Editorial: What’s Needed In Mobile Gaming

There seems to be this prevailing theory in mobile gaming that in-app purchases are the surefire way to success. Create a “free to download” game, get people involved in the gameplay or world, then let them hit a wall and offer a shortcut for real money. Boom. In-App Purchases, instant gratification, and income generation for the game studio. But something that isn’t often discussed is who these buyers of in-app purchases are, and why they do it?

There’s been plenty of articles written on whales, those who spend a great deal of money on in-app purchases (and who tend to account for a vast majority of the income earned for a game). When investigative journalists dig deep into who these whales are, what they find generally is not the rich children of billionaires – but instead relatively casual gamers who make these purchases out of their own “entertainment” budget. Instead of going to movies or buying video games, they pay a hundred or a few hundred dollars a month towards their favorite games to progress further.

But what I think is missed in this type of reporting, is who these gamers are really. I would bet if we dug a little deeper, we’d find most do not own the latest and greatest video game console. We would find most do not spend a ton of money on every game they touch, but instead stick to a few or even one select title on mobile. I bet they have a Netflix account, a Hulu account, maybe an Amazon Prime membership. I bet they’re somewhere in the range of 20-50 and likely grew up playing Atari, Nintendo, Sega Genesis, or PlayStation. And most of all, I’d bet this trend of whales won’t last.

Growing Up and Getting Wise

Culture gets wise to trends. Remember when telemarketing worked? Remember when spam emails were effective? Remember when social media felt social and not like another avenue for people to spout their particular beliefs or the most recent picture of their cat? Because at its core, the model of micro-transactions can’t live forever. It’ll live for a while, sure. But it only takes one big credit card bill to cure a would-be whale from making that mistake again. Or one game developer changing or altering purchased in-game items to a point that renders them mostly useless, and suddenly that big spender realizes that the rules of a normal economy and normal depreciation don’t last in mobile games.

We saw it with cable television. There was a time when cable companies felt they could get away with $200 monthly charges for bundling internet, phone service, and cable packages. And then the cut-the-cord movement began and people started putting a dent in that. Mobile games with micro-transactions are sitting at the very same precipice. There are whole movements of free-to-play players who are devoted to not making in-app purchases. And we could use a new reinvention.

The Future of Mobile Gaming

The reason I bring up the who of this equation is that many of these “casual gamers” who do not own gaming systems love mobile games for the likeness to console games without the console. As technology advances, they’ll want more console-feel to their mobile gaming. They’ll be willing to pay subscription costs, or full game prices to get the same type of console experience on their smartphones. And this may be where things should head – to a new brand of mobile games that feel more like console games and lack the in-app purchase model. Heck, stick to the expansion model. Allow players to play up to a certain point, build end game content, call the game complete and have them spend again for a new expansion. But change has to come. The model won’t keep working forever. It erodes every time a whale purchases content and feels they didn’t get what they paid for because of a patch that changes the value of the item or depreciates the usefulness. And eventually, after that happens one too many times, we’ll need to start seeing a new model.

I believe the market on mobile games is primed for console-style pricing or subscription-style pricing over the in-app purchase model, and whoever gets there first is going to make a killing. Because casual gamers, people who grew up with old game systems and who now own none, but have a smartphone in their pockets, are itching to dive back into content without the $600 up-front investment. After all, they already bought a new smartphone.