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The Downfall of Mobile Gaming
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do you remember when mobile games used
to look like this and this like this all
of these were from over a decade ago
these games were released at a time when
we were still using iPhone 4S or a
Samsung Galaxy S3 in a best case
scenario and so why now that we have
phones like the iPhone 14 pro and
Samsung s23 Ultra friends that are
literally 50 times more powerful do most
games still not really look any better
in the same time frame we've seen gaming
consoles go from PS3 Graphics that look
like this to pierce Graphics that look
like this and the mobile gaming market
now even makes more money than the
console market so time to find out why
the mobile games themselves haven't
stepped up in the same way well the
first part of the puzzle is that not all
phones are getting more powerful at the
same rate but check this out so this is
a new flagship phone the Galaxy s23
Ultra versus one of the company's older
flagships the Galaxy S7 Edge and running
this performance test you can see
basically an eight times performance
jump just in a few years and that's not
even factoring in all the other benefits
of just having newer Tech in your phone
but if we do the same thing on the
budget end of the spectrum a brand new
budget phone versus an older budget
phone with the same time Gap and the
performance Improvement is Tiny while on
the flagship end we've gone up by over a
million points in performance on the
budget and we've barely gone up 70 000.
now there is a reason for that at the
entry level of the market people just
want different things to what Flagship
users want like even if every single
year companies could put more and more
capable processors in that money is
often better spent just sticking with a
processor that's good enough and then
spending the extra money upgrading the
screen quality or the camera quality and
so what this all means is that while
we're constantly hearing about how
phones are getting faster and faster
that progression is only really
happening at the top tier Flagship end
and not trickling down through to
cheaper phones like we expected it would
10 years ago and so we're now at a stage
where the power gap between the very
highest end phones and the Very lowest
end phones has never been wider so if
you're a mobile game developer now and
you can either make a great looking game
that only 30 of phones are going to be
able to run properly or make a bad
looking game that everyone can play
which are you gonna pick but the store
doesn't fully explain why the vast
majority of games don't look
significantly better so right now I'm
running a racing game from 2013 on the
top and a racing game from 2022 at the
bottom it's really hard to tell the
difference I mean yeah the reflections
on the car look better in 2022 but then
I would actually say the sky looks
better in 2013 as it does the amount of
stuff that they've actually added into
the map but there's another Factor
that's holding back mobile games from
leveling up in the same way that console
games have
the fragmentation see if you're making a
game for PlayStation 5 you can build the
game for PS5 you can look at all the
components available the Technologies it
supports and make the absolute best
looking game possible that can take
advantage of all of them yeah sure you
might also make a version for PS4 and
maybe a PC Port too but because there's
such few platforms each version of the
game is its own distinct development
project that's optimized for that
platform yeah apart from you cyberpunk
but you can't optimize like that when
there's a thousand possible different
devices literally that people could be
using like there are with phones and so
what this means is not just that you
have to cater to the lowest common
denominator the weakest phone Hardware
on the market but also that you can't
take advantage of the strengths of
anyone's Hardware like for example the
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip that basically
every top-end Android phone is powered
by right now is an absolute monster it
supports like 15 different super
Advanced Gaming Technologies even the
same Ray tracing in games just like the
PS5 can but I've been using a phone with
a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 inside of it and I
can't find one properly retraced Android
game I'm not exaggerating here zero
percent of Android games at least ones
that aren't in beta have Ray tracing
let's call it
0.0001 just in case I've missed a few
but the PS5 because the games are
designed around it has Ray tracing in
almost 40 of its titles because there
are just so many different phones each
one with their own strengths and
weaknesses developers just have no
monetary incentive to program in
advanced features like Ray tracing it's
just a big investment to make the
experience five percent better for two
percenter players whereas for PS5
because every console is identical
adding Ray tracing is going to benefit
every user and so we'll actually add
value to your game and sell more copies
and let's talk about this monetization
because this is the key thing that I
think turns a majority of developers off
when it comes to mobile see the way that
the big budget console gaming Market
works is you have a few main AAA
developers they'll spend Millions
working with teams of hundreds of people
to make their next game they'll announce
it and then they'll sell it charging 70
up front per copy now because these tend
to be big companies with a reputation
with established distribution Channels
with connections to get their games
right in front of viewers eyes and
because they'll earn back their
investment very quickly assuming the
game is good it's not a super high risk
Endeavor you can take your time
developing you can invest Millions
making sure that your game supports all
the latest Technologies because in most
cases you know that you're going to make
your money back this is not the case on
mobile the mobile gaming Market is super
easy to enter and therefore also super
competitive the majority of games fail
plus even if you succeed you have to
jump through far more Hoops to start
making money from them the default
assumption with a mobile game is now
that it's going to be free and so even
when you get your users your job is not
done there you have to also get your
players completely invested in your game
you don't just need a few thousand
downloads you need a competitive
thriving Community before players will
even think about taking out their wallet
to buy power-ups or customization skins
within it and the truth of it is sometimes
sometimes
that's out of your control sometimes
well most of the time really the concept
of the game just doesn't stick with the
masses and so instead of wasting years
making it look nice and pretty and
Polished you can minimize your risk by
making the game just look good enough
and then chucking it into the void early
to see if people actually like the
concept I'd say it's quite easy to look
at the games that have done well on
mobile by going on the top charts and
things like that and just thinking that
all mobile games do that well but the
truth of it is it is a graveyard out
there like if you could sort the play
store or the app store by most recently
added games and just see everything
that's getting put onto there you'd see
it at 99 of these games just disappear
into nothingness no one finds them no
one plays them plus if your game is less
demanding to run it's likely to mean
that more people are going to be able to
try it and you're giving it the best
chance to become a big game that
actually has some Buzz about it which is
kind of the opposite of how it works
when you're making a console game the
other economic factor is just the simple
fact that most mobile game developers
are smaller companies like if we just
have a look at the top three games on
the iPhone right now you do find quite a
few sizable Brands you get a lot of
companies who've kind of figured out
what makes mobile games work and then
they've just made like a ton of them but
if you look a little deeper you'll find
that the vast majority of companies
making mobile games are 50 employees or
less like a snake IO this is a huge game
made by cool apps two apps number of employees
employees
26. in companies like this often just
don't have the physical Manpower or
resources to make visually stunning
games and because their users aren't
paying upfront at the point of
downloading their game these developers
can't Coast on past success or word of
mouth or establish distribution channels
to have repeat successes every game
needs to stand on its own and has to
succeed on its own to have its own
economy you're probably starting to see
why mobile game devs are not constantly
out there trying to make the next Crisis
a couple of logistical issues too like
the fact that in the last 10 years we've
still not figured out how to make touch
screen controls feel satisfying I mean
yeah there's gaming grips there's some
gaming phones that have baked and
triggers there's gamer goo that reduces
the sweatiness of your fingers but let's
be honest only like three percent of the
market is actually buying these things
and so games are not being built for
them especially not the gamer good God
my trousers I promise buzzer it was Game
ago plus the battery life issue we've
got a number of phones are much more
than just gaming devices we need our
phones to make phone calls and to be
reachable so if you jumped on to an hour
of full-on console quality Call of Duty
on your phone but then exited the app
and realized you only had five percent
battery remaining wouldn't be very happy
about that right so unlike with consoles
and PC that are plugged into a wall and
can draw as much power as they need to
to run at their best there's a lot of
constraints that are put into place on
phones to actually stop them doing that
so that you can use them for other
things but I think the single most
important thing to bear in mind here is
that people think about Mobile gaming
differently to other kinds of gaming
there was definitely a time when games
on phones were accelerating in
popularity in like 2012. we're looking
at the number of players doubling every
six months it definitely felt like the
end was here for consoles Wyatt actually
even went as far as to Crown The Game's
console dead but then I realized a few
things one that you can't just take the
way that something is currently growing
as proof of how it will grow there's
reasons why the growth was particularly
high at the start lots of people were
getting smartphones for the first time
it was a novelty people were curious
about what a smartphone could do so it
would experiment more and more
experimentation leads to Rapid growth it
meant that developers were testing the
boundaries more and therefore making
more progress but nowadays we've almost
settled on the realization that people
don't really play on their phones as a
console replacement they play mostly
just to fill time the phone's got
different benefits to traditional gaming
it's not this hyper immersive get
comfortable on a sofa big screen
experience the console gaming is but it
is super convenient it's the games that
you'll always have with you and that
you'll want to jump into you for 15
minutes at a time in between other
things and so because the purpose of
mobile games is less about embellishment
and more about the practicality it turns
out that it's not just developer
unwillingness but most users of mobile
games are also perfectly happy just to
have a simple looking title that's quick
to jump in and out of you know what else
is quick to jump in and out of hey pal
honey it sits in the background of your
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it's there until it comes to buying
something so recently I've been buying a
lot of extreme Toys For an upcoming
video and I just remember being right on
the cusp of clicking by for this drone
that I saw until they've Al honey popped
up out of nowhere I was like no you
don't you can get the exact same product
just at a lower price if you go to this
link instead and then when there isn't a
cheaper website to buy it from you just
tap the honey button in your browser and
it will automatically search through
currently available coupon codes for the
website you're on and apply the one that
saves you the most money and on average
when it finds a coupon code you are
saving 18 off the product's price on
websites that you're already shopping on
it doesn't make sense to not be using
this so just add it to your browser now
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