Video Games on Android, and the Economic Environment Thereof
Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2022 1:25 pm
I am a messy cheapskate, so I play "free to play" games on my Android phone. Now, how they monetize these games come from two sources, in-app purchases, and showing ads.
Now, some of the in-app purchases make sense such as paying to remove the ads. Or for optional items, such as skins. Or as the alternative to "grinding" for hours, days, or weeks to get something in the game, as long as you can get it without paying. I dislike, however "pay to win" games, where, if you don't pay extra - even if you did pay to remove ads - the game can't be finished and/or won. That seems to me to be a bit slimy.
But this missive isn't about in-app purchases. It's the ads. (Cue video of Neo in the White Room before entering the Matrix being asked, "What do you need?" and he responds, "Ads. lots of ads.")
What are most - as in, at least 75% - of the ads about? Why, encourahing people to install other free-to-play games (which themselves have ads), of course! (And sometimes not "other" games, I have sometimes seen ads during a game to get people install the exact game I'm playing.) On rare occasions, it's an ad for smething else, but these are very rare.
In short, the advertising ecosystem of free-to-play games is like a giant circle jerk where every game runs ads from other games, to get people to install and play that free-to-play game, so they can sell ads from other games, to get people to install that free-to-play game, etc., etc., etc, ad nauseum.
But the real issue is that after a while it's like watching a (low-rated) TV station that can only get either ads from companies who don't have enough money to advertise on better stations, or products the higher rated stations won't take (like condoms). So the ads are either repeating the same ones over, and over, and over, and over... or they're for ads for almost identical games.
It seems like there are maybe a handful of different ideas for games, and most are copies of som of the others.
Let me see how many I can name. Some games combine more than one of these:
Now, some of the in-app purchases make sense such as paying to remove the ads. Or for optional items, such as skins. Or as the alternative to "grinding" for hours, days, or weeks to get something in the game, as long as you can get it without paying. I dislike, however "pay to win" games, where, if you don't pay extra - even if you did pay to remove ads - the game can't be finished and/or won. That seems to me to be a bit slimy.
But this missive isn't about in-app purchases. It's the ads. (Cue video of Neo in the White Room before entering the Matrix being asked, "What do you need?" and he responds, "Ads. lots of ads.")
What are most - as in, at least 75% - of the ads about? Why, encourahing people to install other free-to-play games (which themselves have ads), of course! (And sometimes not "other" games, I have sometimes seen ads during a game to get people install the exact game I'm playing.) On rare occasions, it's an ad for smething else, but these are very rare.
In short, the advertising ecosystem of free-to-play games is like a giant circle jerk where every game runs ads from other games, to get people to install and play that free-to-play game, so they can sell ads from other games, to get people to install that free-to-play game, etc., etc., etc, ad nauseum.
But the real issue is that after a while it's like watching a (low-rated) TV station that can only get either ads from companies who don't have enough money to advertise on better stations, or products the higher rated stations won't take (like condoms). So the ads are either repeating the same ones over, and over, and over, and over... or they're for ads for almost identical games.
It seems like there are maybe a handful of different ideas for games, and most are copies of som of the others.
Let me see how many I can name. Some games combine more than one of these:
- Farming game; You run around an area, either on a tractor, or mower, and collect what you've cut into the hopper behind you. At some point, your hopper is full, and you need to go back to the silo, or the msrket, where the collection is smptied into the bin, and you get so many points depending on how much collected. The points can be traded in for a larger cutting tool, a faster tracter/mower, bigger hopper, new skins, etc.
I have noticed one game that moves the farm scene into an office. Reports need to be collected from a printer, where they are submitted for editing, the edited documents are converted into money. Or they can be taken to the bindery where they can be bound into volumes, which also generate money.
[*} Digging game: Use a crane with a spinning cutter that cuts and extracts pieces of a mountain into a processor.
[*}2048 game; push pieces of the values 2,4,8,16, 32, etc. all the way to 2048, together, if two touch, it jumps to the next value. Some games, if you reach 2048, doubling it causes the piece to vanish.
[*}2048 expanded: the game is a grid, perhaps 8x8, or 10x8, where every square has a value, e.g. 2,4, etc. but there is no limit; if you can find enough oairs it can go to 128K, 512k, 1M, etc. - Crossword-Tetris: move pieces which can be a 3x3 T, 2x2 square, 2x2 trapezoid, all the way to 5 across or down, around a 10x10 board, when a horizontal or vertical line is filled it disappears.
- Hexagon style: Crossword-Tetris using 6-sided pieces.
- Match 3: put three of the same item near each other and they vanish. In some cases you have to match on certain rows or columns because you have to "break" or "melt" something on certain aquares.
- Bubble Shooter: Rows or blocks of bubbles of the same color, in a group or screen full of colors where you shoot a bubble at them. If it hits a different color it sticks, otherwise it dislodges or destroys bubbles of that color.
- BB Shooter: Fire steel BBs at one or more targets to try to break up or wear down them.
