Why The Gamepad Moto Mod Failed

With the news that Motorolla is laying off some of the people working on their z line of phones resulting in a probable decrease in motomod experimentation, I thought it appropriate to reflect on the factors that led to this apparent failure and what this reveals about the state of mobile gaming.  

For the uninitiated, Moto Mods are attachable accessories that correspond to Motorola’s Z line of smartphones. There’s a battery pack, a micro projector, and few others. The concept itself is interesting, but the gamepad mod actually had the potential to change mobile gaming, if not for a its substantial setbacks.

1. The price: The thing is $80 dollars. It's also a Verizon exclusive, so although you can buy it if you're on another network, everyone has to come to one place to buy the thing which cuts down on sales and competitive pricing. When you consider that a controller for a full blown home console is $60, the price is just unrealistic.
2. The exclusivity: I know the whole point of Moto Mods is to sell more Moto Z phones, but the commitment to stick with one brand of phone for the foreseeable future is a big ask, especially when the Mods cost so much. Moto couldn't do much to solve this, but it's an issue nonetheless.
3. The games: A lot of games just don't support this controller. And, why would they? The portion of players with a controller in general, let alone a Moto gamepad in particular, is miniscule. To fix this, Motorola would have to actually court developers and maybe even create incentives for Moto specific development similar to what Nvidia has done. Obviously, Motorola has no interest in being that kind of company.
4. The store: The Google Play store does not properly categorize games meant to be played with a controller. These games along with console ports really need their own section of the store. Without this, developers are again not incentivized to make games for mobile with controllers in mind. Motorola has responded to this by having their own games app, but even games found within the app have limited compatibility according to user reviews.

The fundamental design hurdle for mobile devices is the controls, and from what I've seen and read, Motorola's gamepad provides the quality controller and keen integrations necessary to bring phones into the handheld gaming space on a technical level. It's just too bad that there are these obstacles in the way. Hopefully, Google and certain smartphone newbies like Razer will take notes and build something that can live up to the gamepad Moto Mod’s potential.