Every early 2000’s kid remembers the days of classic mobile games. Whether you were racing through the skies in Jetpack Joyride, running from deadly monsters in Temple Run or tuning out every little distraction to tap a block at the exact right note timing in Geometry Dash, mobile games are present in my and many others’ fondest memories. Often associated with the warmest of childhood experiences, these mobile games have continued through the years and are looked back on as some of the most loved games of our lives.
It’s crazy how much the tides have shifted in today’s gaming landscape. We’re bombarded with ads that don’t even showcase real gameplay or story content, and freemium models have become increasingly deceptive—subtly pressuring players to pay just to keep progressing. We’ve entered an era where quality is often sacrificed in favor of quick cash grabs, and in-app purchases have become nearly unavoidable. The mobile game developer mindset has also drastically changed since the early 2000s. Today’s system rewards those who can flood users with ads and capture short attention spans, rather than those who invest time and resources into crafting high-quality games. The system works so well that developers of classic 2000’s games have revamped their game sequels to include these freemium models.
For example, Rovio is the company that created the game Angry Birds, a popular puzzle game that revolves around slingshotting various birds at green pigs with the goal to eliminate all the pigs. Released in 2009, Angry Birds became an instant classic, capturing the public with its relatively simplistic but addictive gameplay, iconic cartoon birds and its perfect compatibility with the touch screen smartphone. Riding high on the smartphone market, the first Angry Birds came to be considered one of the greatest video games of all time.
And then Angry Birds 2 came out. The sequel adopted a freemium model, incorporating randomized rewards through what is essentially gambling, advertisements to regain lives, and micro-transactions for in-game items such as season passes and cosmetic hats. Rovio went as far as to remove the first Angry Birds from the app store and rename it to “Red’s First Flight” because it pulled too much attention and decreased revenue from their other Angry Birds titles. Unfortunately, this trend isn’t unique to Angry Birds. Similar models have been adopted by games such as Plants vs Zombies and Cut the Rope, both seeing their sequels promote the monetized, freemium approach that continues to dominate and succeed in today’s mobile gaming market.
The games we choose to play in some ways reflect ourselves. And as the industry shifts toward profit over passion, it’s worth asking what that says about both developers—and us as players. The ads work for a reason. They tap into impulse, convenience and short-term reward—things many of us have come to accept. In the end, the market follows demand, and if low quality, ad-driven games continue to thrive, it might be because we’ve collectively stopped asking for better.
