Will the smatphone game sell if it is designed for gamepad usage?

Personally, I cant stand mobile gaming because of touchscreens. Do not feel like this input method is good for action games. That's why I'd like to know how widespread is the use of mobile gamepad peripherials, like Samsung Gamepad? Will the mobile game with "controller recommended" warning ever be viable? Lets assume the game in question has an option for onscreen joystick, but it is designed to play more like a title from a "big" platform (not slowed down and doesnt have much in terms of controls automation).

 

Yes, a ton of mobile players actually play with a connected gamepad. Will your game support touch input? If so, you could design a menu that prompts the player to connect gamepad when starting the game. If you want to add on-screen joysticks, I wouldn't warn the player every time, maybe give a tip next to that option. Also, if a player currently plays with a connected joystick, all your UI needs to be compatible with the eventsystem and navigation.

Our games also support gamepad input, and it needs a ton more effort than just supporting keyboard/mouse/touch.
E.g: You'll need to dynamically switch control-schemes, add tooltips that show which button the user has to press to trigger an action, and much more.

If you need more help, feel free to ask here. Hope it helped

 

Giving your game gamepad functionality, or the ability to be used with a number of gamepad peripherals, is a really good idea. Not everyone likes touch screen controls. But to have both touch pad, and gamepad functionality, is a good idea for your mobile game..

 

Simply put? No.

There's a reason games have moved far away from the virtual input method on phones, and it's the fact that tactile feedback is critically important. The vast majority of games that use virtual joysticks and buttons now are either ports of extremely popular (and typically older) games or use them in an extremely limited capacity because of this factor. On top of that, barely anyone uses controllers for their phones. When I say "barely anyone" I mean "a fraction of a fraction of a percent" because if people want that sort of thing, they generally tend to use something like the Nintendo Switch for their portable gaming.

Virtual input based games were already struggling over five years ago and now they're basically dead in the water.

 

This make sense, and is what I feared. Logically, peripherials go against idea of mobile games. Though I have seen examples of the contrary, like Pascal's Wager. Isnt touch-friendly game by any means, but was successful enough on the mobile to get re-release on PC (and maybe somewhere else). Thats why I did not brush off the idea of controllers for mobile immediately

 

Pascal's Wager was basically always an outlier of the highest order, honestly. Its success really surprised a lot of people. A lot of its gameplay success is, more than anything, owed to the fact that it's a lot slower paced than most Soulslikes, which makes it occupy a pretty specific niche on mobile. Generally speaking, most Soulslikes have floundered on mobile because of a lot of input related issues relative to the specific timing require, which PW is a lot more generous with.

So, basically, if you wanted a Souslike on mobile that was actually mostly playable, it was really the only game in town. But on top of that, it's also the most touch friendly in its genre on the platform. I'd wager that there might be some more people playing with controllers than average, but it's still pretty low.