Warning: Rambling ahead. Don’t forget your dirty mac and walking stick.
I have only preordered a game once in my adult life. One single time. I enjoyed the first game in the franchise so much that when the sequel was announced I felt no need to wait for reviews. That game could not be anything but incredible. That game was Dragon Age 2. You know what? Dragon Age 2 wasn’t bad. It wasn’t as good as the first one. It was way too short, the environments were repetitive and the UI was very, very poorly thought out. I liked most of the characters though, I enjoyed it’s over-the-top macabre, I thought the pirate lady was pretty cool... It was not incredible.
I had never much seen the point of preorders before Dragon Age 2, and I don’t particularly see their value to the end user now. If there was some significant discount, perhaps. If there was a risk of the game selling out before I had a chance to pick it up, maybe. But in todays world games don’t significantly discount before release (unless they’re early access) and so few games are subject to limited stock that these are poor arguments. Back in the days of postal delivery there was a small incentive in that Amazon and its ilk could deliver it to you on day one, meaning you didn’t have to brave the decepit halls of GameStation. But for those of us that live in the future, meaning those that mostly buy all their games through Steam, the age of the preorder has ended.
For me, the age of buying a game soon after release has ended too. My backlog stretches far enough that if a game comes out I really want to play, I find it hard to justify paying full price for it when I know I could wait. I could play another game in my library that I’ve been meaning to try, and in a couple of months to a year that game I seek will be on some 75% off sale or other. In a way this is really bad: I make games myself, and obviously when people don’t pay full price I don’t get fully paid either. On the other hand, I feel like modern games might have become too expensive. Maybe £10 is too little for a game that I’ll spend fifty hours playing, but maybe £40 is too much.
With the cost of traditional gaming soaring, with the price of consoles being as much as a good computer these days, it’s no wonder that cheaper mobile platforms are becoming dominant. In many ways there seems to be a class division between the people who look down on mobile games from the lofty seats of the Playstation 4s, and those who can’t invest hundreds or thousands of pounds into their hobbies. People who argue that, yes, an iPhone is nonsensically expensive and even a decent Android phone will set you back as much as a console once you factor in the data plan are missing the point. In the modern world people need to be connected, they need phones. They need phones that can check their email and Twitter, and by coincidence these devices play games as well.
But I think the root of some distrust of the mobile sector is the quality of games. There are some standouts, of course. The Room, Sword and Sworcery, Super Hexagon. These are games that would be considered good on any platform. But these are not the games that dominate the space or earn any sort of exceptional income for their creators. The games that do, the Angry Birds and the Clash of Clans are, frankly, shit. Alright for phones but still cynically designed shit. Many console and PC games are pretty bollocks too, but the most visible games in the space are at least passable. I may not particularly like Call of Duty, but it is well crafted. I’d never call it shit. I may not particularly like DOTA 2, but that’s just because I’m an idiot who can’t multitask.
Increasingly, however, the bad practices of the mobile industry and creeping into the traditional spheres of gaming. Games designed to make money with no concession made to entertainment or quality. Games like Ryse, Watch Dogs or anything with prefix Kinect. The value of preorders to justify the industries’ relentless focus on picturesque but barely playable games is immeasurable. A trailer that you play may be about as much fun as a roast beef sandwich that you can drink, but it’ll make a damn good trailer. The game, that is. Not the sandwich.
The mobile industry suffers, then, because it is more transparent in its attempts to shaft you. Enough has been done to soften the cynicism that goes into big budget games that their increasingly malignant designs are more subtly implemented. Since there is no place for trust in a room full of liars, I’m going to keep buying mainstream games on discount. Whenever there’s a problem with the PC gaming industry then at least we can point to consoles and say, “well, at least we’re not them”. Whenever there’s a problem with the console industry they can point to mobile and say, “well, at least we’re not them”. Whenever there’s a problem with the mobile industry there is nothing left to say but, “yeah, this is a bit shit”.
