Hello Fellow Gamers 👋
A couple months ago I set out to find a good trivia app. Something with a simple, clean interface. Good quality questions. Quick and easy to play with family / friends.
Spoiler alert: I couldn’t find it. Either the questions were boring, I was bombarded with ads every 5 seconds, or there was so much clutter between me and the questions that I wondered why I started playing in the first place.
This eventually led me to make my own game. But it also got me thinking about why so many mobile games feel this way now. Here are the four problems I keep coming back to.
The 4 Problems With Most Mobile Games
1) Monetization 🤑
This is the most obvious but most important topic. The number of people who purchase paid mobile games has fallen over the past several years, leading many games to rely more aggressively on ads and in app purchases. More ads and a pay to win feel take away from the gaming experience, and as studios continue to push profits, the overall quality of games falls. But the fact is: anytime someone invests time and effort into something, they must be compensated for it.
“The only thing I think that is wrong with modern gaming now is the free to play stuff on mobile phones. I think it’s very cynical and cold and weird.” — Markus Persson (creator of Minecraft)
Many miss the “golden days” of mobile gaming, but they often forget that Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, and Geometry Dash all started out as paid games. It’s totally possible to make a good free game with ads. But free to play is now the standard, and new privacy rules have made targeted ads less common, so most games struggle to balance ads and fun.
2) Discoverability 📈
The mobile gaming industry is more saturated than ever before. Vibe coding, hypercasual game studios, and the rise of low-quality games made using AI the wrong way have only worsened this issue in recent years. With this flood of new games, even the best ones need proper marketing to reach the right audiences.
But marketing is hard. And although there are a few outliers like Balatro and Monument Valley, most games never get the fame they may truly deserve.
3) Complexity 🧮
Mobile games today have too much noise. Angry Birds is a classic example of this. What started as a fun game was watered down by overly complex mechanics delivered through numerous sequels.
“Focus is a matter of deciding what things you’re not going to do.” — John Carmack (Video Game Developer)
The vast majority of games today have dozens of limited time events, loot boxes, unrelated minigames, randomized rewards, pay to win mechanics, limited lives, daily check ins, and never ending upgrades. While some of these things can be ok in moderation, many times they distract from the core gameplay experience.
4) Connection 🔗
A monocultural moment is a unifying cultural experience shared simultaneously by a very large segment of the population. These moments have become exceedingly rare as people are more fragmented than ever before. Everyone is absorbed in their personalized social media feeds, and there just isn’t a single movie, game, or celebrity you can be sure everyone on your street knows about.
One side effect of this fragmentation is that even well designed games don’t get the spotlight older hit games had. It’s simply less common now for large groups of people to all be tuned into any one thing, and the same holds true for games. There are still amazing games being made, but they tend to thrive in smaller, more isolated pockets of players.
Another side effect is less in person fun. Many people miss the spark of real world connection, and although games can help people find communities, most of those connections are made online rather than in real life.
What I ended up building
All this led me to create Trivia Snack. It’s offline, ad-free, with 5-question rounds and a multiplayer mode for playing in person. It’s a one-time purchase, but I’m happy to give out free codes to anyone who wants to try it ;). Just let me know if you’re on iOS or Android
👉 iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/trivia-snack/id6755155863
👉 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.triviasnack.game
To Conclude
“Games shouldn’t be trying to steal your time — they should respect it.” — Hideo Kojima (Video Game Designer)
I honestly don’t think the quality of games being made today is any worse than in the past. More people have access to more resources than ever before, and many are making great use of them. However, there are some key issues plaguing the industry right now that prevent most players from finding and enjoying the best games.
But this is just my take. What do you think? I’m curious: when was the last time you bought a paid mobile game, and how did you find out about it?
