What are mobile games selling?

Previously we talked about mobile gaming and how it's very definitely a pervasive thing that "everyone" is into.

Have no fear, this isn't a post to rant about gaming or shame you about how much you spend. Or what type of games you play. It's not going to be about "you".

But just maybe it will reframe some aspects of mobile games in a way you didn't realize.

Because mobile games sell a very different kind of product.

So just to be clear, we're not talking about every mobile game or video game doing this. However, most games that are offered free-to-play do this in some form or another, in order to help recover their development cost.

Even though you see a lot of cloned games, making those games -- even just making the art and sound to dress a clone up as another game -- costs money.

And it's not wrong to make money to cover your costs. I'm not going to rant about that.

I just want to point out that mobile games often sell you a very different kind of product compared to other industries.

Most products "solve a problem". They identify a need, and sell you the solution.

Typically the need pre-exists. For example, you want flour to do some baking. You can grow your own wheat and grind it into flour... Or you can buy it pre-made.

Problem - You want flour.

Solution - Buy flour that's premade.

Mobile games however often use a type of monetization that goes like this:

Mobile games create a problem. Then sell you the solution.

Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery is a mobile game I like and have played for months. This picture shows you one of the ways they monetize.

In Slide 1 you see that I am currently in a task "Question the Suspects". I have 4h 42m 28s left to complete this task; if the timer runs out and I haven't done so, the task will fail and I have to start all over again. I have made partial progress but there's still quite a ways to go.

This task requires "Energy" to complete and I am currently out of that resource. I can wait for it to replenish, or I can buy more right now. 30 points of Energy still won't be enough to complete the task but I can at least make progress.

If I accept, this will cost me 55 gems. It happens that I do have enough gems, but let's look at the cost of gems in Slide 2. Let's ignore the fact that I can't buy exactly 55 gems but just focus on the cost of the gems: It will cost just over $2 to get that extra progress of 30 Energy now.

This doesn't sound like much, especially if you buy a coffee and donut at Tim Hortons every morning for example.

There's a lot of systems here that I haven't gotten into -- and this blog post will go on forever if I start to get into even a fraction of them. And this post isn't to argue about whether is right or wrong, good or bad, fair or unfair...

All I want to observe in this post is the fact that progress is stuck because the developers created the problem: They made the task cost Energy, they limited that Energy, and they put in a failure condition. All this is entirely of their design as the "game mechanic".

And then they offer you an expedient solution -- pay them money.

You can reframe this any way you want, but I feel it is valid to say they are selling you a solution to a problem they created.

A corollary to this is, they create pain, and you pay them to relieve that pain.

This makes mobile games a very odd product. When you have to pay someone to avoid the pain they are creating, we variously call those situations "blackmail", "extortion", "protection racket", etcetera.

In my next post I'll make observations about some consequences of this.