Please don't get me wrong. I'm sure you're a loving parent and just want what's best for your daughter. But what you're essentially doing, is giving your kid pocket money to go play slot machines at the local dive bar.

The reason why mobile phone gaming is so bad, is because there are barely any actual games. The reason your daughter thinks it's fun to play candy crush is not because the game itself is good, it's because the game makes her addicted to it. This is bad. Really bad. This will have consequences on how her brain handles dopamine. Please, for the love of your family, get her off that shit immediately.

Hmm I'm not sure using gacha games which are designed for addictive gameplay loops and predatory monetisation being the games that your kid prefers over standalone experiences is a good argument to make

I understand just fine. The only good mobile games aren't mobile games. They are ports of normal games for mobile devices. Which is a super incredibly small number of games.

And latching onto Gatcha games as a good thing for kids? Might as well get them cigarettes and alcohol too if you wanna get them addicted earlier.

Why? Because her Android has Genshin Impact, Fortnite, Roblox, Candy Crush, Wuthering Waves, and Sky: Children of Light.

These games are all great examples of everything I hate about mobile gaming: full of incessant ads for microtransactions. Literally every mobile game I've ever played (outside of FDroid) is this way.

Plus you need a controller anyway, at which point you might as well just carry a handheld ging system.

You could buy whatever your favorite Anbernic device for $50 and have access to a library of thousands of fun ad-free games.

Who would've thunk, young people with brains that are not fully developed tend to prefer games with addictive elements.

Games as a service is a scam and goes hand in hand with gambling and addictive mechanics used to keep people hooked. It’s absolutely toxic.

Nintendo is a corporate shithole but at least they make some sort of semblance of non abusive games.

“Portable gaming” is always welcome but the business model of phone games is fucking disgusting.

Jesus. People get big mad about this stuff.

The problem isn't mobile games, and it's not console games, and it's not PC games. It's the profit motive and corporations and enshittification. And there's plenty of that going on in games for mobile, console, and PC. (And, for that matter, TTRPGs. And it's not like the 300 different collectors editions of Monopoly released every year aren't enshittification at play.)

Addictive gotcha mechanics are shitty when they're tied to microtransactions. Even when not tied to microtransactions, I think they can still be shitty depending on the specific circumstances, and it's definitely wise to responsibly manage your (and/or your children's) engagement to not cause other problems in your(/their) life. But is addictiveness in a video game inherently a bad thing? I don't think so. All games cause dopamine squirts whether it's Pong or a slot machine. That's kinda the point of games. There are plenty of Open Source games out there that cause big addictive dopamine squirts. (Mindustry, anyone?) And such games aren't made to milk whales. They're made because someone wanted to create and play such a game.

Don't be talking too much smack about shovelware! Low-quality games create their own vibes. Some are accidental masterpieces. Both of my favorite two YouTube gaming content creators do a lot of their content on really low-quality games. This series got me to buy Radiation Island and I had a great time playing it. And here is a great video on all the shitty official games based on the movie Avatar.

"Gaming is as much about socializing as playing" is an awesome outlook to have on gaming! Addictiveness in games can be... concerning. But sometimes particular games are the key by which your kid can be involved in peer group. I'm not saying that automatically trumps any downsides and you should let your kid spend $∞ on Fortnight skins or whatever. But I think probably in most cases a balancing act is superior to a hard "yes" or "no".

I should probably specify that I'm admittedly an old fart who doesn't know shit about mobile gaming. (The only mobile games I play are Open Source ones on F-Droid.) And the only modern console I have is a Switch, and I don't have any plans to get one soon. I've played a lot of Breath of the Wild, though. And a fair amount of Tears of the Kingdom.

Some final thoughts:

• Open Source gaming is awesome.
• The way they're doing anti-cheat on PC is fucked-up.
• But so is the way they lock down consoles and phones.
• Hack your games. Hack your consoles. (If you don't hack it, you don't own it.) Get your kids interested in hacking stuff.
• ...responsibly, of course.
• Play games with your kids! (And not just the ones you want to play.)

I'm not sure why you're on a crusade to convince people to like mobile games. I've always got my phone on me, and I frequently find myself on a subway ride that's too short to bother with a Steam Deck. Mobile games would fit in great there. My options are pretty terrible. For the kinds of games I like to play, the only ones that actually have mobile versions are basically digital versions of board games and a small handful of roguelikes. I tend to just read on the subway instead. It's not for lack of trying. The library just sucks, and it offers less value than other places I can buy games. Your daughter is playing games designed to keep you "engaged" and addicted with all of the greatest tricks of the gambling industry; you can find the GDC talks with a quick search on your favorite search engine.

Honestly, we all had ‘our thing’ growing up that our parents thought was silly or a waste of time. It’s just the circle of gaming life.

I just feel bad for a lot of kids because maybe their phone or tablet has the game they want but often they are playing using just the touchscreen and that interface sucks for anything that requires joystick or button controls (where the touchscreen just has vague areas with pretend joysticks and buttons).

It just does.

I get that kids get used to it, but it's like getting used to being kicked in the nuts when you have the option of not being kicked in the nuts.

I don't think of gaming as socializing - that's your daughter's metric.

Not all game players are the same, which is why there are so many different categories of games.