Old gamers often misunderstand the quality of mobile games.
I realized this a couple of weeks ago when I asked my 12-year-old daughter whether she wanted to bring her Nintendo Switch or her Android tablet on our two-week vacation. She chose the tablet.
Why? Because her Android has Genshin Impact, Fortnite, Roblox, Candy Crush, Wuthering Waves, and Sky: Children of Light. She simply prefers those over her Switch library — which is decent but doesn’t compare to what she’s got on the tablet.
Adults tend to dismiss mobile gaming by saying things like, “There’s no 1:1 equivalent to Super Mario Odyssey, Tears of the Kingdom, or Cyberpunk 2077 on mobile.”
Fine. My daughter has access to all those games. Our family owns over 8,000 games across PC and consoles. She can play Super Mario Odyssey any time she wants, but she doesn’t. She’d rather play Genshin Impact.
And she’s not alone. Most of her friends are on their tablets or phones. It makes sense — gaming is as much about socializing as playing, and iOS and Android dominate for a reason.
Sure, we can scoff and say, “Kids these days don’t recognize a good game when it hits them in the face.”
But I remember feeling that way about Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh. They’re still thriving today, with now-grown adults still playing.
I also think back to my own childhood. My mom hated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yet, I snuck a TMNT Game Boy game into the house and played it behind her back. TMNT never disappeared — it’s still around.
With the original Switch’s price rising (at least here in Canada), it just makes sense to consider Android tablets — especially for kids. Sure, you can’t play Black Myth: Wukong on Android, but that’s why I have PCs ready for that. Kids? They just want to have fun and connect with friends.
Wow, an expert on all mobile games—based on exactly how many hours scrolling and judging from your porch?
There are over 700,000 mobile games on Google Play and the App Store combined. Over seven hundred thousand. You really think you’ve played, let alone fathomed, the quality of that entire universe?
Lumping all mobile games together because of a few gacha titles is like calling all movies “just commercials” because of some awful reality TV. Face it: the world’s moved on, but you’re still shouting at clouds.
One does not need to play every single piece of shovelware to be able to identify shovelware.
Nope. You must play a game before you call it shovelware. Anything less is just lazy, uninformed hot air.
If you can’t be bothered to actually try what you’re criticizing, you have zero business judging it. That’s not opinion—that’s ignorance.
So stop pretending you’re some gaming authority when all you’ve done is shout from the sidelines without ever stepping on the field.
If there are 700,000 games then you must judge games without trying them. Otherwise you’d be constantly playing games to see if they’re any good and would still not get through them all.
I have a more compelling suggestion: only judge games you play.
My point is that you need to decide which games to play and that you have already judged a game when you decide not to play it.
You might not like the art style, or the gameplay, or the reviews or whatever but you have definitely judged it without playing it. The only other alternative is to literally download and play every game that you see.
It’s entirely your prerogative to spend time and money on whatever you think will be likely worthwhile to you.
But without actually playing a game, it’s strict guesswork on whether a game is quality or not.
Seriously, there’s no harm in saying, “I don’t know whether this game is good – I haven’t tried it.”
Buddy please. Its like a farmer ok? Knows fruit, knows what makes it good and or bad, often. And perilously for your world view, at a glance. Effectively your kinda saying you can’t judge a game accurately without playing it through. So then no one can. And it comes off as rather immature/inexperienced masquerading as thoughtful or mature
Its not a person OK. Its a product and sometimes its more then that OK? But a lot of addictiveness isn’t good game. Like addictiveness isn’t a good drug or food or lifestyle choice (looking at gambling and cigs and stuff 👀)
We make it special we get that, what you don’t get is bad fruit your making special cause it is your holiday gift is still when looked at objectively and compared to the greater whole of produce. In general. Its bad fruit. Though genshin seems like its a legit game, not fully legit, cause of all the predatory design. So there. Objectively worse. Predatory by design is bad. Period. Now its better then many others. So with the greater whole it isn’t as bad. Or candy crush. Like don’t feel like a bad parent or anything but its definitely not getting a judgement pass, sorry
Also explain to your kids there tech bros toys when they play and insist upon the addictive games. They can decide but an informed person is always got a better chance of making well reasoned, informed decisions that makes there brains develop away from that bull 💩 you know
That’s my take, hope it helps clarify 💪
I’m skeptical that people here are as knowledgeable as they claim.
I know from several other threads that the majority of folks here stick to a few handfuls of games and sink 1,000s of hours into them. That might make them an expert at a specific MMO, but it certainly doesn’t make them experts in every game at a glance.
I get you there, and its true they are often over-certain of how the easy to share intellectual take version applies to the reality of the truth
Its a struggle but just wanted to defend the main idea not their participation in it, but I agree that you never REALLY know if its fun till you play it and they would likely be more understanding if they tried out some. There are many mobile games that have no right to be that addictive or “fun” (pleasing or pleasurable weird words here tho) as they are.
But as the overall human shift to focus on profit/retention is where most of the actual resentment comes in from not that your entirely wrong, they just don’t support your opinion because they see it as a much bigger problem that you dont seem to acknowledge
Thanks for being this involved and really having the convo here. Its important as fuck even if we dont acknowledge it. Fucking being alive and thinking and talking about it. That’s what got us everything.
Be good tho I see a lot of taking fights and your not on the right side of several lol but I fucking remember myself so carry on and do what you feel you must till you know yourself 👍
You’re judging the gaming habits of the entire population of Lemmy based on a couple anecdotes from random threads? And you want to talk about not making snap judgements?
Lemmy isn’t a big place. People who populate gaming threads are an even smaller fraction of the userbase. So to see the same handful of opinions, repeated again and again, upvoted ad infinitum – that’s a pretty good sample size.
I deliberately posted this thread as a contrarian take. And what do you know, it proved to be contrarian.
I didn’t say anything outrageous or mean-spirited. Everything has been quite reasonable. But judging by the responses – you all think every mobile game is a gacha game – I can safely say few of you have nearly as much experience with games as you believe you do.
By the way, this is why I generally put little stock into self-declared “gamers” opinions. Most of you are obsessed with playing things in a prescribed manner, in a particular way, regarding a specific canon. And you generally adhere to the same bland culture with little appreciation for diversity.
So you’ve played every single game ever made, huh? 🙄
I don’t need to have played every game ever made. But I do own several thousand and have played thousands more.
From that experience, I can tell you this: you never truly understand a game until you play it yourself. That’s why I don’t waste time forming opinions about games I haven’t actually tried.
Try it sometime—it might change your perspective.
I don’t need to step in every pile of shit I see to know it’s shit. Seeing it and smelling it is enough to know I don’t want to touch or taste it.
You just told me you don’t play anything, so by your own admission, you’ve seen nothing.
If that’s your takeaway, I suggest seeking some classes in reading comprehension.
I read you loud and clear—I get that you don’t play mobile games because you think they’re shit.
And my point is simple: if you don’t play them, your opinion on them counts for exactly nothing.
No games played = no credibility. It’s that straightforward.
How many of the mobile games that you specifically mentioned aren’t gatcha games?
I could have just as easily listed Monument Valley, Florence, or The Room—none of which are gacha.
And hey, I just did.
OK, just making sure you’re aware that the reason everyone is talking about gatcha games is because they’re the ones that you brought up!
There are over 700,000 games on the play store. … and 699,900 of them are basic, traditional mobile games that are basically a gamified e-store for imaginary goods…
How about we stick to facts instead of making things up?
As of July 2025, there are 14,139 premium, paid games on the iOS App Store—meaning games that are not free-to-play, not gacha, and have no microtransactions.
To put that in perspective: iOS alone has more complete, self-contained games than the NES, SNES, N64, and GameCube libraries combined.
https://42matters.com/stats
It was obvious hyperbole to point at how you are still hilariously wrong. Congratulations on being too stupid to understand how speech works. No wonder you let your kids engage with addictive games… You’re too simple to understand how it’s still bad.
Bro are you a sales rep for this data company and this whole post is just a way to drive people to your product? Because that’s about the only explanation I have for, all t h i s.
Wow, that’s some next-level conspiracy thinking—just because I share stats with a source, you leap straight to “sales rep for the statistics company” territory?
What’s next, claiming schools teach math just to line Texas Instruments’ pockets?
Here’s the simple truth: I’m tired of hearing people mindlessly parrot the same tired talking points with zero facts to back them up.
If having an unpopular opinion rattles your echo chamber, so be it. I’m perfectly fine with that.
Bro this entire post and every reply you’ve made is just next level unhinged, I was giving you a generous benefit of doubt here, because you being a sales rep is about the only way this isn’t insane cringe.
That’s great—I love being cringe. It means I’ve hit a nerve and said something so contrary that it actually rattles you.
Funny thing is, you haven’t actually told me how or why I’m wrong—just that I’m cringe.
If that’s all you’ve got, I’m doing something right.
Hahaha.
You have a really inflated sense of your impact on me buddy. I’m not here to tell you you’re right or wrong, I have no opinion on this whole inane debate at all. I play video games for fun, and if other people are having fun playing video games I’m happy for them, I don’t give a single solitary fuck whether they do it on a pc, console, phone, tablet, or by uploading Doom to a cock ring with lcd display and play it by popping their dick with kegels.
I’m just here to tell you that you’re giving off major “meth head arguing with a brick wall in the alley behind 7-11” energy.
Oh no, I’m cringe. 😱