Why are mobile phone developers so damn greedy?

[Strawberry]

I prefer paid games, but there aren't many that can keep my attention, so I've been playing quite a lot of F2P games on my phone. Mostly where you summon heroes and build them up to progress.

While I don't mind paying for progress, the prices are outrageous.
For a WoW sub price you can get a handfull of gems (or equivalent) which basically doesn't help. If you collect them for 30 days and then spend, fine, but on a daily basis, it's a joke.
And then when you buy packs. Oh my God.
A $9.99 should be spit on, pissed on and fed to the dogs (poor dogs). It's useless.
$29.99 can give you smoke progress. However now we're in a "more expensive indie game which is good" league. $49.99 packs offer an average amount of gems which won't last long anyway. But this is also AAA game price. It's just not worth it.
There are also $99 packs which I wouldn't buy even if I was rich. That's pure greed to ask for so much.
And then there's the best of it all. VIP rewards depending on how much you spend. So in Idle Heroes to get to VIP 13, you need to spend $18.000.... Eighteen fucking thousand bucks...
But I guess as long as these developers will be fed money, they will continue to be greedy.

[Darkeon]

But I guess as long as these developers will be fed money, they will continue to be greedy.

Good job on answering your question, by yourself.

Some people enable this type of practice, to the point where it's profitable to keep doing so, regardless of the negative impact it presents. If people would stop, thus making this a negative type of deal to the developers, they'd have to change their business practices..

[xcitng]

But I guess as long as these developers will be fed money, they will continue to be greedy.

It's exactly this, while people buy ridiculous amounts of crates/ingame currency for real money, boosts and so on will do it

PC pay to win with the new battlefront is out of control too....

[dope_danny]

They have to make money. Freemium is the model that works on phones like a retail price does on pc and consoles. The difference is the devs and how they use it.

For comparison Konami of all people makes "YuGiOh! Duel Links!" a f2p digital version of the card game of the same name. In game purchases are literally booster packs. or you play and earn gems to buy them at a slower rate. But i've got nearly two months played in that and bought over 200 boosters as well as gotten an ingame achievement for getting 300 cards as prizes from beating other irl players online and npcs. I dont know anyone that spends money on it and its the farest F2P mobile game i have ever played.

Conversely there is the FFXV mobile tie in, well one of them at least called "FFXV a new empire" and this game is by all legal definition a scam. Its a city building pvp game where to keep up you MUST spend money and other players can invade and steal your shit like MGSV fob's and actually take your in app purchases. You can log off after spending £50 and login 20 minutes later so see its been stolen. The only way to keep up is to spend more money for a bigger army. In a few countries its already been outlawed and banned from mobile services as a 'highly predatory pyramid scheme con' and it turns out its not even made by SE's mobile division. Its outsourced to dirtbags infamous for this strategy. As if the FFXV brand couldn't get any more obnoxious.

Two extremes and worlds inbetween but a good mobile game relies on whales but doesnt hinter everyone else. Theres not many of them but they are out there and they arent all gachashit.

[Strawberry]

Yeah but most PC F2P games are very generous and offer mostly cosmetic changes. Mobile games are shameless pay to win.
Wouldn't it be more profitable if they got 1000 players who buy $9 than 10 who buy $999? Eventually the game will get a better reputation and draw more players to it. I'm pretty sure the minority who pay less is much greater than those who pay more. And small spenders together in the end spend more money than all big spenders together.

[AndyF1069]

There is a term for people who buy the most expensive packs in games - whales. The whales are the bulk of the income of mobile games and if the whales are willing to pay then the prices aren't going to be lowered.

[slime]

Why should they be different from everyone else?

[Jtbrig7390]

Cause they are in a business to make money and when it comes to mobile games that's how.

Nintendo tried to be different with Mario Run and it fell on its face.

[Post]

I don't understand how anyone can not see games they're interested in right now. There's so many games that you could start now, play every day until you die and still never be done with even half of them. In like 10 minutes you can have any game on any old console up and running for free, that are way better than any phone game. The only reason I could see to play these shitty mobile games is if you're in a situation where you don't have access to a PC.

[Deleted]

I prefer paid games, but there aren't many that can keep my attention, so I've been playing quite a lot of F2P games on my phone. Mostly where you summon heroes and build them up to progress.

While I don't mind paying for progress, the prices are outrageous.
For a WoW sub price you can get a handfull of gems (or equivalent) which basically doesn't help. If you collect them for 30 days and then spend, fine, but on a daily basis, it's a joke.
And then when you buy packs. Oh my God.
A $9.99 should be spit on, pissed on and fed to the dogs (poor dogs). It's useless.
$29.99 can give you smoke progress. However now we're in a "more expensive indie game which is good" league. $49.99 packs offer an average amount of gems which won't last long anyway. But this is also AAA game price. It's just not worth it.
There are also $99 packs which I wouldn't buy even if I was rich. That's pure greed to ask for so much.
And then there's the best of it all. VIP rewards depending on how much you spend. So in Idle Heroes to get to VIP 13, you need to spend $18.000.... Eighteen fucking thousand bucks...
But I guess as long as these developers will be fed money, they will continue to be greedy.

They are greedy because development costs are low and whales have a lot of money.
They fish - they get what they want out of them - and then disappear to make the next game. They have no interest in the small fish when a whale will give them as much as 500 normal players or more. (and yes, we are talking about hundreds if not thousands of dollars from a single player)

[I Push Buttons]

Yeah but most PC F2P games are very generous and offer mostly cosmetic changes. Mobile games are shameless pay to win.
Wouldn't it be more profitable if they got 1000 players who buy $9 than 10 who buy $999? Eventually the game will get a better reputation and draw more players to it. I'm pretty sure the minority who pay less is much greater than those who pay more. And small spenders together in the end spend more money than all big spenders together.

No because the small spenders spend nothing while the whales spend shit tons.

They literally develop these shit tier games that no one should ever install, let alone play, to hook idiots with a high propensity for addiction and money. No other reason.

From a few years back:

In a mobile monetization report released today, app testing firm Swrve found that in January, half of free-to-play games’ in-app purchases came from 0.15 percent of players. Only 1.5 percent of players of games in the Swrve network spent any money at all.

The latter finding is in line with what the advocates of free-to-play have been saying for years: Players don’t have to pay anything to enjoy the game. But the former stat underscores the importance of big spenders, or “whales” in industry lingo, to the app ecosystem.

...

At a conference I attended last year, a representative of a gaming company — who declined to be named or interviewed for a story — claimed that his firm had worked with a Japanese game company with one player who spent about $10,000 per month on in-app purchases. The company, he said, had assigned an employee to cater just to that whale, to ensure that she was always satisfied with the game and therefore likely to keep coming back.

[Aeula]

Because mobile games are loveless projects made to make money.

[Deleted]

No because the small spenders spend nothing while the whales spend shit tons.

They literally develop these shit tier games that no one should ever install, let alone play, to hook idiots with a high propensity for addiction and money. No other reason.

From a few years back:

Hey m8, some of these games are fun even for F2P games if you accept the fact that the whales are always better than you.
I used to play 7 Knights and I am now playing Kings Raid. There are a few Mobile MMOs out there that are also fun

You develop characters and optimize builds and it's fun to see if they work properly as a team or not. They aren't meant to be played 24/7 nor are they meant to be played for several years. If they turn into shit because of whales (and they will at some time) you just start looking for the next game.

At some point, the game will die because whales need someone to test their overpowered stuff on - if normal people leave, they'll leave too.. which is why most of the time, you'll see some love for f2p-players too.

[Huntaer]

It's exactly this, while people buy ridiculous amounts of crates/ingame currency for real money, boosts and so on will do it

PC pay to win with the new battlefront is out of control too....

Wouldn't say out of control. At some point you'll have the same cards as P2W people have on their first week. It's like using cheat codes, after a week or two they get bored because all they have left is shooting. They'll go away and p(l)ay other games.
Also gives us free DLC instead of a season pass that costs almost the same as a full game.