Launched in 2012, the tile-matching puzzler quickly became ubiquitous on phones.
More than 10 years later, 200 million people are still playing. Why?
A lot of us were, at one point, in love with our smartphones. In the early days
of Android and iPhone, apps seemed designed to delight; throw a few quid at the
app store in 2010 and you could be playing some cute game, often involving
birds, or messing around with a lightsaber within minutes. Social media apps
designed for phones let us post artfully casual photos in a few taps, for our
friends to drop hearts on. It was fun, once.
But over time, it’s become a toxic relationship. The fun got sucked out of
everything. Social media morphed into a hellscape designed to ensnare and enrage
us, providing just enough of our friends’ posts to prevent us from actually
quitting the platform but prioritising their own ads and algorithmic videos.
Twitter used to be jokes and cat memes and now it’s … well, it’s X, and I know
I’m not the only one who’s deleted it off their phone entirely. The experience
of using apps, phones and the internet more generally has significantly degraded
– and the same can be said for mobile games, most of which now give you about 83
seconds of entertainment before trying to extort you for a £7.99 monthly
subscription or showing you misleading ads that are so fascinatingly terrible
you can’t look away.
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Tag - Mobile games
In this free-to-play gacha game, Earth’s survivors balance dystopian battles
with cute moments helping locals
miHoYo/HoYoverse; PC, PS5, smartphones
One of the biggest revolutions in the modern video game industry has taken place
almost out of sight of your average console gamer. The rise of the free-to-play
gacha game, in which you pay either real or in-game money for randomised bundles
of characters and weapons, has been meteoric in the Chinese market, dominated by
publishers such as miHoYo, NetEase and Yostar. The most successful such games,
including Genshin Impact, Arknights and Another Eden, have tens of millions of
players, mostly on smartphones, and draw vast incomes from those willing to pay
to complete their collections of in-game items.
Recently, the genre has been expanding beyond mobile, and Zenless Zone Zero is
the latest example. Created by HoYoverse, this is a sprawling anime-styled
action role-playing adventure set in a chaotic sci-fi dystopia. Earth has been
invaded by interdimensional aliens, and above the ruins of the old civilisation
lives a community of human survivors in a neo-city named New Eridu. You can play
as either Wise or Belle, a brother-sister duo of hackers who own a video rental
store, but also work as proxy agents, sending out teams of warriors to complete
missions for clients.
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On its 15th anniversary, the creators of FarmVille reflect on the compulsive
cartoon farm sim that paved the way for a data-driven world
Facebook users of a certain age may remember a particularly forlorn farm animal
popping up in their feeds during the platform’s heyday. The lonely cow would
wander into FarmVille players’ pastures with its face twisted into a frown and
its eyes shimmering with tears. “She feels very sad and needs a new home,” an
accompanying caption read, asking you to adopt the cow or message your friends
for help. Ignore the cow’s plea and it would presumably be left friendless and
foodless. Message your friends about it, and you’d be accelerating the spread of
one of the biggest online crazes of the 2010s.
Released 15 years ago, FarmVille was nothing short of a phenomenon. More than
18,000 players gave it a go on its first day, rising to 1 million by its fourth.
At its peak in 2010, more than 80 million users logged in monthly to plant
crops, tend animals and harvest goods for coins to spend on decorations.
Celebrities professed their obsession, McDonald’s created a farm for a
promotion, and long before artists released music on Fortnite, Lady Gaga debuted
songs from her sophomore album through the cartoon farm sim. Not bad for a game
that was stitched together in five weeks.
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