After reading threads on various forums about the current gaming industry, and how portable game system sales are declining, while smartphone gaming is rising, I got to thinking. People talk about how gaming on iOS and Android is much more convenient than gaming on, say, a PSP or DS. Aside from convenience, smartphone gaming has those little games you can play a few rounds of while you are waiting for a snack to microwave or in a doctor's office, such as Bejeweled or Cut the Rope. I love those kinds of games, but I also love first-person shooters, RPGs, and other hardcore games. I've bought a massive amount of iOS games over the time I've had my devices, many of which are hardcore games, and I'll play them for a bit, but they'll end up being deleted from my device after a while, and then rarely ever played again, and that is for one reason: hardcore gaming on smartphones doesn't work.
At least, not in its present state. Currently the vast majority of the hardcore games in the App Store use touchscreen buttons. This is #4 of Alexander Thompson's Seven Deadly Sins of Mobile Gaming. Really, it can obscure the visibility of what's going on and it's not very intuitive. For example, in Eternal Legacy from Gameloft, you have buttons for different actions, plus an analog stick for movement, and sometimes there are other things you need to tap on the screen. Buttons are for consoles, with smartphones you have a touchscreen, which can allow for more intuitive gameplay, but few games utilize this. Remember EA's iOS version of Mirror's Edge? That game had a control scheme meant for a touchscreen and nothing else. It was intuitive, fun, and innovative. Swipe up to jump, down to slide, etc. Infinity Blade has it right too, you are swiping to attack with your sword, not using some attack button. Having buttons like this is especially annoying in first-person shooters. While it is understandable to have an analog stick for movement and a fire button (although it should be an area of the screen that is tapped, not a button), there shouldn't be more buttons for grenades, jumping, etc. It should be gestures of some sort, like jumping would be a swipe up in the center of the screen. Game giants like EA and Gameloft need to take advantage of these touchscreens and make games that are fun from gameplay that involves intuitive controls designed for a touchscreen, or else their games will fall deeper into this pit they've created for themselves.
