TUESDAY TIDBIT: Mobile Games, Multiplayer and Microtransactions

I recently moved myself into the twenty-first century by finally upgrading from my old-school cell phone to a smartphone. For me, the choice between iphone and android was not a difficult one for one simple reason: I've wanted to play Doom Resurrection ever since it was released and the game is only available on ios. This now gives me the dubious distinction of having played every Doom game that id software ever released. (Doom, Doom II, Doom 3, Doom 3 Lost Mission, Final Doom, Doom RPG, Doom II RPG and Doom Resurrection).

Is it as fun as the original?  No.  Is it still fun?  Absolutely.

I may do a full review of Doom Resurrection sometime, but for now lets just go with a summary. For the uninitiated, its a rails-on first person shooter. What that means is that you the player don't actually control where you go but instead must just kill enemies as they approach. Its like those light gun games at the arcade. This game games advantage of the iphone's motion sensors to allow you to move the phone around to aim, while the touchscreen is used for reloading, ducking under cover and picking up items such as ammunition and health packs. Overall, I really enjoyed it. While some might find this type of gameplay restrictive, I can appreciate a game that's specifically tailored to the strengths and weaknesses of its platform. It was fun, easy to play and not at all crowded on the small screen.

Having now beaten Doom Resurrection, I've been out looking for new mobile games to play, but have so far had pretty limited success. The mobile game market today is booming with business, but unfortunately not really the sort of business that I want to get into. Today's mobile releases are all riddled with two things that I have never wanted to be a part of: Microtransactions and a focus on online multiplayer.

These two concepts go hand-in-hand, but we'll start with microtransactions. Anyone who pays attention to video game news will be familiar with this phrase. Also known as in-app purchases, this is where a game allows you to purchase additional features or content once you're already playing it. The use of microtransactions is controversial in the console and PC gaming industry, but in mobile games it seems to be pretty common practice. In fact, the most successful mobile games today are usually free to download but then make their money off of these in app purchases.

Its definitely a successful business model, and in a way its pretty easy to see why. Gamers can download the game for free and then decide later on whether or not it is fun enough to be worth spending money on. It makes perfect sense, although unfortunately the trend seems to be less and less on giving players content for their money and more on just selling these microtransactions.

For example, I was recently looking at the new Mortal Kombat X game on the app store. Its a card-based fighting game based around characters from the game universe. I was interested, primarily because I am a huge fan of Mortal Kombat. A mobile game using the characters with some gameplay elements tailored to the platform. Then I looked at the list of in-app purchases offered by the game.

Every purchase available is in the form of some in-game currency. The smallest is called a Heavy Pouch of Koins, which can be purchased for $1.99. These kinds of offers continue up in price, each with a more exciting sounding name, all the way up to the Ancient Elixer of Dragon Souls, which costs a whopping $99.99.

I am assuming that this currency is earned by achieving accomplishments in the game, but that spending real money will obviously allow the player to move ahead much more quickly. Since it allows for challenging opponents around the world (more on this in a bit), I suspect that these purchases also provide an edge in that department as well.

So what's the problem here? Well, there's a few things I take issue with. First of all, let's consider that $99 price tag. A hundred dollars? That's nearly twice the full price of a newly released console game. That's a lot of money, and for what? That's the other problem. All these purchases do is grant you things that you could earn via gameplay. To me, this implies that advancing through the game will be a chore rather than a joy. I don't want to pay to advance through my game, I want to enjoy it.

To play, or to spend money on?

Of course there's more to it than that, and this brings us to the next element common in today's mobile games: Multiplayer. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with multiplayer, but I don't want it to be the focus of my game. Unfortunately, this seems to be the craze that has hit mobile gaming, and boy does it seem to be quite a profitable craze. Take Game of War, for example. Anyone who watched sports this last NFL season surely saw the constant live action commercials with Kate Upton in them advertising the game. Kate Upton! Not only that, but Liam Neeson was in a Clash of Clans commercial that ran during the Super Bowl! I remember a few years ago being impressed when games like Skyrim and Call of Duty were able to advertise during professional sports. Now we have free to play games that can not only advertise during professional sports but hire A-list actors and supermodels and advertise in the most expensive slots possible.

The fact is that microtransactions and free to play games are incredibly profitable for developers. By making the game focused on multiplayer competition, players are more and more encouraged to do whatever they can to get better and better. The best part for the publishers is that there is really no limit to how often a person can buy these things, nor is there a reason for a devoted player to stop spending money on it.

Obviously games like Clash of Clans are really popular and I'm not about to criticize a business for making money. There are plenty of independent games journalists who decry free to play games as “not real games” or “only for casual gamers.” I don't think that's fair. Just because something isn't what I prefer doesn't make it any less legitimate as a medium. I just think its unfortunate that this type of game has so thoroughly taken over the mobile market. Its not that I want free to play games to go away, its just that I wish there were more options available.

For example, although I think Doom Resurrection did an excellent job of simplifying the gameplay to fit the mobile platform, mobile games can still be serious. Nintendo proved over and over that portable games can be engaging and fun, and there's no reason for ios games to not be equally high quality. Turn-based strategy games like Advance Wars would translate gloriously to the mobile platform. In fact, Uniwar is a rather good knockoff of the aforementioned Advance Wars, but a side by side comparison of the two is no contest whatsoever.

Of course, there are some obstacles for mobile games to overcome. Uniwar costs $2.99 while Nintendo DS games retail at $40 upon release. An ios game that costs more than five dollars to download is generally considered overpriced. This limits how much time and money can be put into developing these gam

es.

Civilization Revolution does mobile gaming right.

However, there's a right way to do things on the mobile market. Take Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution. The game has a free demo version which allows you to play it, but a full version with all the civilizations and the ability to save your game costs around three dollars. Multiplayer and unique units can be purchased later on as well. All in all, the full game costs roughly sixteen dollars if you get all the in-app purchases, but then that's it. I'm not necessarily thrilled about the game dividing up its content like that, but at least the three dollar version is fully functional and the total version can't possibly break my bank.

Mobile games have so much potential. Turn-based strategy, action/adventure and role playing games are all perfect candidates for mobile games. Even ports of existing games would probably be very well received. And I'll admit that there are plenty of good games out there that I'm sure I haven't played yet. Its just that I could wish there were more.