\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tens of millions of people are playing mobile games like Pok\u00e9mon Go and Subway Surfers every month, and yet if you look at the homepages for most mainstream video game publications, you\u2019re far more likely to see articles about console and PC games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Blue Prince \u2013 which were purchased by roughly three and two million people, respectively.<\/p>\n
The numbers don\u2019t seem to track here, do they? Why aren\u2019t gaming sites covering the most popular games on the planet? Because no-one wants to read about those games. The traffic is simply not there.<\/p>\n
The more interesting question, though, is why people don\u2019t want to read about those games, and I have some educated guesses. As the former deputy editor of Polygon and, before that, deputy editor of Kotaku, I\u2019ve been privy to lot of readership data over the years, and I\u2019ve come to some conclusions about why it\u2019s easier to get somebody to read an article about Metaphor: ReFantazio than Wuthering Waves.<\/p>\n
There are major exceptions, of course. Tons of websites covered the zeitgeists of Pok\u00e9mon Go and Among Us. But when it comes to regular coverage of mobile games, it\u2019s just not there, except in the guides section. I don\u2019t think it would come as a shock to anyone that Polygon\u2019s Pok\u00e9mon Go guides perform well; that explains why they continue to exist, not just at Polygon but elsewhere. But usually, when people ask me this question, they aren\u2019t talking about guides. They\u2019re wondering why mainstream sites don\u2019t post reviews, opinion stories, or culture stories about mobile games.<\/p>\n
First of all, there\u2019s a huge volume of people in the world who only play mobile games, don\u2019t call themselves \u2018gamers\u2019 and don\u2019t read mainstream video game websites. In these readers\u2019 minds, a star rating on the App Store or Google Play store is enough to make a decision about what to play. I don\u2019t think that people who predominantly play mobile games are bothering to close the apps they use to find games in order to look up reviews elsewhere; they\u2019re simply looking at user reviews and either hitting the download button, or not.<\/p>\n
But let\u2019s get back to the loyal readers of these mainstream gaming websites, the ones who play both mobile games and other kinds of games. Why not publish reviews of mobile games for those readers? Because it\u2019s actually quite difficult to get readers to click on any story about a game they\u2019ve never previously heard of. Getting readership for stories about indie games \u2013 mobile or otherwise \u2013 requires either creative, or borderline-manipulative, headline writing.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why you see so many sites resorting to headline constructions like \u2018This adventure game is Breath of the Wild meets John Carpenter\u2019s The Thing.\u2019 If you compare the as-yet-unknown game in question to something the reader has heard of, you might just get their attention. This is also a technique that pisses people off, though, because it feels like seeing the strings on the puppet. It\u2019s a tough balance to strike, and it\u2019s why a lot of sites don\u2019t review indie games that don\u2019t already have a lot of pre-release buzz.<\/p>\n
Lastly, low readership often plagues what I call \u2018lifestyle games.\u2019 This category includes ongoing mobile games like Genshin Impact that encourage players to complete daily quests, but also games like Fortnite, Roblox, Call of Duty, and recurring sports games like Madden. These are games played by millions of people \u2013 sometimes hundreds of millions \u2013 but those people don\u2019t necessarily care to read about those games. Guides and service-oriented posts can do well for these, but when it comes to other types of content, the readership often isn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n
Think of this as like the difference between, say, watching episodes of Law & Order as compared to watching a new episode of Poker Face. The former is something you could do in the background, almost like a comfort; Law & Order has a formula, and that\u2019s its appeal. But that also means there isn\u2019t a lot to say about it at this point, by design. It\u2019s purposefully not delivering anything new.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a show like Poker Face \u2013 even though it\u2019s also a crime procedural with a new mystery per episode \u2013 gets write-ups and podcast coverage of its new episodes all over the internet, because it\u2019s a show that regularly twists its formula and surprises the viewer. Law & Order is in its 25th season and it\u2019s not going anywhere; Poker Face is a critical darling. And both shows have their place in viewers\u2019 hearts and viewers\u2019 TV viewing schedules.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a perfect analogy, but still: we all have games we turn to because they are comforting and formulaic, and then we have games we play because they seriously challenge us or surprise us. Many gamers, like me and probably you the reader, have a steady diet of both kinds of games. But I\u2019ll admit, even though I keep on coming back to Pok\u00e9mon Go, I\u2019m not sure what more there is to write about it as a cultural object at this point in time. Clair Obscur, on the other hand? I finished it weeks ago, and I\u2019m still reading opinion stories and analyses of the story (and I wrote several myself).<\/p>\n
And so, if you ever wonder in the future why mainstream gaming sites are covering one type of game and not another, just ask yourself, would the people who play that game want to read about it? If it\u2019s a game that actively involves a lot of reading, like Metaphor: ReFantazio, then great, those are players who love to read (no joke, this logic often ends up tracking in terms of readership numbers). If it\u2019s a competitive game like Fortnite or Call of Duty, then the player base is more likely to want to watch somebody else playing it as their preferred form of understanding its nuances. Or if it\u2019s a game like Candy Crush or Pok\u00e9mon Go, the players aren\u2019t reading about it because it\u2019s just something they\u2019re doing while waiting for the bus or whatever.<\/p>\n
All this to say, the articles that appear on gaming websites are geared towards people who already like to read articles about games, and they\u2019re about the games that those people enjoy reading about. That\u2019s probably not going to change any time soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Tens of millions of people are playing mobile games like Pok\u00e9mon Go and Subway Surfers every month,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":118943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[611,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-118942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-mobile","9":"tag-technology","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114972155109236106","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}