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Comment by eswat | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I’m extreme in my view. But I look at most companies that produce games skewed towards IAP/DLC/P2W as ethically corrupt.

They’re just wasting the talent of game creators to produce these games to pad the revenue of these businesses with no regard for the well-being of players (I’m not one to harp on the whole “only drug dealers call their customers users” thing, but it’s very apt here).

I’m hoping sooner-rather-than-later that the ratio of good vs. evil games is skewed towards the former. Unfortunately by that time a lot of execs will have already ran away with the money while leaving a pile of burnt-out developers and players.

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I wish I had the resources to do this. Nintendo should make a smartphone Switch - with the smartphone price, hardware, and their games. (There’d be some serious technical hurdles for them to be comfortable with it.) They’re the perfect actor to revamp mobile gaming. They’ve got history making popular handheld gaming systems and IP millions love.

I wish Nintendo treated mobile like a first-class platform. Unfortunately, I only know of one good game that they made (Super Mario Run), and they've allowed their other IPs to be poisoned by pay-to-win garbage (Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Fire Emblem, Pokemon Go).

I mean, I know why Nintendo doesn't treat mobile as a first-class platform: it isn't their hardware.

More than that, though, I think Nintendo doesn't like to make sacrifices to realise their ideas, both in terms of having to support multiple hardware profiles (as opposed to three for the 3DS line [normal, large, no 2D] or the single supported home console), multiple operating systems, loss of control in terms of what content is considered appropriate, loss of control over distribution, etc.

The sacrifices you have to make on mobile is subscribe to the pay-to-win model, garbage though it is, because people just won't pay a reasonable amount for a good game — Nintendo knows this all too well because of how poorly Super Mario Run did after the first month, and how few players actually paid for the game relative to the download base.

Mobile is between a rock and a hard place for Nintendo whose innovation is somewhat contingent on a level of control of which most mobile developers could only dream.

Do you have references on their Super MARIO run revenue? It was definitely my favorite game of theirs in a while. Still play it because it’s so simple.

Here's an article on it: https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/31/16580976/super-mario-run...

I love it, too, and I think it's well worth the money. But I'm sure Nintendo became aware all too quickly that their traditional fan base is happy to pay any amount for Mario; most mobile users, particularly children, are either unwilling or unable.

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