Genuine Question: Why do mobile games need to be pay to win?

[Cthulhu 2020]

I'm not specifically talking about a specific dumpster fire that recently launched. Every time someone complains about a big popular game being pay to win, or even having a giant cash shop of cosmetics, there's always a large group of people who says "Well that's just how it is, mobile games need to make money!"

But see, there are mobile games that are one time purchases that make tons of money.

So WHY is pay to win, or cash shop NECESSARY/EXPECTED of a mobile game?

The most immediate obvious answer is because that's how the east monetized their games in the early proliferation of smart phones. But I'm not asking a surface level "why". I'm asking a deep why.

Why can't the standard for mobile games be one time purchase games? Why does everyone make the excuse that if it's a mobile game, that justifies cash grabs?

And for the life of me, I can't think of a suitable response that isn't countered by something else.

"Well they need to make money!"
One time sale games make money.

"Because it's part of this country's culture!"
OK? I don't see why the rest of us need to be alright with what is effectively gambling but with no chance of getting your money back.

"If they don't monetize like this they'll lose money!"
Then stop making shitty menu based games with endless time sinks solely designed to suck money out of players, and make games people actually enjoy playing? If a game is good, it won't lose money.

Give me a GOOD justification for why we should simply be fine with such things. A game being a mobile game is not a good justification. Because as we know, predatory monetization has been wriggling its way into PC gaming for the last 10 years. So once most PC games have tons of microtransactions, what's going to be the excuse then? When "It's a mobile game bro," is no longer an excuse you can use .

I don't mind some few games having this. Back in the mid 2010's, these games were rare but the whales had their playgrounds and they played in them. My problem is how this sort of monetization model is proliferating into every console and every genre.

To be frank, a game being a mobile game is not proper justification, and yet so many act like it is.


Ultimately, I do realize that a mobile cash grab is a lot "safer" for the investors. Investors know these kinds of game will almost always make their money back because fools and their money are easily parted. Investors have seen the past of gaming, where some really bad games lose a lot of money when received poorly. Just look at D:I, it's one of the worst games in history and it made back all of the money spent on development on day 1. I suppose my real question here is, why are game consumers okay with this?

And for those of you who love capitalism/free market quackery, the entire concept is that if you make a better product than your competitors, you succeed, and if you make a shitty product, you fail. That's often the core tenet of the church of capitalism. So why are the capitalism bros okay with a system that turns that on its head?

In before some mouth breather goes "BET YOU'RE JUST POOR"
I'm not, and welcome to ignore

[OnlineSamantha]

It's partly cultural, and partly capitalistic. People have generally shown an aversion to "expensive" mobile games, things in the $10-$15 range, and the majority would absolutely not pay full price for a mobile game. That meant that developers needed to find another way to monetize their games, so they could either lower the price point of their games (some did this), or go free-to-play (others did this). The free-to-play model turned out to be way more profitable, and so capitalism dictates that more games should follow that model. As for why it's pay to win? I think it's a lack of vigilance by game-playing people, the broader appeal of mobile games, and the shareholders demanding every last buck be squeezed from the game. All this combines to create a culture where pay to win is not frowned upon as much as it is in console or PC games.

[Super Kami Dende]

Cosmetics seem vastly less appealing in the scope of Mobile vs Console/PC. Selling player Power is a good way to make people still feel superior.

[Mysterymask]

Also mobile game p2w whale model is pretty immune to a lot of criticism

who cares if 80% of your downloads refuse to pay a dime when 5% paid for the entire budget of your game in like a week?

[Puri]

I am not sure what you want to hear. Do mobile games need to be pay to win? Obviously not, there are many mobile games that are and were not pay to win and are still (financially) successful.

But if you are a developer, and you can decide to make a "traditional" game that has a profit, or you make a p2w game that has an even higher profit, then the only reason why you would go with the first one is because you are a developer/publisher that cares more about their product than their income.
But companies are not there to get the moral highground, they are there to make money, and the larger (and the less single human persons make the decisions) the company the more they are driven by their capitalistic goals.

[Faldric]

It's mostly a cultural thing. People are conditioned that mobile apps have to be free or cost at most a few bucks. Some companies would have to produce quality mobile games and probably accept their first few attempts to bomb despite the quality of the game. Not going to happen, while it is legal to rip people off with skinner box game design.

[Linkedblade]

Freemium is the idea for must mobile games. You can download the game for free, which gets people on the hook. Then you can use all sorts of psychological trucks to encourage purchases. Most people don't fall for it, though. But those that do pay well more than what a full games MSRP would be. Then these companies put a decent bit of income into advertisement to draw in more players.

[Azerox]

Because mostly kids play on mobile and they are an easy target.

[Santti]

Because they can, and because it makes a lot more money.

[Ghost of Cow]

Because the mobile market is built on a lot of F2P, casual, quick-glance products. People aren't going to want to shell out $60 for a game on their phone that they play on the bus.

If you don't like that market, then just avoid it.

[Shakzor]

iirc, there was a study that concluded that mobile gamers basically EXPECT greedy p2w mechanics and all the shitty stuff you couldn't do anywhere else. That they'd prefer to pay money over and over and over and over, than pay even 1$ upfront for the same game but complete and free of ads and scummy shit.

[Mysterymask]

Because mostly kids play on mobile and they are an easy target.

Except hilariously they make the most money off adults with very disposable incomes....

[Ghost of Cow]

iirc, there was a study that concluded that mobile gamers basically EXPECT greedy p2w mechanics and all the shitty stuff you couldn't do anywhere else. That they'd prefer to pay money over and over and over and over, than pay even 1$ upfront for the same game but complete and free of ads and scummy shit.

The important distinction here is whether they themselves expect to be paying, or whether they expect those things to exist because it lets them play things for free.

Of course I don't have real numbers, but I'd wager that the vast majority of mobile gamers are in the F2P or "99 cent welcome package" category. I know people here don't get that because by just posting on a gaming message board you're already engaging with the gaming community orders of magnitude more than the typical "play Candy Crush on my phone sometimes" demographic, but there are swarms of those people.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

They don't need to be. They want to be. Because people will spend such large sums of money on such senseless shit that companies built to make money pretty much have to do it. It's a disservice to thier stock holders not to. It's probably preying on some sort of addictive impulse in people and because that might be the case the whole thing probably needs to be examined then regulated if it ends up being the case. The problem is the people you need to create the regulations are probably also the people that hold those stocks. So now we find ourselves in a situation where people will need to self control for it to change and that simply won't ever happen.

It other words.. the companies and stock holders want it this way. The victims like it because it's probably some sort of dopamine hit they did to satisfy some addictive drive. Then anyone that wants it to change so it can become a more standard medium of entertainment are left in the cold because it will continue to be carried forward. In fact, I think we haven't seen nothing yet. This stuff is just getting started.

[Mysterymask]

The important distinction here is whether they themselves expect to be paying, or whether they expect those things to exist because it lets them play things for free.

Of course I don't have real numbers, but I'd wager that the vast majority of mobile gamers are in the F2P or "99 cent welcome package" category. I know people here don't get that because by just posting on a gaming message board you're already engaging with the gaming community orders of magnitude more than the typical "play Candy Crush on my phone sometimes" demographic, but there are swarms of those people.

It's usually divided by a few catagories

65% F2P
20% Minnows (will throw like $1-$10 maybe)
10% Dolphins (willing to toss like $20 a week or so...kinda a subscription player)
5% Whales (we already know what these are make up majority of profits)

[korijenkins]

It's usually divided by a few catagories

65% F2P
20% Minnows (will throw like $1-$10 maybe)
10% Dolphins (willing to toss like $20 a week or so...kinda a subscription player)
5% Whales (we already know what these are make up majority of profits)

Assuming those are the actual divides, I do wonder if the whale model is played out. Games that appeal heavily to them, aka pay to win games, are becoming less appealing to the other 3 groups to the point that the amount of money needed to "win" is going higher and higher to make up for the amount of people playing free or not playing at all.

I've always felt the corporations behind a lot of modern game development are too greedy for their own benefit. A basic example: WoW probably makes more money per month by eliminating the subscription and doubling the in-game shop's stock. Instead they're trying this hybrid route of selling mounts and pets and having a sub. Result is the game is bleeding subs and there are far fewer people available who can even see the mounts.

Say hypothetically you eliminated nearly all of the p2w elements of DI and simply had the cosmetics in the shop, how many more people would play due to the game actually being decent aside from the p2w elements and be willing to buy those? If a whale dropping 100 dollars a day can be outrevenued by a handful of people buying skins, does the game need to be pay to win at that point?

If going full pay to win results in the 2nd part of that hybrid approach (selling skins/mounts/etc) straight up not working or being responsible for a tiny pathetic portion of the revenue, it's not feasible in the long-run. Honestly this is probably an issue that should be solved by regulations, not voluntary change from within. The only issue with that ever happening is the lawmakers responsible for ending this garbage are older than Pong.

[PACOX]

It's not really that a mobile games need P2W it's is very hard not to cash in the revenue stream. There's plenty of good mobile games, free and paid, that arent gachas/idlers/etc. The problem is that they don't make money comparatively to all the gachas/idlers/etc. You have to be very disciplined, principled, and likely independent if you are a mobile game dev that does not cash out like the rest of the industry.


This is a case really I do blame gamers behavior. For some reason mobile gamers are more than willing and able to just throw money at gacha games or idlers. Games that all mostly the same and don't even have much in terms of gameplay when you get past a couple of hours and autoplay kicks in. People spend insane amounts of money on these games while well crafted games with actual game play, maybe they are merely supported by ads/upfront costs/modest MTX, get killed in gross and playtime charts.

There comes a time when a dev looks at the hours and their bank account then say, "damn, is it really worth it not to selling out when?"

[Kathranis]

They don't have to be, but it's pretty much the most profitable model in the games industry and profit dictates the course of business.

Almost everyone has a smartphone so they can cast a huge net with F2P titles. Most people won't pay anything, but they just need to find the whales who will generate most of the game's revenue. Whales may have a lot of disposable income or make money by producing content about the game, but often enough they're just people who have disorders that make them susceptible to predatory monetization schemes. Gambling addiction, poor impulse control, etc. There's plenty of horror stories about people with brain injuries or cognitive impairments ruining themselves financially on gacha games without even realizing it.

Designers use a variety of psychological tricks to bait their hooks. Collectability and FOMO are the main ones. A constant stream of new content that requires players to consistently login and perform tasks, and collectable characters or items that can only feasibly be obtained within a short window of time. Artificial barriers like timers that can be accelerated by paying. Limited inventories that can be expanded. Upgrade and leveling systems that require obtaining multiple copies of an item or characters in order to achieve their maximum potential. Releasing new characters or items that are slightly stronger than old ones, while also gradually increasing the difficulty of new content. And so much more.

Often the games aren't even overtly P2W, as most are primarily PvE and can be cleared without spending, but they will introduce ranking events where rewards are determined by performance, and achieving a top rank requires you to have the most recent collectable characters or items maxed out.

The vast majority of players can play these games without ever spending a dime and still get plenty of enjoyment from them. In fact, there are lots of mobile games that are genuinely very fun. And these players will just accept the inherit limitations of not spending, or even make succeeding at the game without spending a challenge they enjoy. But there will invariably also be whales who will easily spend thousands of dollars in a month just because they don't want to miss out on the latest powerful character or the top tier rewards for a ranked event.

- - - Updated - - -

This is a case really I do blame gamers behavior. For some reason mobile gamers are more than willing and able to just throw money at gacha games or idlers.

It's because they can cast a wider net (almost everyone has a phone) and find more people that are susceptible to predatory monetization. People who just aren't as savvy about psychologically manipulative game design, people who have issues with gambling or addiction, people with cognitive impairments or disorders, etc.

Find some of the articles interviewing whales and you'll find plenty of gambling addicts, brain injury survivors, people with developmental disabilities, etc. Even if otherwise high functioning, these games are essentially designed to lure these sorts of people in and fleece them for as much as they can.

Sure, there are wealthy bankers and Saudi princes whaling out in these games too, but the mobile games industry absolutely thrives on victimizing people who aren't really capable of moderating their spending on their own.

[Elim Garak]

But see, there are mobile games that are one time purchases that make tons of money.

Give us a list with earnings

[Tekko]

Maybe people are like me, I would never pay for a mobile game. But I may try a mobile game if it is free to play. If you get sucked in, you may spend money.

Also, because it works, people happily spend lots of money on these games. That's the main problem.