10 Reasons You Need To Stop Being Snobby About Mobile Games

7. Not All Skinner Boxes Are Created Equal

The free-to-play trend is well established among all things mobile gaming right now. The assumption that all mobile games fall under the label of skinner-boxes designed from the bottom up to get the most money out of players without any thought put into gameplay is however, a huge misnomer. Terms like “freemium”, “skinner boxes” and worse are levied at mobile games, without really taking time to look at who’s doing what.

Games like League of Legends (free to play, includes it’s own currency “Riot Points”) show that the model itself is fine if transparent and doesn’t include horrendous imbalances in gameplay. While it's true mobile gaming has leapt on free-to-play, in app purchases are also being included in major releases on console and PC, and as consumers we only have ourselves to blame.

If Candy Crush Saga is still making mad cash without having to put effort in, and gamers keep bashing game devs for trying to charge for extra content (see Monument Valley) then we get what we deserve.

Blame the dark side of F2P on evil publishers sure, but we should bear in mind the markets are driven by our purchases. As time goes on and mobile players are more educated, demanding better experiences and eschewing abusive monetisation, the mobile industry will get through these growing pains.