The biggest thing I miss from yesteryear is all the low budget straight-to-handheld spinoffs. No clear place for those to exist now that dedicated handhelds are dead, and no room for quirky little side projects when publishers are putting all their resources into just a few AAAA megagames.
He he I worked in the mobile game industry before smartphones, buttons (flimsy though for many phones) but man has screens gotten not just bigger but better :-)
Power is never an issue, except if you want to showcase some tech instead of making a good game, IMO.
Well, check out a GBA/DS fat screen vs a DS lite one, it’s from that time roughly, not many more pixels but the quality is way different. But sure, a shame the whole mobile game industry is so incredibly crappy.
I don’t see how that market was better than what we have now. We still get games like those, but you can play them anywhere. You just have to stop expecting to find them from the publishers you recognize from 20 years ago. Ubisoft and EA don’t really make games for us anymore.
The biggest thing I miss from yesteryear is all the low budget straight-to-handheld spinoffs. No clear place for those to exist now that dedicated handhelds are dead, and no room for quirky little side projects when publishers are putting all their resources into just a few AAAA megagames.
What about mobile games? I know the market is weird around them (low cost etc) and maybe I misunderstood your statement.
What about them? They’re all garbage.
Well the handheld thing, if you make a good game it could be shipped to mobile? Or maybe lacking buttons makes it always crappy?
Yea, eating up loads of screen space for controls and having a tiny screen are big negatives.
Processing power is waaaay less too, but that’s been a non-issue for indie quality style graphics for some years, now.
The entire market works off of freemium and piecemeal/ad models, too, which as Tim refuses to admit; people also hate!
He he I worked in the mobile game industry before smartphones, buttons (flimsy though for many phones) but man has screens gotten not just bigger but better :-)
Power is never an issue, except if you want to showcase some tech instead of making a good game, IMO.
Ya to death with all that dark pattern shit.
The screens getting better pushes directly against graphics processing increases. More pixels takes more power, after all.
Not that it’s any excuse… Modern phones are more powerful than the Switch, by a long shot.
I really wish mobile games could be good, but this is modern capitalism: It’s not about careers and good products. It’s about extracting wealth.
Well, check out a GBA/DS fat screen vs a DS lite one, it’s from that time roughly, not many more pixels but the quality is way different. But sure, a shame the whole mobile game industry is so incredibly crappy.
Yea, don’t have to render all the pixels for full enjoyment, though I bet things like the UI would love the extra detail.
Either way, the industry has a greedy corpo problem, not a technological limitation problem.
I don’t see how that market was better than what we have now. We still get games like those, but you can play them anywhere. You just have to stop expecting to find them from the publishers you recognize from 20 years ago. Ubisoft and EA don’t really make games for us anymore.