
Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone - ingve
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/28/atari-co-founder-nolan-bushnell-mobile-games-make-me-want-to-throw-my-phone
======
jwcooper
If you can get past maybe the top 50 or 100 grossing games there are a lot of
really good games out there that aren't looking to leech money from you. I
have plenty of games that have been worth every penny I spent with a lot of
depth and strategy required in order to master them.

Letterpress, Spelltower, Hearthstone, Tiny Wings, Ticket to Ride, Strategery,
GD Swarm, Ridiculous Fishing, Monument Valley...I could go on and on. These
games were all priced probably too low for what they offered in time played.

This is almost a fluff piece to promote a developer coming up with 'something
new for mobile'.

~~~
Tenhundfeld
If anybody's looking for a side project, I think there's a curation
opportunity here. I'd subscribe to a newsletter focused on great, non-IAP-
driven iOS games.

It could be weekly or monthly, with a mix of new games and classic gems that
maybe aren't so well known. I'd tolerate a fair amount of advertising or
sponsored content in the newsletter as long as it was clearly labeled.

The key thing for me is _quality_. I think that's true for many (extremely)
casual phone gamers. I'd much rather get 1 outstanding recommendation per
week/month than 10 of varying quality. And I know game enjoyment can be
somewhat subjective, but there are still some games that are generally well-
done and broadly appealing to fans of a genre. If the top recommendation is a
racing game, I might skip it. That's okay. I don't need a new game every week
or even every month. I just don't want to waste my time sifting through bad
games or games that start fun but quickly ramp up the IAP pressure.

HumbleBundle kind of fits this niche, but I found their volume to be too high.
And frankly, I don't want to buy a bunch of games at once. I think I'm less of
a gamer than their target audience.

~~~
Arjuna
_" The key thing for me is quality."_

I wanted to say that I developed Rocket Renegade [1] for iOS. It's an
80s-inspired arcade shooter, with elements reminiscent of Space Invaders,
Asteroids, Galaga... and, of course, it contains bosses.

I wrote all of the code, and I composed the soundtrack as well. The bitmap
graphics were done by game designer Daniel Cook, who released them under a
Creative Commons Attribution license.

I believe that it fits all of your requirements: the quality is high, the
gameplay is fun, it runs rock-solid at 60 frames per second, the music is
awesome, and it's a POP game (Pay Once to Play); no IAP, no ads.

It's essentially a straight-up, gun-for-your-highest-score-classic-arcade-
shooter.

[1] [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rocket-
renegade/id955229059?...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rocket-
renegade/id955229059?mt=8)

~~~
Tenhundfeld
Just purchased and played several times. Very solid gameplay, nice retro
graphics, fun music. Congratulations.

I was kind of hoping for some power-ups, like a faster shot rate or
scattershot. Those might be present, and I just didn't get to them yet, only
made it to stage 3-x on first attempts. I also wish the stages had more
variation, might feel too repetitive after a while – though that might happen
later also.

Anyway, for $0.99, I'm definitely not complaining. It's a fun game and
definitely an example of what I'm looking for. I'd personally be willing to
pay more, in the $4.99 range, for a game like this, especially if it had some
the variation features I mentioned above – but I might be unusual.

~~~
Arjuna
Well, first off, a massive _THANK YOU_ for both the purchase, and for taking
the time to provide feedback!

Unfortunately, there are no power-ups, and the levels do repeat after the boss
level (although the game does become progressively more difficult). Those are
definitely great ideas for the next iteration of the game.

Thank you, again. It means a lot to me.

~~~
dhimes
Fun game! (Sorry for your loss, indicated in the credits.) I'm not much of a
gamer and I kept getting clipped by the rocks because I couldn't see my ship
under my finger!

~~~
Arjuna
Thank you for your kindness.

As for your game-play issue, try off-setting your finger on the screen, away
from the actual ship. That is to say, I made it so that you can actually have
your finger anywhere on the screen to control the ship (i.e., you don't have
to have your finger directly on the ship to control it). That will help you as
you're trying to navigate through the asteroid field (and the other levels as
well)!

Thanks again!

------
Goronmon
Honestly, the lack of dedicated controls will never allow for mobile gaming to
be anything more than a time diversion for most people. A touchscreen just
isn't something that's comfortable to use for extended lengths of time, in my
opinion at least.

~~~
coldtea
> _Honestly, the lack of dedicated controls will never allow for mobile gaming
> to be anything more than a time diversion for most people._

Isn't gaming precisely a time diversion?

~~~
riskable
Single-player games trend towards mere time diversion but multiplayer games
can be any number of things such as:

    
    
      * Competition
      * Shared experiences
      * Role play
      * A way to socialize
    

...among other things.

~~~
lotharbot
Sid Meier divides game enjoyment up into four categories: Easy Fun, Hard Fun,
Relaxing Fun, and Social Fun.

"Relaxing Fun" is basically what the GP post was talking about -- a diversion,
something you do to pass the time, which is typically not completely passive
but mostly so. A lot of sandbox-type games do this well, where you're mostly
just sort of looking at the scenery and derping around and having a good time
without being particularly threatened or challenged.

"Hard Fun" is nearly the opposite -- it's competition and challenges and stuff
that gets your heart rate up. It's "play to 20, win by 2" and you end up
finishing 25-23 in a high-stakes match to improve your global rating [0]. It's
beating a level in a single life when it used to take you 5 or 10 lives. It's
shaving 3 seconds off of your speedrun by perfecting a tricky maneuver.

"Easy Fun" is things like shiny in-game treasure, achievements, even
satisfying sounds like the Mario coin pickup sound. It's stuff that makes you
smile just for playing and making ordinary progress.

"Social fun" is, of course, anything that connects you with other people --
playing cooperatively or competitively, or even talking about the game outside
of the game itself. (I met my wife on a video game BBS 18 years ago.)

[0] A Descent match between two of my friends:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mq6hyfFAo4&index=2&list=PLo...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mq6hyfFAo4&index=2&list=PLoqgd0t_KsN6-B8RELj9FKd8BXaAQ7sfM)

------
hypertexthero
To me a good game is an experience to immerse myself in, and for some reason I
have never managed to do so on portable devices such as mobile phones.

I played my first videogames on an Atari 2600. I remember Defender, Space
Invaders, Night Driver, Pac Man, Adventure and River Raid. Then Super Mario
Bros, Zelda, Battle City, and a multitude of titles on those '1000 games'
Japanese cartridges with physical switches on NES and later SNES, many of
these in [black and white][1]!

The SNES was my last console. My parents gave me a 386 PC-XT where I played a
[version of Space War][2], Sopwith, Rogue, Falcon 1.0, Double Dragon 2, Sim
City 2000 and Doom. On later computers I played Daggerfall, XCOM, TIE Fighter,
System Shock, Thief, Subspace, Grand Theft Auto, Jagged Alliance, Far Cry 2.

Presently I'm enjoying Elite: Dangerous and Metal Gear Solid V on a Macbook
Pro.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL-M](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL-M)

[2]:
[http://hypertexthero.com/logbook/2006/06/spacewar/](http://hypertexthero.com/logbook/2006/06/spacewar/)

(Edited for formatting.)

------
greenspot
MUST-WATCH in this context: South Park S18 E6, it's about Freemium, Mobile,
Addiction, Dopamine in very educative AND funny way

Here full episode in HD (you can switch to English):
[http://www.southpark.de/alle-episoden/s18e06-freemium-
gibts-...](http://www.southpark.de/alle-episoden/s18e06-freemium-gibts-nicht-
umsonst#source=e3748950-6c2a-4201-8e45-89e255c06df1:c6cbd5e3-7eae-4cc3-94b7-119c8d412f99&position=6&sort=!airdate)

~~~
azazqadir
"Freemium"...that's the real problem with mobile gaming. These games are
purposely made annoying so people will pay to win the game.

------
derFunk
Game Dev CTO here, having worked with Spil already I'm curious with what he
will come up. I totally agree that we need a change in mobile game design. I
love the tech behind the games, designing backends which quickly have to serve
millions of players. But I'm hardly actually playing mobile games, because
they are repetitive, always the same pattern, hence boring. I love disruptive
games which bring in new tech like Supercell's Clash Royale, which took real-
time gaming on mobile to a new and never seen before level.

On a funny side note, Nolan has eagerly started to follow mobile game devs on
Twitter. The day he started following me I just wrote "I can quit now, my life
is complete" :) Now I know what he's up to.

~~~
VRtual
> I love disruptive games which bring in new tech

Agreed! This is why I love the GearVR, pushing mobile gaming to new bounds.

~~~
derFunk
Yes, I preordered the PS4 VR, that's going to be awesome.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> Before Atari, software engineering was considered a highly professional
career which meant coders wore a tie and a sensible haircut. “Atari was able
to change that corporate culture a great deal,” says Bushnell. “When Steve
Jobs – who worked for me – left, he took that ethos to Apple. Everybody else
who worked in Silicon Valley back then looked at these two fastest growing
companies, and started to think maybe our culture was important. So they
started copying it, and now, today, anybody in technology can go to work
looking like shit. That’s one legacy.”

And for that legacy, I for one, am grateful.

------
dfar1
The problem with mobile games is GOOGLE PLAY STORE and the APP STORE, that
only show you 1% of what's out there. This "flat ui" stage of design has
removed all functionality of applications that need them. Let me search apps
by categories, or filter by price, product, company, developer, date added,
date updated, and so on...

~~~
imglorp
They're trying to get the more profitable ones in front of consumers. So a
flat search is not in their interest.

------
dragonbonheur
When the whole mobile/app thing began with Java ME, I thought their prices
would be within $10-$25 because programmers would not have to sell physical
copies anymore and along came Apple selling mobile software more at $0.99-$5
and even at $5 people think software is too expensive compared to the $40+
they were paying for console games or other programs.

This aggressive dilution of the monetary value of software is what I think
contributed the most to the loss of gameplay quality and the near-criminal,
constantly-nagging-for-payments-and-ad-views behavior of app publishers today.

Mobile software should have been sold more like shareware used to be sold -
free demos with limited functionality -$5 onwards for complete versions.

But now it is too late, the dilution of value of mobile software has only
benefited app store owners.

~~~
pjmlp
Same thing on the desktop.

Software development outside of the desktop and enterprise space is only
sustainable via services/books/consulting, because no one is paying for
software if they can get it for free.

~~~
nibs
Our customers are annoyed by the concept of spending $1-2k/person on licenses
but have no problem with $150-200/hour billing rates, half the time of which
is spent showing them how to do things for the nth time. People are funny like
that. Not the worst deal from a business perspective but frustrating from an
idealistic tech progress one.

------
coldtea
TL;DR: person preparing a product to sell finds existing competing products
lacking.

~~~
joezydeco
Bushnell has created a lucrative post-Atari career out of coasting on his
Atari successes, duping a string of companies into bringing him on as some
kind of golden prophet to give the startup some credibility.

He's had his own streak of noncompelling products over the last 4 decades.
Sente. Catalyst. Aristo. uWink. I wouldn't expect anything different.

But that's just my opinion.

------
snarfy
I love video games and became a developer because of them. I've always wanted
to make a game and mobile is supposed to be the renaissance of indy game
development.

But I just can't do it. I hate the touch screen. It is a horrible input device
for gaming. It makes every game as frustrating as typing a sms full of auto-
corrects. I can't imagine any game I would make would be fun.

~~~
st3v3r
That's probably because you're thinking too much about traditional controls.

------
thejake0
I agree. Most mobile games I've downloaded prioritize ads views/in app
purchases over making a 'hardcore' game. There are a few exceptions, such as
Vainglory, but the vast majority are the equivalent of the super ball vending
machine at the grocery store.

~~~
noxToken
Ugh. I had a friend who played an incremental clicker game. He urged me to
download it on my tablet. It didn't offer anything interesting over any other
incremental clicker game, but every so often, a giant ad would display in the
middle of the screen.

You'd be surprised at how many touch events you can register before your
device has the ability to switch to your browser. After I closed all 10 or so
tabs, I uninstalled it immediately.

------
enumBoss
The state of mobile games is pretty sad, to be honest. There are obviously
some great gems out there that focus on touch interface. But so many try to
shoehorn classic-style games onto the platform with virtual joysticks on the
screen and the like. That sucks so much. And that's not even considering
microtransations and all that crap.

------
jzamora
He obviously hasn't played Neko Atsume

------
ashad
I think lack of having good controls and all the touchscreen limitations and
low price games led game developers to compromise the quality. Touchscreen
controls are not precise, you always lose the control and fingers are hiding a
big chunk of a small screen!! But Smartphone could be more than. It is with us
everywhere we want mobile gaming has to more fun that it is. I believe
[http://www.flitch.io](http://www.flitch.io) (we are the creator) can solve
these issues, what do you think?

------
howlingfantods
I played Clash Royale for several days and the insistence on payments to
progress was really off putting. The gameplay itself was quite addicting so I
presume they're trying to avoid players burning out from binging. But the fact
you either had to pay money or wait three hours to do anything of value was
just too much to bear. The entire game design is genius in how it funneled you
toward purchases.

~~~
Avernar
My friends and I play Clash Royal, Clash of Clans and Boom Beach. Out of the
three it's Clash Royal that has made us come this close to smashing our
tablets in rage.

But it's not the IAP that's the cause. It's the skewed matchmaking and the
mysterious loosing streaks that occur very frequently. You'd be playing and
winning some and loosing some and then all of a sudden you hit a losing streak
of 6-12 losses or more.

One thing for sure is my friends and I are not spending a penny on this game
because of that regular frustration. We've spent a little on the other two
games to get past a point of tedium but that gave us something concrete.

In Clash Royal spending money just gives you a chance to get the cards you
need. No thank you. If the game mechanic wasn't so addictive we'd have stopped
playing it long ago.

~~~
csours
It's the cheesy cards that make me rage. _I 'm looking at you balloon and ice
potion_. I've wanted to break my phone in half more times than I can count.

Also, good luck if you want to switch decks, or decide one of your cards is
worthless; or if they nerf your favorite card.

------
cletus
Ugh, in-app purchases are the worst thing to ever happen to the game industry.
Unfortunately there are two types of IAPs:

1\. Extra content (eg extra decks in Agricola, more levels, etc)

2\. Pay-to-win purchases.

And there's really no way to distinguish between (1) and (2). I loathe (2) but
(1) is where all the money is. The market has (sadly) spoken on this one. :(

Ya know, it just occurred to me that paying to win has precedent. The old
arcade machines used to let you keep playing by inserting more money. Or some
of them did anyway. This is analogous.

I've stopped even looking at new games. I just keep playing Bejeweled HD
(Diamond Mine).

~~~
edgarweto
Some game apps are truly frustrating, specially those with plenty of ads. It
seems that market has devoted to 'candy-crush' or 'dress your pony' games. But
then you can stumble upon games like 'Monument Valley' or simply '2048'.

I create html5 puzzles and I am truly interested in what kind of games people
are interested (in puzzle genre). When it comes to monetization, I'm trying
with rewarded-donation with patreon, but it seems there is no good solution,
even with free to play games!

------
Raticide
I wish the Google Store just had the option to hide everything with IAP.

------
hornetblack
> I have been so pissed off with some mobile games I’ve wanted to throw my
> phone, even if I’m only going to hurt my phone there, and not the game."

> some mobile games

Cutting a sentence in half is pretty silly.

His actual point is there are a lot of Games with poor game design. This is
probably related to the barrier of entry of Mobile games. It costs very little
to put together a App and launch it on Google Play or Apple's Store. Compared
with building actual arcade machines (or paying someone else to build them)
and shipping them to Arcades.

------
saturdaysaint
In all fairness to Bushnell, the clickbait headline is drawn from the
considerably more measured "I have been so pissed off with some mobile games
I’ve wanted to throw my phone".

------
samdung
Actual quote: "I have been so pissed off with some mobile games I’ve wanted to
throw my phone."

Clickbait title: "mobile games make me want to throw my phone."

------
oneeyedpigeon
I'd love to know what Nolan Bushnell thinks of flappy bird. Aside from all the
silliness, I think it's genuinely a good little game, and it fulfils many of
the criteria of those classic arcade games we fondly remember: simple
graphics, spot-on gameplay balance, an obvious gameplay mechanism, highly
replayable (based a lot on strong highscore focus).

------
reiichiroh
Slide-to-Play, Pocket Tactics blog and Touch Arcade (including their forums)
are three sites I rely on for reviews of mobile games.

------
sehugg
Remember the App Store like, 5 years ago? Lots of innovative mechanics and
experimentation? People even making money on paid apps?

------
grandalf
Atari 2600 games are more playable, fun, immersive, and inspirational than
_any_ games for IOS and most modern console games.

If you have a few pixels to animate and want to build something fun, you think
about what makes a game fun.. When you have HD video, textures, etc., you
think about implementation details.

~~~
protonfish
Tell that to E.T.

~~~
TuringTest
Actually E.T. was all right, after you read the manual and fixed the few
release bugs
[[http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/](http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/)]

------
jordache
Just republish gameboy, game gear, lynx, neogeo titles, and you'll have a
great mobile gaming ecosystem.

~~~
st3v3r
No. Having a lack of buttons means controls for games designed with buttons in
mind would be terrible.

Look to those games for inspiration, but the games made need to first and
foremost embrace the touchscreen, rather than attempt to emulate traditional
controls.

------
Derpdiherp
It's a question of looking through heaps of shite to find a gem. There are
decently designed mobile games out there, they're just rare when compared to
the amount optimised for ad revenue.

Hoplite springs to mind, and some of the ones pushed in the Humble Mobile
bundles (some anyway).

------
brianmcconnell
You goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!!!

------
clarke78
Wait... is this the same person that also green-lit/signed-off on the Atari
E.T. video game?

------
hellbanner
I've stopped playing games on mobile. I don't want to support back neck
posture.

------
bitsoda
He obviously hasn't played Lara Croft Go. That game is a single-player
treasure.

------
jaegerpicker
This thread is so freaking depressing. So many great mobile games and great
developers buried in a mountain of shit. I love iOS and mobile gaming but the
current state of the app store is downright depressing.

------
conradev
I sometimes like games that make we want to throw my phone:
[http://blackboxpuzzles.com](http://blackboxpuzzles.com)

------
joshsyn
One word, indians, asians just looking for gold, easier way to make games in
the most crappy way. I'm actually one and have seen how they work. Scammers

------
cakeface
If you haven't played it, Pixel Dungeon is great.

~~~
indlebe
Pixel Dungeon is life.

------
nickstefan12
Good game no one plays: Land Air Sea Warfare (it's basically old school Red
Alert ported to iOS!)

Shit game everyone plays: clash of clans.

Basically, there's more non gamers than gamers, and more mkney in skinner box
candy crush than good old school games. So the game makers sold out.

It's like how people think dark souls or Bloodborne is "too hard" to be fun.
It's exactly fun because you have to try and not just do endless todo list
quests!

------
xenihn
If you have an iOS device and like Advance Wars, check out WarBits. Single
purchase, no microtransactions.

------
gearoidoc
Gratuitous but relevant I feel:

If you're into startups and Pay Once and Play games then Hipster CEO is
probably up your alley:

[https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/hipster-
ceo/id731368826?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/hipster-
ceo/id731368826?mt=8)

------
magicfractal
This thread has been great for finding good non-IAP-driven games!

------
luckydata
Most mobile games are dogshit, good ones are rare.

------
boot13
And what happened to Atari?

------
jordache
every game is like a physics game that gets boring after 5 mins.

------
tetek
some said throwing phone?
[http://binarka.pl/skateable](http://binarka.pl/skateable) :D :D

------
verbiliy
Sweet memories

------
askyourmother
If they can get games to be fun again, where you want to play, rather than
just kill time, that would be awesome.

I still play games on the old 8 and 16 bit consoles, where gameplay always
shone. No matter how many times you complete R-Type, you still come back for
more.

~~~
stegosaurus
>> rather than just kill time

Yeah, that's something I find really odd about most mobile games. They seem
designed as a way to basically put the brain into a low energy state or
something, rather than actually being interesting.

My personal experience of games like Candy Crush is that people play them on
the subway or whatever when there's nothing else to do. If they had a book
with them they'd read that, if someone handed them a Nintendo DS with zero
effort they'd probably do that (if they could get over the ego thing).

I can't really imagine anyone setting themselves up for a marathon casual
gaming session. They seem marketed to be one level above 'watching paint dry'
and used in circumstances where that's the only alternative.

~~~
TillE
It was a tired cliche for describing games even before smartphones existed,
but the model for typical mobile game design truly is the Skinner Box. You
press a button to get some shiny reward designed to make your brain feel like
it accomplished something.

It's a remarkably elaborate ruse to disguise the fact that there really is no
"game" underneath all the chrome.

~~~
justratsinacoat
More pointedly, it's a way to monetize the dopamine reward. Most modern mobile
games, after all, try to induce "fun pain" to get you to buy more
turns/levels/clicks etc. There doesn't have to be a "game" \-- just the "fun
pain", and then a way to settle back into the dopamine bath via paying RL
currency. I know I'm preaching to the choir a bit here, but it's important to
note that not only is there no "game", but that they know that there's no
"game" and that low-energy-with-periodic-bursts-of-reward state is the
_point_.

------
oldmanjay
the underlying premise to the marketing campaign driving this article is that
there is a "right" way to entertain. I reject that premise outright, even
though it's practically tailor-made for old men, but from reading these
comments, it's a smart market segment to chase.

------
sultansaladin
but what games did he play ?

------
jwr
From someone who grew up using a Commodore 64: he's right. We've forgotten how
to design great games. I don't claim to understand why, but we did.

This is more visible on consoles, where the overall gaming experience is
simply terrible, but mobile isn't that much better.

