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.
I have a more compelling suggestion: only judge games you play.
My point is that you need to decide which games to play and that you have already judged a game when you decide not to play it.
You might not like the art style, or the gameplay, or the reviews or whatever but you have definitely judged it without playing it. The only other alternative is to literally download and play every game that you see.
It's entirely your prerogative to spend time and money on whatever you think will be likely worthwhile to you.
But without actually playing a game, it's strict guesswork on whether a game is quality or not.
Seriously, there's no harm in saying, "I don't know whether this game is good -- I haven't tried it."
Buddy please. Its like a farmer ok? Knows fruit, knows what makes it good and or bad, often. And perilously for your world view, at a glance. Effectively your kinda saying you can't judge a game accurately without playing it through. So then no one can. And it comes off as rather immature/inexperienced masquerading as thoughtful or mature
Its not a person OK. Its a product and sometimes its more then that OK? But a lot of addictiveness isn't good game. Like addictiveness isn't a good drug or food or lifestyle choice (looking at gambling and cigs and stuff 👀)
We make it special we get that, what you don't get is bad fruit your making special cause it is your holiday gift is still when looked at objectively and compared to the greater whole of produce. In general. Its bad fruit. Though genshin seems like its a legit game, not fully legit, cause of all the predatory design. So there. Objectively worse. Predatory by design is bad. Period. Now its better then many others. So with the greater whole it isn't as bad. Or candy crush. Like don't feel like a bad parent or anything but its definitely not getting a judgement pass, sorry
Also explain to your kids there tech bros toys when they play and insist upon the addictive games. They can decide but an informed person is always got a better chance of making well reasoned, informed decisions that makes there brains develop away from that bull 💩 you know
That's my take, hope it helps clarify 💪
I'm skeptical that people here are as knowledgeable as they claim.
I know from several other threads that the majority of folks here stick to a few handfuls of games and sink 1,000s of hours into them. That might make them an expert at a specific MMO, but it certainly doesn't make them experts in every game at a glance.
I get you there, and its true they are often over-certain of how the easy to share intellectual take version applies to the reality of the truth
Its a struggle but just wanted to defend the main idea not their participation in it, but I agree that you never REALLY know if its fun till you play it and they would likely be more understanding if they tried out some. There are many mobile games that have no right to be that addictive or "fun" (pleasing or pleasurable weird words here tho) as they are.
But as the overall human shift to focus on profit/retention is where most of the actual resentment comes in from not that your entirely wrong, they just don't support your opinion because they see it as a much bigger problem that you dont seem to acknowledge
Thanks for being this involved and really having the convo here. Its important as fuck even if we dont acknowledge it. Fucking being alive and thinking and talking about it. That's what got us everything.
Be good tho I see a lot of taking fights and your not on the right side of several lol but I fucking remember myself so carry on and do what you feel you must till you know yourself 👍
You're judging the gaming habits of the entire population of Lemmy based on a couple anecdotes from random threads? And you want to talk about not making snap judgements?
Lemmy isn't a big place. People who populate gaming threads are an even smaller fraction of the userbase. So to see the same handful of opinions, repeated again and again, upvoted ad infinitum -- that's a pretty good sample size.
I deliberately posted this thread as a contrarian take. And what do you know, it proved to be contrarian.
I didn't say anything outrageous or mean-spirited. Everything has been quite reasonable. But judging by the responses -- you all think every mobile game is a gacha game -- I can safely say few of you have nearly as much experience with games as you believe you do.
By the way, this is why I generally put little stock into self-declared "gamers" opinions. Most of you are obsessed with playing things in a prescribed manner, in a particular way, regarding a specific canon. And you generally adhere to the same bland culture with little appreciation for diversity.
The hypocrisy of claiming that you can't judge any game without physically playing it yourself, then turning around and judging thousands of people you've never interacted with based on a couple interactions, is absolutely staggering.
Consider giving human beings the same benefit of the doubt that you give to software.
Ha! A “few” interactions…
And yet you jumped all over people claiming to have played enough games to be able to recognize crap when they see it. Again, you're dismissing real people while standing up for what exactly? Defending corporate garbage?
I enjoy the occasional mobile game too, I don't have an issue with your general opinion. But you certainly aren't convincing anyone with the childish attitude and ridiculous reasoning.
Dismissing? Nah.
Calling out groupthink when I see the same tired talking points—no research, no citations, just noise? Hell yeah, I’m gonna call that out.
I’ve never defended “corporate garbage.” I’ve said straight up: there are hundreds of thousands of mobile games, some you can buy outright—no microtransactions attached. More premium paid games on iOS alone than the entire NES, SNES, N64, and GameCube libraries combined.
Let me say it again: you don’t have to play gacha games. Plenty of premium mobile titles exist if you’re willing to look.
But here? Everyone ignores that fact, chooses groupthink instead, and barks the same tired lines.
And yeah, I know this won’t convince anyone here. They’re too busy flexing their Lemmy in-group credentials to entertain anything that breaks the echo chamber.
I’m saying it anyway, loud and clear.
There are literally people here insisting all mobile games are gacha. When I drop hard stats proving otherwise, instead of reconsidering, suddenly I’m a secret shill pushing for some stats company.
That’s the quality of convo I’m dealing with in this thread. And you? No different.
You're inventing a lot of enemies here and listening to no one.
Nobody is claiming all mobile games are gacha, just pointing out that all the ones you talked about initially are, and they wildly dominate the market.
Honestly I don't know why I'm bothering, I have more to say but this a waste of my time.
I'm hearing you loud and clear.
Provide research with accompanying links or GTFO.