Least Anticipated Trends of 2019
Earlier this week, I wrote about some of the things I’m most excited about on the mobile front for this coming year. Now it’s time to invert that a bit, but not exactly. If this were a true flip, I’d be talking about games like they’re bad before I’ve even played them, which is obviously poor practice.
Instead, I’ll try to predict some of 2019’s worst trends as they pertain to mobile and tell you why I’m not looking forward to hearing about them, and why you shouldn’t either.
Apple Editorial continuing to be a thing
Editorial content for mobile is great and—in my (biased) opinion—pretty necessary. The App Store isn’t quite as wild as the Android market, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t imitations, clones, and straight up awful garbage coming out on the store every day. This is probably why Apple’s new editorial games content exists on the App Store now, but just because it exists doesn’t mean it’s good.
In fact, my entire experience engaging with Apple’s written content around gaming has convinced me that it’s pretty rotten. Picks of new games seem to hinge on whether they can sell more copies of it because of some sort of name recognition or impressive screenshot, and they cover up their weak/questionable picks by burying them in lists of mobile titles other mobile outlets have already scrounged up and identified as great games from before Apple Editorial was a thing. It’s almost like they have no actual integrity and are just trying to get people to buy more games. It’s almost like whoever is writing for that team has a vested interest in people buying games.
All of this was true in 2018, but I super don’t look forward to seeing it continue to grow in 2019.