Should Mobile Platforms allow Controller Only Games on their Stores?

Discussion in 'General Game Discussion and Questions' started by vilakshankap, Oct 5, 2022.

  1. vilakshankap

    vilakshankap Member

    Sep 29, 2022
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    Should Apple and Google allow non-touch friendly and controller only games on their Store. I personally have no objections to it and feel it could lead to more ports of games and make mobiles as serious gaming devices.
     
  2. squarezero

    squarezero Moderator
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    Dec 10, 2008
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    The short answer/opinion is yes.

    The longer one is that people are gaming on mobile in many different ways, and with the advent of game streaming, console experiences are close at hand (if you have the bandwidth). The truism that people are gaming on mobile only because they have a spare second is not really true anymore — if it ever was.

    Apple TV already has controller-only games, and there’s a category of best with controllers in the App Store. Doesn’t seem like a big leap to have controller-only games on iOS as well.

    One more thing: these days I’d much rather play an indie game on my iPhone with a Backbone controller than on my Switch Lite. The screen is better, the controls are better, and chances are that it will perform significantly better. The fact that developers feel like they have to charge less for the iOS version of, say, Bloodstained, sucks (no pun intended). The experience is night and day compared to the weak Switch port. I don’t know if gaming culture can change so that we don’t have this silly prejudice against playing on a mobile device, especially now that they are an order of magnitude more powerful than the second most popular console in the US. That’s what’s holding back gaming on mobile, I’m afraid.
     

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