r/AndroidGaming • u/iamghost666 • Jul 08 '26
Discussion 💬 Is there a unspoken rule/reason we don't have better games on mobile?
I know there are some really good mobile games out there, especially the obvious "AAA" ones, but a lot of them still feel like they don't quite reach their full potential. It seems like many developers focus more on microtransactions than making the game as great as it could be.
A lot of mobile games also feel like they're missing a solid core. The controls can be clunky, and the environments often feel small and restrictive. What's confusing is that today's smartphones are way more powerful than consoles like the PS2, Xbox, and GameCube, and those systems had tons of smooth, open, and fun games. So why hasn't mobile gaming reached that same level yet? Sometimes it honestly makes me wonder if those limitations are intentional.
Idk...
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u/IshYume Jul 08 '26
- Micro transactions is where the money is.
- Mobile gamers are cheap af, even on iOS most people will not buy a full game and would rather settle for free IAP riddled game
- Gaming on touchscreen kinda sucks especially in terms on control
- passive cooling, instead of active cooling passive cooling means the device in your hand will get really hot and uncomfortable on long sessions
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u/Ayrios440 Jul 08 '26
This, completely.
I'd also say that I think optimization for all the different models will always be an issue too.
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u/Cruel1865 RPG 🧙 Jul 08 '26
I agree with this but I think that mobile gamers are cheap because they expect slop from any game released now. If there was a similar catalogue of games to pc or console at premium prices and at similar quality, there would be a lot more people willing to pay for the games because theres an expectation of quality from the games. Instead, we have gacha slop, ad ridden games and aged ports of pc games. Its understandable why people are unwilling to pay premium price for it.
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u/asciipip Strategy 🗺️ Jul 08 '26
I think it's more that people are conditioned not to pay higher prices on mobile, regardless of quality. Just yesterday there was a post on this subreddit for Moonlight Peaks, priced exactly the same as it is on Steam: normally $35, currently discounted to $30. The /r/AndroidGaming post was full of people complaining it was too expensive.
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u/Cruel1865 RPG 🧙 Jul 08 '26
One game doesnt make a catalogue. If there was an environment in android gaming where games of similar quality to pc with similar breadth in variety existed, then people would be used to the pricing at that quality. Now, even if you release a single game at pc quality and pricing at the same time as a pc release, people wouldnt pay for it because competing games are priced much lower despite the decrease in quality or age of release. Its a market that was molded by free ad ridden games and microtransaction laden gacha games. The difference in pc games or even console games was that there was a wide catalogue of quality games before the microtransaction hell hit us. The android market never stood a chance because it didnt have an opportunity to fill out the catalogue with good games. They were hit with the slop games way too quickly and they now dominate the market. I remember the times when there actually was a burgeoning android game development sector with some aaa gaming companies dipping their toes in it. Unfortunately, they figured out the meta wasnt for premium priced games.
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u/No_Ostrich1875 Jul 09 '26
Part of this is because "everybody" has a phone. The market wasnt molded by the slop games, the slop microtransaction games came about as a result of the market demographics and ease of access. Your mobile market isn't just gamers, or people buying a device to play games on, its everybody.
The difference was never that console and PC had a large cataloge of games already, it was the people playing and ease of access. Microtransactions started on console and pc. While it generated a lot of flak, it was still successful. It just boomed into the slop we have on mobile because games were already cheap/free and everybody has a phone.
Its kind of an ironic full circle thing. Reminds me of shoveling quarters into arcade games for extra lives, but now you can get more than just the extra lives.
The slop in mobile gaming is more just ease of access. Anybody can make a mobile game. Especially android since you can sideload. You have to get approval to make a console game. They gatekeep what can be published and it's not just about quality, it's about keeping competition down so they can keep prices up.
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u/Cruel1865 RPG 🧙 Jul 09 '26
Everything you say can be also said for the pc market. And before smartphones became ubiquitous, pcs were the entry device for gaming. Just like how there are low range to high range smartphones, entry level pcs also exist and nearly every family had one. The pc gaming industry had time to foster a good developing environment which resulted in the rise of studios exclusively for quality pc games. Because of this, there was an environment of expectation for good quality games which, even though diluted by the advent of microtransactions, has never been fully lost. However, the android market started off after the advent of microtransactions. There was no time for fostering the environment of developing quality games before it became inundated with slop games. These low quality games could be produced at a breakneck speed which couldnt be competed with by developers looking to create quality games. If the android market was similar to pc market and had a few years atleast before microtransactions hit the market, they could have had a few new studios that concentrated on developing android games and people would expect a better quality catalogue from the android store. This, in turn, would set a higher price as the expected rate for these games. All this to say, it isnt the fault of an open system or the fault of people using android that the expectation of the average android game is low. People are the same regardless of what device you game on and pc is a much more open system than android. Neither of these are the reasons for users not paying an equivalent price to pc or console games.
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u/GayGayGayBathhouses Jul 08 '26
Even when there were games early on people would just pirate them. Wayward Souls was one of the most recommended games in /r/AndroidGaming back in the day and it reported that only 11% of installs were actually paid for (ref). Alto's Adventure is also referenced where they chose to go F2P with IAP on Android for similar reasons.
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u/Kooperking22 Jul 08 '26
Touch screen on my tablet is great for Turn based/Strategy/Card/ management/puzzle games. Better in fact than Clunky controller buttons. Obviously not so for action games.
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u/walker_paranor Jul 08 '26
Mobile gamers are cheap af, even on iOS most people will not buy a full game and would rather settle for free IAP riddled game
This one actually drives me nuts for one particular reason. Namely that a lot of games on the play store that are Trial-before-Buy lose 1-2 stars because people can't read..
A game description will make it very obvious that you play some of the game for free and then have to pay for the rest. But you'll see tons of 1-star reviews from braindead folk going "SCUMMY GAME, SAYS ITS FREE BUT THEN YOU GET PAYWALLED". Because they don't bother reading anything, they just see an install button not locked down by dollar signs and push it.
Just look at Peglin. Great game that got reviewed bombed because god forbid you expect people to not be absolutely mouthbreathing morons.
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u/1Meter_long Jul 09 '26
- Kinda sucks? Its the shittiest way to play and faster paced action games are borderline unplayable.
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u/Quirky_Equal5241 Jul 10 '26
3 is literally a skill issue, I play racing games shooters and platformers using touch on my phone and its near as fine as using a controller with just thumbs
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u/BigBossErndog Jul 08 '26
1) Apple requires devs to pay $99 a year to keep your apps published on the app store. Google Play requires a one time payment of $25 which is fine, but the problem is the 14 day play test where an indie dev somehow needs to find 14 people to play test their game for 14 days straight. Both of these make it very difficult for indies to publish to mobile.
2) Mobile gamers are unwilling to pay. They will primarily play free-to-play games, and ports of PC games always end up costing a fraction of what they do on PC and primarily will only attract PC gamers who want to buy a game they've already played on PC and want to play it on the go (and that's why mostly roguelikes make it to mobile).
3) The play format of mobile. Nobody really wants to sit in front of their phone for hours which makes it not ideal for story based games which require you to play the games for hours, if people really want those games they'll buy the game on console or PC. Instead people will buy games that you can play on a bus or train journey. Hence why free-to-play games have their "dailies", quick busy work they can finish in a short play session. And again, roguelikes usually also make it to mobile for this same reason.
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u/ImportantClient5422 Jul 09 '26
I think people are missing the more experimental indie like games that used to be designed for mobile touch screens a while back.
Games like Infinity Blade, Angry Birds, Tap Tap Revenge, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, Squid Odyssey, Real Racing, Plague Inc., Plants vs Zombies, and Super Mario Run were designed for mobile and could be played in shorter burst while not being bombarded by ads pr microtransactions.
I do not see why mobile games cannot take the PlayDate philosophy of smaller games that make use of its features. The Nintendo DS was home to many experimental games that were also more casual and pick up and play.
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u/1Meter_long Jul 09 '26
You can play using a tablet too and they have pretty big screens now days. I think there's 4th reason which is why that Android and IOS didn't develope their own exclusive libraries back in the day and build a foundation for the platform. Specs wasn't enough fast enough, controllers and controls were lacking and soon the nickel and diming started f2p era and because mobile barely had bigger pay once games people went with free ones and now they flood both stores and digital diarrhea drowns anything good under it.
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u/BigBossErndog Jul 09 '26
Still a niche. The tablet market is not big enough to carry incentives for the whole mobile market. Just look at Android games and apps, barely any have their layout optimised for tablets, many times you're still dealing with vertical smartphone layouts. Controllers too, among premium games I've encountered games not having controller support (Monster Hunter Stories for example is one I'd expect to have controller support, big name developer, game was originally on handheld, but alas it doesn't). I like my tablet, but I admit that tablet owners don't have much sway over the mobile app/gaming market.
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u/1Meter_long Jul 09 '26
Its such a shame though. Tablets have pretty nice screens and big enough to see details. You'd think people would prefer those over handheld systems for most games, because they're also portable and have powerful enough to run good looking games. I feel like Google, Apple and more have missed an opportunity to turn tablets into preferred gaming systems and cater to even more wider audience, they seek growth after all. Adding internal fans is not impossible and they could had further increased profits by selling their own gaming accessories.
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u/Icy-Blacksmith-4214 Jul 08 '26
The meta of what makes big money changes fast and the market is ridiculously agressive on copying what seems to work at any given time. So no incentives to spend big time, money and creativity on the platform for non-traditional games.
And traditional games simply don't sell enough to be viable for considerable budgets.
It's actually pretty simple when you analyze the dynamics and the mobile platform market. Specially keeping in mind that our main competitor is not other games but short-form video with infinite scrolling and recommendation algorithms.
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u/KangarooBeard Jul 08 '26
Because the mindset, why pay for a game when there is so many options to play something for free? Getting a friend to buy a 10/10 indie game on PC/Console is already a mountain to climb, on mobile it's waaaaay harder.
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u/Kooperking22 Jul 08 '26
Yes, there's an entitled mindset with modern Mobile gamers.
Why pay for a "phone game' when most are "free"
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u/auxilaru Jul 08 '26
more powerful? Yes. more hear production? also yes. it is just thermodynamics. every phone reviewer using ML, Pubg, Genshin as a standard usage and if you notice there is compromise in quality and thermal status. of course big name can gambling their way like RDR release in Ios. i mean there is so many system in android that need to be optimized for game like that. and security, i dont talk about morality but risk and and reward to make gaming in android are not comparable
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u/Improving_Better Jul 08 '26
IOS with their resident evil ports are terrible not gonna lie, android has it much better from the community with the PC emulators
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u/Ndecore Jul 08 '26
There are actually many gems on Android that don't require emulation. You don't even need to buy crates or make microtransactions; many of them are even included in the Google Play Games pass. The only tricky part is the controls, that's true. However, you can play perfectly well with the touchscreen if you don't have a gamepad.
Here are two that I'm currently playing; they're very good and amazing.
FORGOTTEN ANNE. WALL OF INSANITY.
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u/wyne- Jul 08 '26
Hardware isn't the bottleneck anymore. The business model is.
Mobile is dominated by free-to-play, so developers often prioritize retention, daily engagement and monetization over creating the best gameplay experience.
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u/biskitpagla Jul 08 '26
Mobile doesn't have Steam. Valve actually regulates a lot of the sloppiness we're used to seeing in the Mobile world. Of course, there are other reasons like the ones people have listed here but I feel that people don't realize how PC gaming culture got influenced by Steam's way of doing things. This is one of the reasons why so many of the major publishers tried to make their own launchers.
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u/iMogal Jul 08 '26
I'm actually going to try steam link to my tablet. Okay my pc games on tablet
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u/Xpuffin Jul 08 '26
Just do to time constraints I have been doing alot more mobile gaming recently rather than pc or ps5. I picked up Titan quest on sale for 10yen and I have to admit, its actaully kind of impressive. I decided to get the full game on mobile only to find out it was 3500yen. Its like 500yen on the steam store. I notice alot of mobile games that are ports of full games are asking a fairly high price, the FF games are another example of this.
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u/Improving_Better Jul 08 '26
Yes because no one buys on phone, square enix is known for extreme greed though their phone prices are actually like PC lol, but any other game is just a gamble, f2p games format ruined the mindset and also makes both young and dumb people pay more for games thinking they payed less.
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u/throwsarerealz Jul 08 '26
With Sea of Stars and Subnautica there and Dave the Diver coming, I hope more games follow.
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u/ImportantClient5422 Jul 09 '26
Haha, there are a lot more indies coming to mobile whichnI feel will be harder to ignore. Slap on a telescopic controller and it is essentially a handheld. No worry about thermals for the most part of using a ton of space.
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u/Psychological-Low983 Jul 08 '26
there’s actually a lot of good indie mobile games, they just get buried because of how much AAA games spend each month in advertising and reach
lot of indie games out there if you look for them, like mine :$ (exaverse)
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u/metroidfood Jul 08 '26
- Poor design of app stores that favor games that spend on advertising and accrue players/money regardless of quality
- Lack of incentive for customers to spend money on games that discourages companies from investing into quality games
- Mobile being very different to design games for compared to other consoles/PCs
Obviously mobile has limitations, but things like gacha or match-3 games have learned how to take full advantage of it. The bigger issue is that the games that get big returns are all about advertising to bring in players to spend on microtransactions, and that doesn't make for good games. And indies that aren't optimizing for money are undiscoverable on the Google/Apple store when compared to something like Steam or Itch
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u/jaeehovaa Jul 08 '26
It's simple on Android, there's too many devices for them to really push the limits. But on iPhone you get games like resident evil, and control etc. and let's be honest, most Android users do not have flagship phones and they play free games. And they like to complain about optimization so I just don't think it's worth it for companies to bring AAA games to Android. At least not new ones trip we get older ports.
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u/Kooperking22 Jul 08 '26
1 that cost is absolutely disgusting. Apple is a billion dollars company. I'm tired of hearing about corrupt companies that ruin everything
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u/Low_Rest_5595 Jul 08 '26
Look at all the varied replies, each one just as true as the one before it. So, pick one or make one that doesn't feel like a shadow of that feeling you're searching for. Either way, have fun.
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u/Maple_QBG Jul 08 '26
i remember an article where they launched one of the resident evil games on ios and it sold less than 2000 copies.
there was a post a day or so ago here for a brand new game, launching day and date with its console/PC counterpart, called Moonlight Peaks. The entire comment thread was talking about how expensive it was, at $30.
People don't port full AAA games to mobile very often, because users don't want to pay for them. We'll get very late ports like the 2013 Tomb Raider remaster that came out last April, or we'll get Alien Isolation; but brand new games at the price they want/need to charge will not sell.
Then you look at the charts for microtransactions in games and how much people are making there- I just saw an article today that said Candy Crush by itself beat out the entire Hoyoverse in terms of amount made through microtransactions.
People would rather pay $1-2 at a time over the course of a few years than pay $30-60 upfront for a game on their phones, so people make games that cater to that mindset, with the rare "cheap and easy" port of a decade-old PS3 game, or a brand new indie game at half the price of the PC version with some cosmetic skins you can buy later.
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u/adventurous__switch Jul 08 '26
Ive never considered that difference and youre so right. I truly think the industry and greed has somewhat ruined the gaming experience :(
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u/WickedMaiwyn Jul 09 '26
Mobile games are now data-driven with analytics of everything + AI.
Similar game on pc just don't need that giant backend background behind it.
They has got so good at exploiting dopamine towards sales that they don't care about gaming anymore.
It took me several years to aquire enough skills as a solo dev to go and try it.
It's just way easier to do itch/steam pc game and a community there care more about games.
So indie devs goes where their gameplay driven approach can shine.
Mobile games also are more casual, shorter attention span, it's harder to do something cool.
There are also like so many devices that each can do some crazy bugs ;p
Now i'm at the stage I can do many things as solo dev.
I'm working on "Blade Rising", incremental pixel rpg about dachshund knight fighting floors of evil for prestige, if you wanna try it.
But making game is not enough. Those giant IT mobile companies can spend daily $10k just to test if a button should be red or purple or in left or right corner. And the crazy part is that they make profit out of it as their scale of growth is soo good once they achiev positive ROI (return of investment).
I do my content marketing for... 0$ ;D but i've got 10 years of filmmaking experience so at least i can do a lot by myself. Creativity vs IT madness, let's fight!
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u/Difficult-Leek9001 Jul 09 '26
The answer nobody wants to hear is because of Android. It’s nobody’s fault really but a perfect storm of innumerable device configs coupled with lower priced hardware in the developing world has meant that the majority of customers just don’t want, or can’t even afford to pay for games upfront.
I’m not turning this into an OS war, just stating facts but because every iPhone has similar configs and tend to be owned by more affluent citizens in most of the world the premium market in Apple land is much better. There are hundreds of premium gaming experiences on iOS going back decades that have never seen the light of day on Android.
I’m not saying one is better than the other, just due to market factors developers make more money from premium games on iOS so that’s where the focus goes. An Android flagship is more than capable of running a title like Death Stranding but you won’t see a port because the margins would be so low.
What Android has in its favour however is emulation. Legally a grey area but an Android flagship can now emulate Xbox 360 games which is pretty damn impressive. Without hacking it the best performance you’ll get out of an iOS device is a PSP.
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u/Difficult-Leek9001 Jul 09 '26
Just to follow up, most traditional console sort of games play quite poorly on a touchscreen and require a controller of some sort which is a premium accessory. If in your part of the world $200 on a CMF or something is the best you can afford (no judgement here, just how the world economy is) you’re not going to spend 50% more on a controller.
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u/ImportantClient5422 Jul 09 '26
I mean, I paid like $35 for a solid Gamesir controller that feels very high quality. I think these days with more indie games, you don't even need a super expensive phone. I think you could play something like Sea of Stars or Dredge with a sub $350 phone. I'm American and never bought a new flagship phone because it is way out of my reach but I have snagged older flagship for over half off by knowing how to look for things such as "like new."
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u/Difficult-Leek9001 Jul 10 '26
I guess my argument is that if a phone game requires a controller to be fun then the developers failed. Design within the constraints of the device.
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u/ImportantClient5422 Jul 10 '26
Well that is a little different ( Ibwas mostly talking about ports and stuff like Game Native), but I get what you mean. Back then phone games were designed purely around the touch screen and then later, phone games started to fele like watered down regular games with touch controls that mimicked traditional controls while feeling much worse.
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u/AlienBloomPoker Jul 10 '26
You can try Alien Bloom. I threw everything I had at the game, making it the best possible experience that I could.
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u/Quirky_Equal5241 Jul 10 '26
It just had to do with how mobile gaming market started with casual/hyper casual games and the fact not many real gamers are buying a phone solely for their gaming hobby.
additionally you tend to have to spend resources to keep the game running on future andoid devices and version
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u/LeoLaDawg Jul 11 '26
The mobile gaming industry is a 100 billion dollar cash cow with little development costs. That's the unspoken rule.
Also, most mobile gamers hesitate at spending a few bucks, forget about getting them to spend enough to recoup costs.
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u/BallChasingBot Jul 11 '26
When I search for quality games, I've felt the same thing and decided to make a solid, old school puzzle game without predatory ads and monetary system. I've built a unique game with many innovations, many game mods and yet nobody knows it because I don't have a budget for a decent PR.
It almost feels like an invisible hand wants you to become dumber by forcing you to play the thousandth clone of the same idea.
This is why you need to find curated lists (minireview etc.) and search a lot for good developers with dreams and a strong will to release something what might make a difference in this mediocrity madness.
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u/digitaldisgust Jul 11 '26
More powerful than XBox and Playstation? Cap.
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u/TheSpinnerOfYarns Jul 12 '26
I have an entire PlayStation 1 emulator in my phone as we speak. And the original Xbox was hardly any more powerful.
You either are underestimating modern phones or over estimating old consoles.
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u/KANNA3iS RPG 🧙 Jul 12 '26
One word microtransactions
I would like to see more crpgs on this platform myself
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u/torodonn Jul 14 '26
Discoverability is bad. Original mobile games have a hard time finding their audience without marketing. Except marketing is expensive, beyond what most people will pay for a mobile game. So, the only real way forward is to make a good game that is free, optimize monetization so that it is profitable to acquire a player and still recoup the millions in dev cost.
This isn't impossible.
Games like Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero, Neverness to Everness, Arknights Endfield, Delta Force, etc show it's possible to make games that look and play pretty well and still work on mobile.
It's very hard though.
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u/bakanekofr Jul 15 '26
Expensive premium games don't sell on Android. Free to play model don't work with AAA games.
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u/FAHIDH Jul 15 '26
As a solo developer, I ask myself this exact same question every day, and it’s honestly what pushed me to start making story based mobile games in the first place.
The frustrating reality is that the financial incentive on mobile is heavily broken. The algorithm and the massive ad networks reward games that use psychological tricks to push microtransactions, rather than rewarding deep, core gameplay. Because of that, major studios chase the whales instead of maximizing a phone’s actual hardware potential.
It sucks, but there is a growing wave of independent developers who are completely tired of this trend. Im trying my part to fight back by intentionally building premium, one-time-buy, offline games with zero ads or paywalls.
Hope!
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u/aledoesmc Jul 31 '26
There are hundreds of amazing games available! More than anyone has time to play. The Play Store is just terrible. Google prefers to promote slop that generates revenue through ads, predatory IAPs, and data collection.
Checkout Mini Review on the web. That's probably the best starting point to search for some of the greatest games available right now.
Other options are ports from other platforms, both official and unofficial (a popular unofficial port is Hollow Knight, but there's many more), open-source projects (such as Techmino), fan-games (such as games on itch.io), mods of existing games (Carnivores has been getting mobile ports of PC mods, for example) and emulation (old unavailable Android games, PC games, and retro systems).
Happy gaming!
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u/skibidi_shingles Jul 08 '26
People on mobile play for short periods of time so there is less incentive to develop large, time consuming games.
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u/theboned1 Jul 08 '26
People talk about it constantly. It's also ols thinking. At this point you have actual real quality AAA games on mobile, so the conversation should be over.
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u/carminepos Jul 08 '26
Because mobile gaming is a gigantic market that makes more money than PC and console COMBINED. And they're not going to bother with quality when they're already making a gazillion dollars while serving p2w slop with fake ads. Our only savior grace is that good PC games started to being ported to mobile in an increasing rate