Mobile Gaming is ruining the gaming experience, Here's why.
Five years back, I was sitting in my room, holding a sleeky new smartphone in my hands and my mind oozing with Dopamine overflow. Both my eyeballs fixated into the screen, and fingers constantly tapping as fast as they could, trying to get a high score in an endless running game (Yeah, that same one you just pictured in your mind). My attention focused like a laser that would make even Viswanathan Anand question his own after looking at 15 years old me. But then something struck into my mind that left me contemplating, and then I questioned myself, "What in God's name am I doing? What's even the point of this game? How's this even a game?"
At the beginning of the gaming genre, the copycat production and cloning of already successful games were prominent, but the landscape has evolved a lot since then. The gaming scenario now is more diverse in style and substance, except for mobile. Most mobile Games are sleazy recycled crap! Just open your AppStore for once, There's a ton of Flappys, tons of jewel base swap puzzles, and an unsurmountable number of rip-offs of popular mainstream games with literally no diversity at all.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not against mobile gaming as a platform. In fact, I still enjoy playing some excellent titles on my phone that are produced elegantly and are a result of sheer hard work and innovation. What I am against, though, is that mobile game industries are targeting the less savvy population who are casual gamers and who really don't take it all too seriously. They are exploiting them of their valuable time, and money with strategic advertising specifically focused on the general folks who just want to kill some time playing games on their phone. Subsequently, actual good productions are suffering and are being smothered by the pressure of mainstream clusterfuck. Also, Mobile and handheld Gaming are not the same, they are two entirely different markets, and they ask different questions, Handheld being "Would you like a portable device to play games?", while mobile being "Would you like to play some games on your phone?". You see, Nobody buys a phone to specifically play games on it, Do they? It serves different purposes like making calls, texting, clicking pictures, etc. The fact that it's a gaming device is a complete afterthought.
Mobile game publishers are making games built around a business model and not a business model built around a game.
Simply put, playing games on your phone is not the problem. It's fun and a riveting pastime. But when people fall prey to the deceitful marketing working behind this multi-billion dollar industry producing imbecilic junk for the most part. Where everything is engineered in a way to suck out every penny from our pockets through microtransactions and alluring advertisements. That compels us to get that one item or some of that resource so you could beat your friends and boast about it on social media, simultaneously letting other people know about it, who don't even play that game fall into the trap. It hitches the very essence of gaming, and that turns into a problem that must be addressed, like what happened to the times when people used to play games for an immersive experience, to escape the insipidities of reality and just the sake of experiencing the enchantment of a good storyline of an actual video game. I want those days back (Inner Gamer screaming). Although that's not entirely obsolete, the Mobile gaming industry is incessantly enveloping that experience with its ever dynamic growth and ubiquitous reaches to the population.
The Charade of False advertising
The promotions and advertising of games, in general, are often a little over the top by adding cinematic aspects and eye-catching CGI just for the sake of marketing. Even some AAA game titles are culpable for this sometimes. When the spotlight comes to parasitic Mobile games advertising though, it's just on a whole different level, to the extent where it gets straight-up egregious and often hilarious. Such is the travesty of these promotional campaigns that the ads and the trailers for these games are not even close to a representation of the final products. Just watch this short video post by Upper Echelon Gaming uploaded on their Twitter account, where they ranted on this stupid false advertisement of this one game called Dragon Awaken, which was posted everywhere and flooded Facebook ad post sections. The real game turned out to be a whole different diddly-crap than what was shown in the trailer ads.
The Addiction Pandemic
With a smartphone in every individual's hands today, playing video games isn't just constrained to consoles and computer gamers anymore. Sure, addiction is prevalent on every platform, but mobile games, in particular, are designed in such a way to keep you hooked and wanting you to come back for more every now and then. Wherever the head turns, one can see multiple other heads stuck into their phones like ostriches do in the sand. Not only is that making us look dumber, but it's taking a massive toll on our mental health and memory alike.
"While playing online games has a positive impact on developing problem-solving skills, and enhances other mental abilities such as concentration and multitasking, an excess of anything is harmful," says Beas Dev Ralhan, CEO, and Co-founder of Next Education India.
When Candy Crush was first released in 2014, it was an instant hit among children and adults alike. However, Nobody questioned the practicality of that game and the addiction factor, of course. Fast forward a few years, the Battle Royale style games have engulfed the entire market and gamers alike. So, now the states are calling for an outright ban on these kinds of mobile games. Not that they are more addictive or something, but they perceive it as a bigger problem for the youth, maybe because of the violence factor. Why question only one when almost all of them have the same impact?
Now, I know I sound like your grandma when I say this, but Gaming back in the days used to be different and fun, and I know it still is, but we've lost the essence somewhere along the way, you know. From playing on Gameboy with those special joysticks to using a mouse on the computers and the sensitivity enhanced to a little too much, we've come a long way. The excitement of buying a new game and rushing to my home to play it asap and lending those pirated game setups to my buddies seem like evanesced now. My eyes still get filled with tears whenever I see one of those Nintendo cassettes anywhere.
On a final note, Mobile Gaming is here to stay, but we as consumers need to be more aware of the faulty system and got to stop falling prey to the publisher's cunning marketing strategies. With torrential technological advancements, games are more interactive today than they ever were, but we got to understand that everything comes with a price. Gamers are evolving, and so are the games, the community is growing, and so is the business around all of it. Mobile gaming expanse is spreading evermore, and it sure is fun and handy. Yet, we can at least try to appreciate those times when gaming was about the experience, the narrative, the sheer joy that it brought along with it, and not about microtransactions for buying items, resources, and kills meant just to shove it up on other people's social media feed.
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