The problem with mobile games: Yugioh Duel Links Review

When Duel Links came out, the hype over Pokemon Go had largely died down.  This meant that we were primed and ready to have another nostalgia bait game around.  With 40 million downloads worldwide, this seemed like a great idea.  It had all the classic cards before the game suffered scope creep with synchro summons and crazy other fusions.  The 5 monster slots and spell slots were shrunk down to 3, which made the game more accessible as a mobile game.  However, Duel Links falls into the classic problem with all mobile games.

Mobile Gaming's Problem

A majority of mobile games have this steep drop off in the excitement curve.  If you ever have played Clash of Clans, Animation Throwdown, Puzzle and Dragons, or even Candy Crush, then you notice that at some point you progress very little. 

Clash of Clans falls off after town hall 5 and more severely at town hall 8, if you play the correct way.  The upgrades take too long, and the SuperCell is constantly trying to make updates.  This means that free to play players tend to lose interest.  Puzzle and Dragon starts to drop off at level 50-100, and it has the problem of grinding for gems. 

These games all have a basic idea, and then they just pack on more and more objectives tacked on to that idea.  This means that the game can theoretically get bigger and bigger, but if the new content is not accessible enough then it makes users quit.  Since, these games can draw a large audience, then these companies can kind of stay afloat.  Most of the revenue comes from a few large purchases anyway.

Duel Links

 

Trading card games inherently have the same problem of requiring new content to be constantly being pumped out.  When it starts to add grinding into the mix, the game gets old pretty quickly.  The ranking system is perhaps the only thing that can keep a seasoned veteran interested, but it is very difficult to rank up without binge playing before the season resets you.

It is a faithful representation of what the trading game is, but it does not translate well to a long lasting mobile game.  Without a changing to the overall structure of the game, then it does not look good for the retention rate.  Unlike Clash of Clans, there is no amount of new content that can give a difference of kind that Duel Links desperately needs.