> Partly, this is mandated by the business model of apps. In the home video games of the ‘80s and ‘90s, Sulaitis explains, a player might pay $60 for a DVD that could provide hundreds of hours of game play, and that consummated the economic relationship; game companies had no economic stake in the playing outcome.
> By contrast, the “freemium” model popularized by Apple’s App store effectively requires game companies to give the initial product away for free.
The biggest problem is that there is virtually no piracy possible on the iOS platforms, and even on Android people don't install shady cracks because they've been bitten by premium-calling trojans.
On a PC, I can try out a cracked game on which I'll spend 50 € or something, but I sure as hell won't spend so much money on a tablet game when I can't test it for at least a day instead the joke 15min that Google offers. The worst offenders need half an hour alone to download ingame assets (Real Racing!).
Also, with a PC or console game I feel I have something valuable - not just the look and feel, where no tablet game can ever beat a real console, but also a physical medium where I know that I can reinstall the game even a decade in the future... in contrast to a mobile platform where I have to trust:
- the platform operator to stick around for the next decade (I'm looking at MS and Google). I can always go to a junkshop and assemble a 1995 PC, or grab an old console, but no way to do so with mobile devices.
- the vendor not disappearing or pulling their apps from the store, thus rendering my purchase worthless if the device where the game is installed breaks
- the vendor keeping their apps up to date - I can still, on W7 x64, play EarthSiege 2 from early W95 days. Try this with an iOS game last updated 2012...
>The biggest problem is that there is virtually no piracy possible on the iOS platforms, and even on Android people don't install shady cracks because they've been bitten by premium-calling trojans.
Ironically, game publishers have turned to the freemium model because it's one of the few models that's both profitable and resistant to today's ubiquitous piracy.
>Also, with a PC or console game I feel I have something valuable - not just the look and feel, where no tablet game can ever beat a real console, but also a physical medium where I know that I can reinstall the game even a decade in the future...
Not really. If/when the services for your PC or (particularly) console game go away, your ability to access patches, including the now de rigeur day one patches to fix last minute bugs, as well as DLC goes away with it. Online service for the Sony PSP and original Xbox have ended already, for example.
It's one of the reasons I'm very particular about buying games from GOG whenever they're available there vs. other services, since those games are DRM-free.
I disagree on "ubiquitous piracy", as much as there will always be people pirating just because, with steam and the much higher risks in terms of malware for pirated games, I doubt piracy is anywhere near as high in percentage terms as it used to be way back. Not to mention that anti-piracy software these days (Denuvo) seems to be extremely resilient.
(some) game publishers have turned to freemium because it makes more money with less risk: would you risk spending many millions of dollars to compete with something like Witcher 3 (lots of risk, uncertain rewards) or spend a LOT less and float several different "freemium" balloons and then invest in marketing for what seems to have traction? (very little risk, very certain rewards)
The biggest problem is that there is virtually no piracy possible on the iOS platforms, and even on Android people don't install shady cracks because they've been bitten by premium-calling trojans.
On a PC, I can try out a cracked game on which I'll spend 50 € or something, but I sure as hell won't spend so much money on a tablet game when I can't test it for at least a day instead the joke 15min that Google offers. The worst offenders need half an hour alone to download ingame assets (Real Racing!).
Also, with a PC or console game I feel I have something valuable - not just the look and feel, where no tablet game can ever beat a real console, but also a physical medium where I know that I can reinstall the game even a decade in the future... in contrast to a mobile platform where I have to trust:
- the platform operator to stick around for the next decade (I'm looking at MS and Google). I can always go to a junkshop and assemble a 1995 PC, or grab an old console, but no way to do so with mobile devices.
- the vendor not disappearing or pulling their apps from the store, thus rendering my purchase worthless if the device where the game is installed breaks
- the vendor keeping their apps up to date - I can still, on W7 x64, play EarthSiege 2 from early W95 days. Try this with an iOS game last updated 2012...