To be honest, I was sorting out my phone recently and found an old game "Master of Dragon Breeding", and suddenly realized that I have been playing mobile games for almost 20 years. From the Java mini-games in the Saipan era to the current "Genshin Impact" and "King of Kings", the changes have been really big.
I'm not going to brag about it, but “Master of Dragon Breeding” was a breath of fresh air when mobile games were just starting out. It doesn't have the impetuous feeling of "getting a dragon with the first charge", but truly allows players to collect and cultivate dragons with eight attributes. With gems, equipment and 6v6 land and air battles, the gameplay is quite solid. Looking back now, its charging model is 0? My impression seems to be in-app purchase of props? But there really isn't that sense of oppression that comes with strong krypton money. 🐉
One characteristic of early mobile games can be seen from works such as "Master of Dragon Breeding": manufacturers are more willing to work on the core gameplay, rather than relying on activities, limited time, and rankings to stimulate players. For example, its Dragon Realm and Boss Challenge require players to really use their brains to formulate formations, rather than mindlessly stacking values. This kind of "content-driven" thinking has become increasingly rare in the current environment of pursuing MAU and ARPU.
In the past few years, the trend of mobile games has obviously been moving towards two extremes: on one side are super masterpieces, such as Folding Paper's “Infinite Warmth” and MiHoYo's “Zero”, the picture quality is close to that of consoles, but the development cost can easily reach hundreds of millions; on the other side there are a large number of reskinned IP mobile games, which will be put on the shelf after changing the model, and the service will be stopped for three days. Products like "The Master of Raising Dragons" that are "medium-sized, creative, and playable" have become rare commodities.
Maybe as I get older, I sometimes miss the era when even the WiFi was unstable and I had to wait half an hour to download a game. At that time, there were no stigmata, no SSR, and no 128 passes. Everyone just liked to hatch dragons from eggs, slowly raise them, and then study how to restrain opponents. To be honest, this kind of pure happiness is hard to find in today's mobile game environment.
Of course, I don't favor the past over the present. There are still many good games, but there is always a place for "Master of Dragon Breeding" in my game list. It represents a year when mobile games were still seriously pursuing "gameplay". It also makes me want to mention this every time I talk about the history of mobile game development: there are some good gameplays that really should not be forgotten. 😌