Mobile Games are ruining the Video Game industry..

Rohit Gupta
Nov 2 · 3 min read

..with their unethical monetization practices. Gone are the good old days when you would pay for a game and ‘own’ that game. Now, almost all the big titles on the app store parade themselves as free but actually aren’t.

For the giant monopolies, it’s not about gaming anymore, games are only a mean for people to download them on to their phones. They’ll be disguised as flashy, shiny and free. Perfect to fool people into believing they’re fun. Once it’s on their phone, then begins the constant barrage of ads and permission requests.

I wanted to vent on Medium after playing a 'free' game which really boiled my blood. The game is Asphalt 9. The first time I played Asphalt was on the N-Gage. I loved that game. The soundtrack, the licensed cars, the gameplay were all amazing for it’s time. Early 2000s wasn’t the day of lucrative monetization and games were meant to be enjoyed. You bought the game and you owned it. No micro-transactions. Comparing that Asphalt to the latest one makes me want to cry.

Asphalt is free now. If something is free in this day and age, you shouldn’t celebrate, you should worry. And worry lots. So anyway, I downloaded Asphalt because the screenshots looked fun and it was advertised to a huge extent by Google, even making it their recommendation. I knew there would be some amount of micro-transactions involved but my God, did I underestimate their greed. A race lasts less than 30 seconds and then you spend the next minute clicking on 'free' rewards you win. You can’t simply get new cars by playing the game, you have to collect 'cards' and once you have a certain number of cards, you get your new car which is crap, unless you get mods in it, which requires in-game currency, which you buy using real currency or you can’t win races. Don’t even get me started on the 'fuel' mechanic which runs out ever 6 race then you gotta wait or buy fuel with real money.

It’s not even a game anymore. You’re downloading a grinding chore. If I loved chores so much I’d rather go clean my house then play this abomination. For 30 seconds of dopamine they make you grind through minutes of flashy rewards which makes you believe you achieved something but it’s nothing but an unethical monetization practice. Why can’t I just pay once and play whenever I like? Oh of course I can’t, because they wouldn’t be able to squeeze out my bank account that way.

You might want to ask me to not play these ‘free’ games if I hate them so much, you’re not wrong, but it makes me sad that kids of this generation grow up thinking this is the norm. It’s lucrative for conglomerates to push out such games but I think they should put their greed aside and also publish 'actual' and 'real' video games once in a while too, which people can enjoy without getting bombarded with micro-transactions and flashy rewards.

I really want this trend of micro-transactions in video games to at least stay limited to phones, if not die out entirely, but sadly they’re creeping their way on to real gaming platforms like PCs and consoles with free battle royale games. And now Asphalt is even on the Nintendo Switch. The only saving grace I have is that I got to enjoy games and play them how they’re meant to be during my childhood.

/endrant

    Rohit Gupta

    Written by

    Android developer@ KiwiTech, Noida. ♥️ video games, tech, cyberpunk and sci fi literature.

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