Pushing Buttons: The true cost of ‘free’ mobile games
In this week's newsletter: The boom years of smartphone gaming have given way to a naked cash-grab that rewards player-unfriendly design
In the first half of the 2010s, when smartphones became ubiquitous, mobile gaming was exciting new terrain for both developers and players. Here was a new platform, suddenly, in everyone's pocket, with a touchscreen that was so much easier to use than a controller and a built-in audience of millions. There were new, interesting games - maybe a few quid a throw, so much more affordable - designed to fit into those small gaps in your life, on the train, at the bus stop, on your lunch break (and, let's not lie, while you're hiding from your family in the toilet).
Breakout iPhone hits such as Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Clash of Clans and Crossy Road became some of the most successful things on the App Store, something that Apple itself seemed baffled by at the time. And it employed talented developers: Simogo, makers of the wonderfully creepy Year Walk and the stylish, mind-expanding mystery game Device 6; Kairosoft and their adorable, totally absorbing simulation games such as Game Dev Story; Terry Cavanagh's Super Hexagon; Ustwo and Monument Valley; Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP. I played so many fun, fascinating, experimental things on phones in the early years of the mobile gaming boom.
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