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[Lauchsuppe]

I just remembered my days at primary school and how we were all playing pokemon, having our teams fight against each other and trading the ones we needed to improve our teams.
Internet is fine and everything, but I have never felt a game merging with real life that much ever since the first two pokemon eras (primarily due to not having played the later games).
Why is it that local multiplayer on mobile devices is so uncommon these days? The experience of trading the pokemon which you keep physically inside your pocket with your neighbour beats any virtual reality experience a mmorpg could possibly establish.
The average online multiplayer concept is nothing too different from the splitscreen experience you already had in the early 90s. Except everyone has his own screen these days and people don't have to be physically near to each other. However, Pokemon took this whole multiplayer experience to another level since you actually had to go outside, meet with other people and could always keep your Pokemon company.
Local multiplayer games via wifi or maybe even bluetooth/infrared/nfc/whatsoever should be the next big thing. Even moreso, because nearly everyone owns a mobile device these days.

[Richard Kain]

That is actually a fine point.

Your best bet for changing this is to actually make a collecting/trading game of your own.

I'm actually working on something similar at the moment. I haven't actually gotten to experimenting with local multiplayer though.

[SirNiko]

Forcing people to meet up to accomplish goals in games is generally considered a negative, since it restricts players to only trading with friends who live nearby.

One problem is finding people who own the same game as you. Pokemon was an outlier because it was so tremendously successful. A smaller third party game is likely to be more hesitant because it means some players, especially those in rural areas, might not be able to find another person with the game in close proximity.

Trading also introduces balance issues in some games, either for players who want a robust single player experience and don't want to be bothered with the tedious process of finding other people to complete their collection, or for players who might trade powerful creatures or items and inadvertently spoil their game. It's always disappointing when you waltz into the marketplace and find the walls lined with Mewtwos and Ravenger Swords that endgame players are ready to trade for whatever piddling stones or monsters they can't get in their own version.

Some games have meager trading options buried in them as optional features to avoid the above problems, but then they're likely to get forgotten simply because there's no impetus to use them. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance had a thing for trading items for the sidequests, but because you never needed to do it to complete any quests it was likely to never be used.

That said, a game designed exclusively around meeting people and trading could be fun, especially if you market it to young children or players who are likely to enjoy the social aspect of trading with other people in person.

[VDZ]

One problem is finding people who own the same game as you. Pokemon was an outlier because it was so tremendously successful. A smaller third party game is likely to be more hesitant because it means some players, especially those in rural areas, might not be able to find another person with the game in close proximity.

Very much this. Despite Pokemon's popularity, living in a small village in the middle of nowhere, I was only ever able to trade Pokemon and battle other players while on vacation somewhere else. At home, the multiplayer features were limited to trading with myself between my Blue and Gold cartridges.

As for the 'why is local multiplayer so rare in mobile games', if you're referring to all handheld games then I don't know for the 3DS, but at least on the DS there were still plenty of games featuring local multiplayer. If you're only referring to smartphones, it's probably because the market is so dominated by casual games that the audience for games that actually require the sort of dedication that you'd use local multiplayer features in it is relatively small per game - you'll never find someone playing the same game as you unless you somehow got them to play it or they somehow got you to play it.

[Lauchsuppe]

Forcing people to meet up to accomplish goals in games is generally considered a negative, since it restricts players to only trading with friends who live nearby.

Well, trading card games also work the same way. The restriction (in this case) would be rather an interesting twist - there are tons of online multiplayer games anyway to choose from.

One problem is finding people who own the same game as you. Pokemon was an outlier because it was so tremendously successful. A smaller third party game is likely to be more hesitant because it means some players, especially those in rural areas, might not be able to find another person with the game in close proximity.

I guess this might be the main issue. The game would need to be rather popular in order for its multiplayer component to work properly. You'd probably need a solid marketing apparatus in order to make the game popular.
On the other hand, it could be designed to work in small groups: convincing your friends to buy a DS game for $30-$40 might be rather hard - however, if it was availiable for free in the appstore you could easily convince your circle of friends to give it a try. It has to be easily accessible though.
Maybe it could also be played like a more advanced board game. I'm convinced there's a lot of design potential.

Your best bet for changing this is to actually make a collecting/trading game of your own.

I'm actually working on something similar at the moment. I haven't actually gotten to experimenting with local multiplayer though.

I wish I had the needed programming skills to do that. 
What is the game you are currently working on? Sounds interesting!

[VDZ]

Forcing people to meet up to accomplish goals in games is generally considered a negative, since it restricts players to only trading with friends who live nearby.

Well, trading card games also work the same way. The restriction (in this case) would be rather an interesting twist - there are tons of online multiplayer games anyway to choose from.

Yes and no. The 'trading' aspect of trading card games has become entirely optional nowadays, since you can order every card you'd want for relatively cheap off the internet.

The playing part, on the other hand, still requires other players, and that remains its biggest weakness. As much of a MTG fan as I am, there's been a gap where I hadn't been playing for several years straight, simply because you need other MTG players to play with and there were none available. If you're in a big city (like I am now, I'm more active than ever with MTG) it's definitely possible to find a group to play with (if nothing else, there are stores with play areas), but if you're in a less populated area, tough luck. And that goes only for the most popular TCGs; though there's people here to play MTG or Yu-Gi-Oh with, I'm still completely out of luck even here when it comes to things like Duel Masters.

[SirNiko]

Sometimes playing trading card games with a small set of people is even worse than none at all - you start to get insular in your strategies, since you're no longer building a powerful deck to take all comers, but trying to defeat your circle of friends.

Trading in a small group is similar - rather than a large pool of players who will, by virtue of randomness, cover all the possible variations, you're stuck coordinating and somebody has to pick each option.

Like in Pokemon, if you wanted a full set of starters with a group of three players, each would have to intentionally pick a different one, and then you'd need to trade around to get each evolution (at least until breeding came out in gen 2). That means somebody might not get to pick the starter they wanted.

That's not to say trading is bad, and should never be done - it's just that there are a lot of (good) reasons why in-person trading in games is becoming scarce.

[s0]

However, Pokemon took this whole multiplayer experience to another level since you actually had to go outside, meet with other people and could always keep your Pokemon company

that was the main draw with pokemon for me. it was the coolest thing when i was like 9 or 10 because everyone at my school was playing it and you'd always have people to trade and play pvp matches with and etc. i bought pokemon black for nostalgia's sake and tried playing it as a normal singleplayer rpg. i didn't even make it to the 3rd city before quitting out of boredom lol.

but idk maybe 10 year olds playing pokemon black today are having the same kind of fun i did back then, so i'm not sure if this phenomenon is even dead.

[Richard Kain]

i bought pokemon black for nostalgia's sake and tried playing it as a normal singleplayer rpg. i didn't even make it to the 3rd city before quitting out of boredom lol.

Now imagine that a trading game you enjoy playing was available for every iOS and Android device out there. A scenario like that could turn your family, friends, neighbors and coworkers into players.

[Lauchsuppe]

@VDZ&SirNiko: This type of gameplay actually forces you to make contact with others in order to increase your pool of cards/pokemon. I remember that when I was younger, I was always on the lookout for other potential pokemon trainers. In practice, it didn't happen all too often, but when actually finding someone new to trade with, you really feel like you had achieved something.

Also, the problem of players buying (MTG cards) online would not exist within a game that has no online but unly local multiplayer support.

I think this might be an interesting concept. You could even add some kind of location exclusive feature. Let's say your mobile detects you are in central italy and there are some goodies exclusive to this particular area. This would force a french to find an italian guy to trade with or go to italy by himself; the french, on the other hand would have some france exclusive goodies with him.
This concept would really force you to interact with other people. Crux of the matter would of course be to get tons of people to actually this game.

[baconman]

^ They have those. They're called post cards.

Batteries sold seperately.

[Lauchsuppe]

But you can easily send them (postcards) across the globe.

[nikki]

ooh and let's imagine an electronic version of that postcard sending

[Lauchsuppe]

You may send them, but not via internet; that's the crux. Now stop making my ideas look stupid :<

[nikki]

your plan made me remember this weird little game there was in the early nineties that made you scan in barcodes to generate monsters. what was it called ?? ... wait
barcode battler it was

but I don't think your idea is stupid at all. it's actually very cool because of the community aspect of it.

[Chromanoid]

@Lauchsuppe: Probably less device/game diversity in the past and you being young at that time are part of the formula. I guess you have to do sophisticated marketing to gather a critical mass. Also: maybe you just don't know the hip games, that cause after-school trade meetings in primary schools.

[Impmaster]

Doesn't Skylanders also have trading? You buy the video game, then you have to trade these plastic toys. Then you get to play with the toy that you got in the video game. Correct me if I'm wrong, I've never played it.