Why aren’t compatible mobile companion apps a thing for MMOs?

redria7

CakeWatch
This question arises primarily due to how much time in a day I spend on my phone but unable to sit down for a solid PSO session, along with recent time playing Pikmin Bloom, and memories of tamogachi style v-pets.

Why don’t we see companion mobile apps for popular online games like WoW, genshin, even pso2? Let us walk and feed our pets, or earn progress towards something desirable in the main game.

I know PSO is way too old for it to have been a thing, but imagine you could review your mags and walk them, maybe feed them for slow “offline” leveling while out and about. Imagine integrating episode 3 onto a mobile interface so you could level your character or hunt rare drops using a turn based interface while on the go.

Maybe it’s just because I’m the type of person who wants mobile games to feel like mobile games instead of console games with makeshift controls (looking at you Genshin), but it seems like there is a gap in video game content where we should have distinct mobile apps that hit the same databases and let us progress in unique ways.

Also I’d pay money for something that lets me do PSO things from my phone without trying to port the entire game onto a crummy touchscreen interface.
 
While PSO itself didn't have any functionality with it, the irony is that Sega tried to do EXACTLY what you're suggesting with the Dreamcast and the VMU (though not so much with MMOs).

I'd definitely love to see that sort of integration myself, but I cynically/sadly feel the real answer is that mobile gaming is so monetized that it'd never happen nowadays.
 
Preach! Dreamcast was the future the world wasn't ready for :') The VMU indeed is the perfect device for this lol
While I realize Sega has no one to blame for it but themselves with all the badwill they engendered between the 32x and Saturn debacles and all the rest of their well documented screwups, I will forever be bitter the Dreamcast didn't get the chance/lifecycle it deserved. It was such an incredibly cool gaming machine.
 
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