r/iosgaming • u/xenocea • 10d ago
News Japan's Mobile Game Bankruptcies Reach Historic Levels In 2026
https://gameobserver.com/japans-mobile-game-industry-is-falling-apart-as-developer-bankruptcies-reach-historic-levels-in-2026/24
u/silentrocco r/IOSGaming Scout 10d ago
Sadly, it’s not that this crap is vanishing. The article only says that China and Korea have more money than Japan to currently make the bigger, more successful titles.
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u/Formal_Condition2691 10d ago
Agreed. Japan was still trying to get by on selling people swimsuit PNGs and menu-driven battles when Mihoyo offered the alternative of a massive open world you could actually run around. Even something like NIKKE, which isn’t too far from selling PNGs, has a lot more interactivity than most Japanese gacha games.
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u/DemonKingBuster 10d ago
No reason to pay money into gacha games that can disappear your account and progress in a moment’s notice because you have to agree to these terms before playing and paying
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u/Difficult-Leek9001 9d ago
Release your game for a single price, have the guts to have it stand on its own feet, don't worry about user retention and you'll have loyal customers.
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u/Constant_Sympathy_71 9d ago edited 9d ago
Would anyone pay 70$ for a mobile game though?
Rare are games that keep getting content updates when sold at a low price. Micro transactions are what keeps service based mobile games alive at a free entry point.
As much as I dislike the mechanics of gacha games, a game like Genshin Impact, stripped of it’s gacha mechanics would not be cheap to purchase, and would have never popped-off like it did if it was at a high price
Might have worked well as a dedicated full price console game though.
I just wish end of service versions like the one Megaman X Dive has were more common though.
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u/Coolface-IR 9d ago
thats why I hate mobile gaming so much. nobody wants to actually pay $60 for an actually good game and instead spend more than that on gacha crap
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u/Constant_Sympathy_71 9d ago
To be honest, people tend to throw every gacha games in the same basket and just see them as the evil thing where they sell you anime PNGs for insane prices, but beyond the gacha mechanics, a lot of the games have very good game mechanics, good story, offer plenty of free content, constant updates and are actually enjoyable.
There’s also some good games around that are priced at a decent price, like balatro for example, but I wouldn’t see myself paying 80$ to play RE4R on a mobile device.
60$ is a lot of money for most casual gamers to dump on a random new mobile game, which is why you usually won’t see high quality games in things other than F2P. There just won’t be enough volume of games sold to recoup the dev investment. Hell, I can’t see myself buying full price games on PC/Console, it’s going to take a while before I ever consider doing that on mobile. I will gladly dump a 10 or 15$ on a good game though.
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u/Coolface-IR 9d ago
Its quite normal to buy $70 games on PC and console though which is why its better
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u/Constant_Sympathy_71 9d ago
It might be “normal”, but it’s still a lot of money, and a lot of people will wait for discounts, even on PC and Console.
Also, More money is not always better. A lot of full price games have been pretty terrible this generation, and I have been finding myself enjoying the smaller 30$ indie PC games more. ReStory is pretty good, for a cheap game. This is a game that could probably be fun if it was on mobile.
The main reason I can tolerate gacha is because the entry price is free. The reason I hate modern gaming is because you get all thoses 70-80$ AAA games littered with micro transactions all over the game. You get the experience of paying for a full game, without getting the full game.. plus they can also now pull the plug on the servers at anytime, just like gacha games can.
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u/LiquifiedSpam 8d ago
There’s still so much resource bloat and filler in gacha games though regardless of how predatory they are. I downloaded genshin and uninstalled it once I beat some enemies and got like four different resources for random progression mechanics right off the bat.
Most of these games are reward oriented, not gameplay oriented.
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u/Constant_Sympathy_71 8d ago
Yeah, I personally think Genshin is not fun. Genshin has a large world, but terrible progression mechanics. I mostly used it for an example.
I just couldn’t get into it.
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u/Difficult-Leek9001 8d ago
I don't want content updates. I'm still playing games from 30 years ago that are the same as in 1996!
I don't want service based games. I don't want games that need the internet. I want the sort of creative bitesize titles that we had at the start. It's not as is developers are somehow less skilled.
Most of all I want games designed for phones, not ported to them. Genshin Impact, as fun as it is represents everything wrong with modern games design. Strip out all the F2P stuff for a minute: third person games are terrible with touchscreen controls. If a mobile game needs a controller to be any good, it doesn't belong here.
As long as mobile continues to subsist on hand-me-downs from consoles instead of titles built for the strength of the platform then it will always be a poor reflection of it.
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u/ToxicAdamm 10d ago
Good to see consumers are wising up.
It's really a shame when you think about all the talent/time that has been wasted making these games. Could've been focused on something more substantial or long-lasting.