Tens of millions of people are playing mobile games like Pokémon Go and Subway Surfers every month, and yet if you look at the homepages for most mainstream video game publications, you’re far more likely to see articles about console and PC games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Blue Prince – which were purchased by roughly three and two million people, respectively.
The numbers don’t seem to track here, do they? Why aren’t 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.
The more interesting question, though, is why people don’t 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’ve been privy to lot of readership data over the years, and I’ve come to some conclusions about why it’s easier to get somebody to read an article about Metaphor: ReFantazio than Wuthering Waves.
There are major exceptions, of course. Tons of websites covered the zeitgeists of Pokémon Go and Among Us. But when it comes to regular coverage of mobile games, it’s just not there, except in the guides section. I don’t think it would come as a shock to anyone that Polygon’s Pokémon 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’t talking about guides. They’re wondering why mainstream sites don’t post reviews, opinion stories, or culture stories about mobile games.
First of all, there’s a huge volume of people in the world who only play mobile games, don’t call themselves ‘gamers’ and don’t read mainstream video game websites. In these readers’ minds, a star rating on the App Store or Google Play store is enough to make a decision about what to play. I don’t 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’re simply looking at user reviews and either hitting the download button, or not.
But let’s 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’s actually quite difficult to get readers to click on any story about a game they’ve never previously heard of. Getting readership for stories about indie games – mobile or otherwise – requires either creative, or borderline-manipulative, headline writing.
That’s why you see so many sites resorting to headline constructions like ‘This adventure game is Breath of the Wild meets John Carpenter’s The Thing.’ 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’s a tough balance to strike, and it’s why a lot of sites don’t review indie games that don’t already have a lot of pre-release buzz.
Lastly, low readership often plagues what I call ‘lifestyle games.’ 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 – sometimes hundreds of millions – but those people don’t 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’t there.
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’s its appeal. But that also means there isn’t a lot to say about it at this point, by design. It’s purposefully not delivering anything new.
Meanwhile, a show like Poker Face – even though it’s also a crime procedural with a new mystery per episode – gets write-ups and podcast coverage of its new episodes all over the internet, because it’s a show that regularly twists its formula and surprises the viewer. Law & Order is in its 25th season and it’s not going anywhere; Poker Face is a critical darling. And both shows have their place in viewers’ hearts and viewers’ TV viewing schedules.
It’s 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’ll admit, even though I keep on coming back to Pokémon Go, I’m 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’m still reading opinion stories and analyses of the story (and I wrote several myself).
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’s 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’s 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’s a game like Candy Crush or Pokémon Go, the players aren’t reading about it because it’s just something they’re doing while waiting for the bus or whatever.
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’re about the games that those people enjoy reading about. That’s probably not going to change any time soon.
