Is spending money on mobile games a waste of money?

[Ferdinand]

Most of the mobile games that I've ever played have been for free. I don't like spending money on a mobile game when a whole of them can be gotten for free. Plus, it doesn't give me the same level of excitement when I play games on consoles or PC. Would you mind spending money just to get mobile games?

 

[Brad P]

Most of the mobile games that I've ever played have been for free. I don't like spending money on a mobile game when a whole of them can be gotten for free. Plus, it doesn't give me the same level of excitement when I play games on consoles or PC. Would you mind spending money just to get mobile games?

Yeah I’m pretty much the same. I’ll happily play free ones, but I’m not really into spending on mobile games. If I ever do, it’s only a couple quid and usually just to get rid of ads or because I’ve actually been playing it a lot.
The constant in-app purchases are what put me off more than anything. Feels like you never really “own” the game.
And yeah, they’re alright for passing time, but they don’t come close to playing on PC or console for me.

 

[Tyler]

Never spent anything on a mobile game and I'm keeping that streak going. The whole model is designed to pull money out of you a couple dollars at a time until you've spent more than a full console title without realising it. At least on PC you know exactly what you're paying upfront.

 

[Oliver]

The honest answer is yes for the majority of what's available. The model for most mobile titles is explicitly designed to extract money rather than deliver something worth paying for. That said, there are genuine exceptions -- a few ports of PC titles that hold up reasonably well. But the free-to-play ecosystem I avoid entirely, and I've never had reason to regret it.

 

[Ferdinand]

Never spent anything on a mobile game and I'm keeping that streak going. The whole model is designed to pull money out of you a couple dollars at a time until you've spent more than a full console title without realising it. At least on PC you know exactly what you're paying upfront.

The rate at which they keep adding different resources that needs one to spend money is unbelievable. Anyone who's not careful will always end up spending a whole lot every month on mobile games.

 

[Lukas]

Worth separating the question into two parts. Most free mobile games are structured around psychological pressure to spend — timers, energy systems, cosmetic progression gates. That model is designed to extract money from a small percentage of users who overspend. Paying outright for a premium mobile game is a different situation entirely. Alto's Odyssey or Monument Valley as examples — those are straightforwardly good games that happen to run on a phone. The problem is that most of the market is not those.