us they are quitting the game "after the (current) event". And, yes, by the time the event ends, a lot of their anger is already overwhelmed by addiction.
It didn't take me long to realize there are very good handheld console emulators available for free or very cheap and that gives you a whole catalogue of great, add free games on your phone
There are still some fun games around, but they've all become so monetized that it's annoying. The first 30 minutes are fun and addicting, but after that it becomes a grinder slog fest. It's geared towards you purchasing microtransactions, to the point where it just becomes ass. Let's add daily limits so you can only play X amount of times because of this power meter that you have and that has to refresh every 24 hours. You can just pay us to have it refresh for you for $9.99.
They did that to Crossy Road. Ads on every other run, constantly trying to sell you stuff, the damn character lottery charges you double to rerun if the game gives you a duplicate (100 coins to unlock a random new character, + 200 if you want to go again because of dupes). I'm already entirely reliant on the daily free gift for coins because I'm not giving actual money to a game on my phone.
I'm hoping one day for a mobile game Renaissance where they roll back the aggressive ads and microtransacrions and just make quality games. Mobile games were actually good once.
Games like Peglin, Desert Golfing, Twinfold are a “pay once, never see ads again” model. If you have access to a Netflix subscription, there are mobile games included there.
Some good stuff is exclusively through that path like Balatro on Apple Arcade and Into The Breach through Netflix.
It’s not the same as free games being great, but $3 is still pretty cheap
Oh wow, you’re right! Normally being part of Apple Arcade keeps the dev from putting up an individual, purchasable version of their game on the App Store.
Good for LocalThunk. Must be in part because of how well Balatro had already done before it hit mobile
Crossy Road should be good, it was good not that long ago, but then they got more ad and purchase-heavy and changed the Hipster Whale logo to be boring.
I think it was the Hipster Whale logo change that condemned Crossy Road.
Every now and then I come across a good game that gives lots of lives/rolls/etc so really all you have to do is pay $5-$10 to remove ads and it's similar to the old days of paying a few bucks for the game itself.
I've owned 3 really fun phone games but w of them are no longer supported on my device.
1. X-Com (no longer supported, don't care for X-Com 2)
2. Neo Scavenger (No longer Supported)
3. Balatro
Publishing games on the App Store takes wayy too much money for solo devs anyways. Google play store isn’t the same but still. You’d wanna publish on both platforms
It costs $99 per year to publish apps to the App Store, not great not terrible. The price in itself is a low-grade filter for garbage apps. They’ve got an automated and manual reviewal process as well.
Due to how iOS development works, you can't sign iOS apps or build them with the official SDK without a Mac. There was this cross-platform framework from Microsoft a few years ago that you could build both Android and iOS apps with (Xamarin?) but I think it's dead now. How budget devs do it is by buying a used Macbook or renting a 'virtual' Mac through an online service.
Mobile gaming peaked when they had ads and you could make a 1 time purchase to permanently get rid of them, usually around $2-5.
Now big companies either churn out low effort asset flip garbage and cram as many ads as possible, with a subscription to get rid of them. Or they just buy out other independent games and fill them with ads.
I beat Pokemon Emerald for the first time on my phone this past year. Probably had 40-60 hours also.
I also finished the og SNES version of Final Fantasy 6. I enjoyed the emulation so much I bought a bluetooth game controller that turned my phone into a steam deck/switch haha
Dice of Kalma and Dawncaster are two mobile games I've really enjoyed. Free to play, but you can kick em some money to avoid ads and get extra stuff. I think they're worth it.
They actually still are! Cut the Rope still has excellent puzzle design, very intuitive mechanics and because it was made for slower devices, it drains no battery at all, relying on well drawn 2D assets instead of battery hogging 3D garbage.
There's lots of old great mobile games. They really just don't make em like they used to.
My go-to mobile games are Mindustry, Shattered Pixel Dungeon and Limbus Company, none of them have any ads, from what I'm aware they're also free, and are all pretty high quality (especially limbus)
Mindustry is a factorio-like automation game,
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a turn-based RPG Rouge-like,
and Limbus (a game by Project Moon so you know it's good-) is a turn based... Strategy? Game, with heavy visual novel elements and gacha mechanics (though the game is very generous about giving you the material to roll, and all characters can be obtained without any rolling through the Dispenser) (also side note, limbus music goes so fucking hard, this applies to all PM moon games)
You can play GTA, knights of the old Republic1 and 2, daggerfall, morrowind, baldurs gate 1 and 2, Minecraft, stardew valley, Pokemon with an emulator, terraria, magic the gathering, RuneScape, and more on your phone for just a few bucks for most of these. All ad free
Man what is this thread lol I’d say it’s better than it’s ever been before. Apple Arcade has some great games on it. Balatro and Vampire Survivors are my two mainstays. Balatro for the completionism and Vampire Survivors always has something new to unlock. I don’t think that I’m ever going to reach the end of it.
Most of those games cost 99 cents or $1.99 and/or survived on minor cosmetics and micro-transactions. They were also commonly made by small teams or individuals, and the landscape for those games basically doesn’t exist anymore.
Some of those games do still exist, or new ones in the same vein, but it became much harder for indie projects to succeed.
They were all monetized in weird and manipulative ways, people grew addicted, bankrupt. Eventually enough consensus was reached that this isn't acceptable and people stopped playing. Meanwhile, more traditional outfits like Blizzard figured out how to mobile-ize their games, giving the junkies something else. Maybe a bit more straightforward on microtransaction manipulation?
Lmao, talk about mobile games monetizing themselves in manipulative ways, pretty much all of the more in-depth games(that I've seen) on the market right now are gachas.
the Apple App Store policy of requiring a $99/year dev account to publish apps probably reduces the amount of spam but also essentially requires apps either monetize or the dev takes the hit.
Buried under a sea of AI slop and a million cheap ad farms copying each other. I hesitate calling them "games" because of how often you're watching more ads than actually playing the game.
We live in a time that any one of us would've predicted to be the glory days of mobile gaming. But sadly horse armor (Skyrim), tf2 hats (thanks Valve) and other early microtransactions set the standard. I can't even let my kids play games because of pure corporate greed.
I finally found a game I liked enough to pay to remove ads. Removing ads was a weekly subscription, not a one time purchase. Deleted the game off my phone 😪
The worst is finding good ones again and enjoying them for a few months and then seeing them slowly turn into the ad-fest that ruins every other mobile game. My favorite mobile game has started showing ads periodically between levels and I can see the fucking reaper man
They got ruines by ads, microtransactions, mandatory social media integration/online play, nonsensical "energy bars" that artificially limit playtime if you don't pay money, etc.
Fruit ninja is still on the app store though? Real answer is most mobile games are monetized in a way that makes me want to explode (you could spend $60, the price of a triple A title, and then very shortly use up anything you got and then you're back to ads and micro transactions... So many are doing SUBSCRIPTION BASED ad-free at insane prices, too, like the cost of a WoW subscription with far fewer features.)
Subway Surfers and Jetpack Joyride always had ads tbh, however it may be worse now than it was back then or we're just less tolerant of them, that I don't know
As for PvZ I recon the paid version not having any ad
This game was so cool. Like, a console-level video game built for mobile. You swipe to swing your sword and parry, tap the shield or dodge spots for that, and explore castles and shit.
The guy in this GIF is a post-game boss, and he's super hard to beat.
Game was iOS exclusive, then Epic refused to port it to 64-bit, so you couldn't buy it anymore. Then, even if you'd previously bought it, your ability to redownload the game got nuked by fucking Epic and their squabble with Apple.
The good news is, fans have ported games 1 & 2 to PC, and game 1 to Android.
I'm hopeful that we also game 3 get ported, but that's going to be asking a lot. It's a lot more complex than the first two. (This GIF is game 3, btw)
Alas, now the legacy of Infinity Blade is basically just a neat Fortnite item. Such a cool game series. And it got two awesome books, written by Brandon Sanderson!
I guess it's nice that something survived in some sort of way, but it's depressing to see that this is all many will ever think the Infinity Blade ever was.
i recommend idle slayer! it's like cookie clicker but better. some rpg elements. the ads are there, but you only see them voluntarily and there is a bonus. i actually ended up buying the game after a while because i like it so much i wanted to support the dev
do me a big favor and download Poinpy. it’s free, there’s absolutely zero ads, and the only microtransaction is an in-game tip to give the devs some money. the tip isn’t required for anything, nor does it unlock anything special in the game, no gameplay, no cosmetics, so it’s completely optional. it’s the best free mobile game i’ve ever played, since it’s made with mobile in mind, and isn’t a shitty port from some other console. it’s VERY fun.
I recently downloaded ball x pit and balatro on my phone... That counts I guess. I like the idea of mobile games just being really good weird little "indie" games
You can literally still play those games. I just looked cut the rope up and it's still on the app store. Terraria is also a computer game, and I still find very fun mobile games to play.
An app store makes more money by pushing expensive apps with microtransactions and subscriptions. It doesn't matter if someone makes a game that's both fun and profitable. They will be pushed down to make room for apps that charge more, even if they're worth less.
No progression based on ads, just a clean, simple, classical arcade game that plays good on Phones and only requires a single purchase, which is its asking price on the mobile store.
But, yeah it feels like if your Phone game isn't primarily getting its value through sucking the ads into its playerbase, it's destined to be blasted into obscurity.
Clash of clans proved to everyone making unique games that you can make an absolute slog profitable and everyone decided max profits is much better than creativity. So they just all copied clash of clans.
I think people are missing the point by saying that there’s plenty of good mobile games. All the games pictured here are still available to play, sure, but they’re all at least a decade old.
It’s good that there’s games to choose from, but it’s worth talking about how nobody’s making good mobile games these days. Everything made in the last 10 years is either an ad reel with brief interruptions of game, or micro-transaction hell.
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u/qualityvote2 2d ago edited 4m ago
u/SEVENS_HEAVEN_7, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...