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.
Hmm I’m not sure using gacha games which are designed for addictive gameplay loops and predatory monetisation being the games that your kid prefers over standalone experiences is a good argument to make
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m sure you’re a loving parent and just want what’s best for your daughter. But what you’re essentially doing, is giving your kid pocket money to go play slot machines at the local dive bar.
The reason why mobile phone gaming is so bad, is because there are barely any actual games. The reason your daughter thinks it’s fun to play candy crush is not because the game itself is good, it’s because the game makes her addicted to it. This is bad. Really bad. This will have consequences on how her brain handles dopamine. Please, for the love of your family, get her off that shit immediately.
I think I know my kid better than you, a random Internet stranger who’s never met her before in her life. And consequently, has no understanding of what her actual needs are.
Yes the needs of your very special child are so unfathomably different from all the other children in the planet lol
Actually, my kid’s needs really are substantially different from others.
My daughter is autistic. She has trouble communicating verbally. But on Roblox, she finds it much easier to socialize.
She has never spent a cent on microtransactions but gets the opportunity to talk to other kids without being bullied.
I’m not taking that away from her just because strangers on the Internet can’t fathom different kids have different needs.
My 13 and 15 year olds are PC first gamers, then consoles, then mobile. I raised them that way on purpose because I wanted to avoid tablet and phone screens. I could control access better that way.
And yea, also because I’m a pc and console gamer and wanted to play my favorite games with them.
The older one has started playing mobile games more often and yea, it’s Genshin and Honkai. That kid was always in love with Fire Emblem, so Honkai makes sense to me. The stories are all kind of the same.
A friend stayed with us for a few days and they have a 12 and 10 year old. I have every console imaginable, PCs on big screens, and they never left their tablets.
I think once kids get on the tablet/phone/mobile games, they don’t really leave. I don’t know that I would have either.
Yes cause they are designed to be addictive and maximize the profitability with addictive content like loot boxes and fomo tactics to push micro transactions.
Once again, choice is on your side. There are hundreds of thousands of games on mobile, many that are not service-based.
Not for a kid it isn’t.
And that’s the point you keep sweeping away.
Again, my kid has never spent a single cent on microtransactions.
I understand just fine. The only good mobile games aren’t mobile games. They are ports of normal games for mobile devices. Which is a super incredibly small number of games.
And latching onto Gatcha games as a good thing for kids? Might as well get them cigarettes and alcohol too if you wanna get them addicted earlier.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
