[ldh0011]

> PC and console gaming have been shrinking relative to mobile gaming in recent years

Is mobile gaming actually taking customers from PC though or is it just growing faster because there are a lot of accessible casual games? I know a lot of PC gamers and I can't imagine any of them swapping to gaming primarily on mobile. I don't know any people who are hobbyist mobile gamers.

[PaulHoule]

That's how you and I think and it is how the Finnish and Japanese game makers think but it is not how Activision, Ubisoft, and EA think. At this point they've decided to disinvest in their legacy games. They are are intensely envious of the success of Genshin Impact which achieves AAA graphics and gameplay on mobile but they can't replicate its success because they are too afraid to take risks.

Despite the fact that mobile phones (ex. Apple) have not been improving since 2017 there is a perception of inevitability in the industry that phones will eat absolutely everything. They figure game addicts will switch to mobile games when their old hardware breaks down and they don't have a choice. (... they'll keep playing the same old games, the main thing you need is a decent game controller for mobile, there has to be an interesting story of why every company other than a big console manufacturer struggles to make game controllers that work -- look at the failures of Logitech, Steam, Google, etc.)

Clayton Christensen wrote this influential book

https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Chan...

which may have been a bit too influential. He made the case that firms in industry after industry went under because they failed to invest in new technology because the new technology was not, at first, good enough to satisfy their legacy customers.

What we see now (Microsoft releasing a tablet OS for PCs in Windows 8, Facebook neglecting a very good monopoly business for dreams of virtual reality, ...) is firms frequently throwing their current customers under the bus in the name of what might be... Because they read that book and don't want to wind up like one of the case studies.

As it is now it is a form of corporate suicide and we are waiting for it to play out and have a B-school professor write a book about it. But when you look at this way many of the things that make no sense in gaming like GAME PASS and the many me too game streaming services are part of the strange spectacle of a game industry that is failing despite still-rising revenues. It's hard, for instance, to picture Nintendo coming out with a real sequel to the Switch for many reasons (e.g. they could make a console 4x as powerful... that costs 4x as much; who needs better platforms when you are just rehashing Diablo for the n-th time and CS:GO is still a leading game?)

It's enough to make me think I should quit playing games, go out for walk or pet a puppy or make some friends! Maybe more people will the way the industry is heading.

[ldh0011]

Yeah I think you're definitely right wrt the attitude big studios are taking with their games these days. If they swap to mobile they might pick up a different audience but someone will have to fill the void with quality PC games. If Finnish and Japanese (and small US) studios fill that void I'm totally A-OK with that personally.

> I should quit playing games

Sadly I'm right there with you... life has gotten too busy and most of my old gamer friends have moved on to other games that would require a huge time investment to get up to speed in. Now I just play casual games with IRL friends and my brother, haven't played a PC game in ages. Fingers crossed for Starfield though.

[Laaas]

What do you think about Steam Deck?