The few times I have tried a more impressive game on my phone, my overriding thought is ‘why am I not playing this on my PC?’. Phone controls, screen size, and processing power suck, so all but the simplest games meant to hold your attention while you are waiting at a doctor’s office don’t optimally work there. And for a doctor’s office lobby, I want something I can have fun within seconds of starting and feel satisfied with only minutes of play.
I used to love playing Infinity Blade back in the day, but it was another time and they were games built from the ground up for touch screens so it’s not really comparable
I really, really don’t want to play AAA games on a touchscreen.
You can use a controller and it works great, but at this point I bet you’d rather use a larger device. It does make a lot more sense on iPads though
I jumped over to the App Store the second Hades was announced, fully willing to pay full price, even though I could easily get the game for 30% cheaper on Steam.
Subscription required.
Fuck. That.
Who wants to play these monsters that suck out your battery in minutes on such a small screen? There are many great games on phones but they are not graphically impressive or huge in scale. They are 2D, control with one finger and get you in and out in seconds.
You know what would get people to play them on their phones? If we could use our Phones as our desktop when docked, DEX like. I mean the processing power is there (maybe not cooling).
I think there’s a middle ground there, though it depends on the kind of game. Something like a first person shooter is a non-starter on iPhone to me due to the smaller display and touchscreen controls. Something like a turn based strategy I like better on mobile because being able to tap through commands and menus is nicer than a controller to me. Maybe also a stronger push for some of the games to have cross platform saves, like being able to play on my Apple TV at home, but also do some grinding a few minutes at a time while I’m out.
Really, I think Apple TV is where the real gaming potential is. It might not match consoles in power, but it’s also in a lot of households that might not have bought a console but will buy a couple good games on Apple TV.
