I have a lot of thoughts on mobile games. It’s my job, and my pleasure, to have a lot of thoughts on all video games, period. But I especially have a lot of thoughts on mobile games. I witnessed the entire modern era of the subcategory emerge about a decade ago on the original iPhones. I watched mobile games disrupt the dedicated gaming handheld business with its speed and convenience. I balked as mobile gaming’s gross free-to-play economic tactics infected even AAA console games. And, without exaggeration, I’ve probably reviewed nearly 500 individual mobile games for iPhone, iPad, Android devices, and even Windows Phone.
So I have a bunch of mobile gaming opinions, and these days most of them are pretty negative. After a creatively fertile first few years of innovative touch controls and unbelievably easy digital distribution for smaller games, eventually the entire market unfortunately just devolved into gross free-to-play cash grab clones.
